catching butterflies

Leaving Daniel with mum isn't something I'd consider an optimal arrangement. The rational part of me is all tossing rose petals and saying "forget about my relationship with her, she's his grandma, theirs is what matters now (tra la!)". The bigger part of me wonders why in fuck I'm leaving my child with someone who's been such a big ol' negativo in my life. Then I question that bigger part of me, even though people, it's the bigger part of me. It's the wise part, yo, because it's rational to not leave your child with someone who fucked with your head. "But self", I then argue "what if your angst is based on perceived hurts?" Then there's the bit that wonders about such a number being done on me that I can't acknowledge the neglect and the abu...see? I can't even say it. Abuse of my trust is about as far as I can go.

I hate that I leave Daniel in her care when it suits me to do so, because I feel like I'm doing it because I'm too much of a tight arse to fork out the cost of a sitter. It's not like I need babysitting so I can go out and get drunk or anything though. I've never left him to go out and do something social. The significance of which has only sunk in in writing that. Awesome. I really AM a social retard! But onward, and at ten bucks an hour (which is pretty fucking reasonable) when I do need it, babysitting generally adds a minimum of sixty bucks to the cost of whatever course, tuition or professional development I'm attending. Last week, if mum hadn't inflicted her crazy upon my son, it would have been eighty dollars, this week, one hundred, and next month it'd be an extra two hundred, so yes, it's convenient and fiscally responsible for me to put him in the midst of her crazy, never mind that it might be fuck with his future sanity and be detrimental to his emotional health in the meantime.

I hate that.

Seems I hate paying out the hardly-big-bucks more though. And yes, you did catch that my mother is still here.

Still.

Here.

My god.

I spend my time in therapy working on how to deal with my crazy, the one that resurfaces each time she visits. Oh, if only 'visit' meant leaving at some point. I pay financially and emotionally when she's here, which is all the fucking time, but it doesn't justify leaving Daniel with her because what about the cost to his sanity?

There's a permanent knot in my stomach when she's here, and when she goes (which is NEVER) the calm settles upon me and I find myself twiddling my thumbs in my shrink's office, wracking my brains for things to grouse about. Life without mum is idyllic. With her? Find me a wall and I'll bang my forehead against it.

It was during the years she'd opted out of my life that I really got on my feet again and I was working toward turning my back on the what my life had been before that. Now it's been, what? Nineteen months since she swooped back in? And not because she suddenly realised she wanted to be my mother. Oooh, no. It was because she wants Daniel. It's been nineteen months and I've still got that feeling of hope that if I bide my time, she'll fuck off again. Which she won't. It's like grieving in that when we grieve, it takes time for the loss to sink in. Even though we know out loved one is gone, at some level there's hope that it's true or permanent, and it may take months for that the deep ache of sadness to sink in. I hope that her being here forever isn't true. I anticipate her leaving for good. When it sinks in that she won't, I may just go batshit crazy(er).