When things are uncomfortable I go for distraction. I shift my thoughts to something else, something benign and meaningless. I’ve been doing this so long that I am almost unaware when it happens. It’s like little lapses in memory. I look up and find myself doing something with no real reason for doing it. I’ll tune in and be reading some random article about a ‘canceled’ professor. Or I’ll be engrossed in some Facebook video or post that has nothing to do with nothing. When I force myself to get back to the subject at hand I engage in another battle. I chase the me that is holding the offending thought as she runs and hides behind other earlier thoughts. It’s a bait and switch where I do my best to NOT think about the thing that I don’t want to think about. This was probably helpful throughout my life. It helped me push past painful experiences, retain a ‘sunny disposition’, and most importantly, it helped me do the things that I thought were moving my life forward. Grad school, work, creative projects were all done while I did this dance with myself.

I’ve been doing that this morning. Dodging difficult thoughts that I don’t want to address. But that’s why I’m here. There’s a structure that reminds me – write. Do the work. Stop running. Please. For the love of all who love you, for the love and protection of your children. Stop.

My daughter used to talk to me. She doesn’t now. Literally, she doesn’t. But when she was young and I was her mother and she could trust me, she talked to me. And one day, when I was driving her to school, driving down this beautiful tree lined street where I used to walk/jog, where I dreamed of moving to, she said, “I kissed James.” Things were not good at the time. I was struggling with being a real single Mom for the first time. Living alone with my daughter after forcing her Dad to move out. He responded by not doing shit to help with her, deliberately increasing my load.

I had a new man in my life. Funny, I paused on how to describe him. Friend? Nah. Boyfriend? No. Malik was unlike anyone else that I had put in my life before. Self-assured, assertive, and very clear about the way to do things. I was fixated on him and concerned about whether I could actually have a lasting relationship with him. I wasn’t sure I wanted it but more honestly, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I didn’t think I was the type of woman he would be with. But that’s another post for another day.

But there was tension because Malik was clear about elements of my. life that I was hiding from. My daughter’s father had a porn company. This wasn’t something that he did when we met or at any point before we had a child. But he started it after she arrived and I just let him do it. Pretended that it was fine, harmless. It’s something that I’m not even getting into right now as I write.* I put an asterisk as a marker for myself. I will dig deeper at this point next.

Malik saw the obvious and told me I should not let my daughter go with her Dad to his friend/business partner/sexless soul mates house because of it. And because I wasn’t welcomed there. Because, how could I protect her if I didn’t know what was going on with a group of people who were hostile to me? But me? No, I was myself. Stubborn and uncertainly certain. Determined to be right and to make her Dad who l had designed him to be in my head. And mainly, I was determined to have him take responsibility for the daughter that I hadn’t wanted to have so I could live. He had left me alone with her for five years. Not doing shit. And now I had a chance with a good guy, one who actually desired me, one who fit me like a glove, intimately and intellectually. I wanted to do that. Immerse myself in that relationship. I wanted the freedom to do that and constant parenting got in the way. At least that’s what I told myself at the time.

I kept letting her go with her Dad. Contrary to Malik’s objections. And it was all good until his warnings came to pass. So like the devil that I was becoming, my first thought when she told me was, “Shit. How can I fix this so Malik won’t leave.” Not, “Shit, my five year old daughter is telling me she kissed someone. And she did it at a house where porn is discussed, viewed and maybe even produced. What really happened and how can I make sure nothing like this ever happens again.” Honestly, I struggled with writing that even now, eleven years later.

So instead of calling Malik for back up, instead of calling my Mom, instead of calling my best friend who’s also a child therapist, instead of pulling from my own personal experiences or even professional experiences, I focused near exclusively on minimizing it and addressing that small remaining fragment that I’d reduced it to.

I’m a piece of shit for that. For other things too but let’s start with that.

(More to come)