Helpless

Today it's going to be nothing but a sob story.

I worry too much about what's going to happen instead of waiting to see what will happen. It's a flaw of mine and one I'm working on but I can't say I'm having too much success. I love being a Mom and I love staying home and taking care of my girl. It's been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

But I worry. I worry about whether or not my daughter will be happy. I worry about her going to good schools, having friends, experiencing so many of the hurts I went through as I grew up. But mostly I worry about exposing her to the tenuous situation she was conceived in.

C has his many good points and in a lot of ways, we have a good relationship. We laugh a lot together, we enjoy each other's company, we're good friends. He loves Eliza and is a good father to her. Patient, able to wake with her in the middle of the night and cuddle her. Or able to hold her while she screams without it bothering him in the slightest. He is a good person, a good father.

But like most of us, C comes with his baggage, his other two children. I like his other two children and before Eliza was born I enjoyed the time all of us spent together. But since Eliza's arrival in my life, my feelings for his other two children has shifted. I'm not sure it's Eliza's birth of the fact that C and I now live together that changed how I saw his children. Before I had my own home, my own space that was uncluttered by them. We'd spend the day together and then I'd return to my apartment and play my piano or walk around in my underwear singing into a hairbrush. Now, when they visit, all five of us are crammed into this one bedroom apartment. If the baby's asleep in the bedroom, I can hang out in the living room with everyone or I can go to bed myself. When the baby wakes up before his kids in the morning, C and I are stuck in the bedroom, trapped, like we're in lockup.

C's ex-wife and his kids are now making the move to New York City and, as with everything that concerns his ex, it's happening sooner than expected. They had to be out of their house at the end of this month but they're coming here two days before the end of the month, on Wednesday. I had the babysitter scheduled to come for the first time in two weeks on Friday so I could write, maybe excercise, but now I have two choices, to accompany C and his kids to his parents' beach house or stay here without him, with no partner or helper for four days, and have those few hours on Friday for myself.

It's not so bad, right? A family weekend at the beach, all of us together in house with more space. I didn't know for sure the kids were coming this weekend until yesterday, four days before they arrive. I was not asked how I felt about their coming on Wednesday, only given an estimate (usually wrong) as to which time they'd arrive.

I wasn't happy though I'm trying to accept that C has these kids, I knew them well before we had Eliza. I never considered their living in the same city but that doesn't mean it has to be a bad thing. Instead of his having to travel every weekend to see them, he'll be here. His son is great with Eliza and it will be fun seeing their relationship bloom and change on a regular basis.

However, I still feel overwhelmed with dread because like everything, I feel the control I once had over my life has slipped away. I realize control is really an illusion, none of us really controls our own lives. But before, my days had a routine, a predictibility about them I liked. Now, I will never know when his kids will be here or not. They'll be living with their mother of course, but as she is frequently not at home, I don't know how often they'll be here. I asked C this morning if he could not schedule their coming during two afternoons in July and this request was met by name calling, accusations of fight-picking, the usual dissolution of myself in tears. I'm not trying to be negative about his kids moving here, I'm just asking for some kind of schedule. I'm a routinized kind of person, I realize perhaps too much so, but I'd like to know that if I ask for this apt. as mine and mine only for a few hours it won't lead to an argument.

I'm not great at asking for things I want, I never have been. I suppose I often ask in a way that can be seen as nasty or hostile. I know some people who can always get what they want from the people they love simply by the way they ask. I wish I had that talent, that power. In truth, I don't want C's kids here but I know they belong here and I want to try. All I wanted to see was if we could create a way to work towards it together. If every time they come, I'm simply told a short while before they arrive, I'll be miserable. I guess I'm not good at working things out, finding solutions. My solution was to ask for some notice, for some days when, if his ex called and said she needed to drop the kids off, he'd ask her to wait a few hours. It was a hypothetical situation in the first place and I could have waited to see what would happen but I never know anything until the plans have already been set. I'm always told what's going to happen shortly before it happens with no question as to what I might have planned that day.

Oh my little baby, how much I love her and want to make her life work for her. She deserves to know her siblings and her father and I want her to have the safety and comfort of a family. If I could learn to embrace this all as a good thing instead of fighting so hard for my space, my routine, it could all go so much more smoothly. Instead, I sit here crying, wishing I hadn't screwed up, wishing C would see that it's so hard to live in a home when you yourself feel like a constant guest who has to make myself flexible to five people in two rooms at any given time.

My little one is sleeping now, her morning nap, her tiny head probably full of dreams of the future. And me, what kind of life can I give her now with no job, no security, a life trapped in a two room apartment where my vote is not an option. I needed those days to try to write, to try to do something postive with my life so I could feel like I was still me, still a person with a way to make a living so I don't have to feel like such a failure for not working. I like to write in my own home as opposed to pounding on a laptop in a cafe. But I could learn to pound on a laptop if I have to, I need to now for me, for my daughter. I want her to know me as a happy, satisfied person who still pursues what she wants. If I can't do it at home because C's kids are here, it's not that hard to find another way. For her, always for her.