Our Island Family Life

In my current dealings with my bi-polar ex-husband it has gotten slightly easier. Only slightly and that is because now that he no longer lives here it isn't a daily struggle. Let me preface one thing, when I say "bi-polar ex-husband" I use the term bi-polar for a reason. One, it is a reminder to me that yes he does have this illness no matter how much he protests otherwise and for me personally I have a hard time remembering it myself because I think I still don't want to accept it sometimes. Two, to differentiate which mental illness I am talking about. Anyway, the immediately consequences of his actions are apart from me which helps in the short term but make it hard for me in the sense that I can tend to think of him as some kind of ex-husband jerk stereotype instead of the issues he has. Also, the long term problems are what drains me. That is never going away. That is hard to accept and cope with. His issues with the kids, coping and financial are far reaching and there are times when it would be nice to want to run away from it all. That, however is "negative" thinking and so I make sure I recognize these feelings, give them a handy dandy label and sigh (or have a good cry) then regroup for a while until all if this feels too heavy again. As time goes on dealing with Sean's issues is getting, not easier but more predictable which makes coping somewhat ok for me. Connor on the other hand is still fresh for me.

For example, last week he was on a tear again. Really pushing boundaries. Not liking the consequences. Not my problem. Then Saturday night he was gone for hours, no calls, nothing. Curfew came and went. I have no vehicle to track him down and his phone was at home. I knew...knew...where he was but that was beside the point. I called the house I knew he was at and he apologized profusely. I didn't care. The next day he asked if he could work with me at a house cleaning job I had in the afternoon. That was great because Sean wanted to drop Sofie off half a day early. No shock there. So, I would have to take time out to get her and bring her to my job which would slow me down. Did Connor actually work? Nope. He had his mental health burp. He was depressed the whole day. He refused to say this was how he was feeling but he was sleeping almost the whole day and kept calling his counselor. I am glad he was seeking the right kind of help while in that frame of mine. Not an easy thing by any means so I am hoping his therapy is paying off somewhat. I am worried he has the next two weeks off from it because his counselor will be on vacation. The next day Connor was back to normal, doing chores and homework. The ups and downs make my head spin. If I could only see some kind of pattern.

oh, and on other news, they are thinking of closing our post office again. It's on a short list. I can't say more but it will be on the news.

My washer is not working at all right now. The back is off and I am waiting for a part for it right now. I had practically now clean laundry. It isn't like I can pop down to the laundry mat from here. I am paying a neighbors friend to do it for me in the meantime. Not much but enough to cover gas for the golf cart to get it to their house, water, electricity and his time. I am also muti-tasking by having him pick up and drop off the laundry at the same time so I can get a ride from him to my evening nursing job. My car won't go down the path to that house even if it was running properly, which it isn't, so I never use it anymore. It's walking and bumming rides until the end of September when I will be getting used golf cart for free. I normally love walking but my feet hurt so much at the end of the day I am getting edema and I am walking up at night from the throbbing. It isn't so much the walking but the fact I am on my feet from 5am until nearly 9pm every day. Let's forget bathroom breaks and not include meals because I am usually running around while I eat. I try and put my feet up whenever I can and Will has been making dinner when he's home so I don't have to. The kids are doing chores but they don't always see my notes and I can not always call from different jobs.

Typical day: Up at 5am, clean up, eat (take vitamins), dress, pack for the day (usually a lunch), do at least one chore, walk to job.

Nursing job from 7 or 7:30am until just before 10am on library days later if Sunday or Tuesday. 10am -walk to library, Monday, Wednesday, Friday (unless working at the Post Office, which means I have to find someone to cover library job and skip morning nursing job), 12pm - head home to do homework and chores unless it's Thursday when I go to clean houses instead until 5 or 6pm. Walk home, eat, change, do one chore, go to evening nursing job from 7:30pm until 9pm, walk home unless I get a ride. Saturday I do the nursing job, post office, library, clean a house, home to eat then nursing job. Sofie comes with me to clean the houses and the library so I am spending time with her and give Cade a break to play with his friends. Will watches her in the evenings. Also, in there I am dealing with Connor when he gets into fits, making sure he goes to therapy, making sure he does his school work and that he is trying to be balanced while he works, does school and spends time with his friends. I wanted to scream last week and did wind up crying for nearly two hours when my patience met it's end with him. He was pushing the boundaries every single day, several times a day for a whole week. Then on Friday when I had a full work day, went to drop off Cade and Sofie in town to find out Sean had bailed so now I had to come up with new babysitting plans off the cuff, did my food shopping and house hold shopping, took Will to get new work pants, dealt with a moody Connor and got home at midnight on the late boat to get all of this done, Connor decides to tell me he is going to a friends house the next day and not going to do a cleaning job he said he would do. I lost it. I was in a panic because there was no way I could clean the house myself in the time allotted because I would be at other jobs. I had asked Connor if he wanted to do the job over a month ago and clearly said if he didn't I would find someone else so it wasn't a big deal and no pressure. He said he would because he wanted the money. Now he tells me he never agreed to do it and I wasn't on the same page as him and I get mad too easily. That just upset me more. Oh, did I mention I had been up 22 hours by this point? I asked him how he would feel if he had a kid who didn't ask permission to go someplace but thought he could just say he was doing it and think that was ok, skip a job that was agreed upon leaving someone else scrambling, skip therapy (which he did last week, it was for a valid reason so that wasn't my problem it was because he didn't call) without being responsible and calling the counselor to let them know and then getting angry with the parent who points out the problems but yet doesn't get mad and instead says, "If you don't want the job fine I will get someone else but you can not visit your friend because you didn't ask which is the rule and instead felt it was ok to tell me, the parent, what you are going to do at 12 o'clock at night. Not to mention the fact the chores you were asked to do did not get done or did you call your counselor which you said you would do and I called to remind you to do. Do you think it's ok to get angry with me instead. That seems a bit defensive." Well, first off he said it didn't matter how he would feel about a kid of his doing that because he is never having kids. Totally missing the point of developing some empathy. Then said I was over thinking things. He then went on to try and walk away and when I told him to sit so we could talk he got angry again. He said a lot of hurtful things and that I want to do everything in my timetable. Not trying to see all the help I have been trying to give him on developing his own timetable of doing what he needs to first and doing a little at a time to not overwhelm himself. He said how he never gets to spend time with his friends. Let's forget he has a friend staying with him the whole summer. I told him he sees his friends every single day after work for at least four hours. He said that it wasn't enough and he shouldn't bother at all. I told him if he wanted to be that way and cut him self off that was his choice. He said it was my choice because I would let him go visit his friend on another island for the day. I told him I wouldn't take the blame for his actions. He can spend some time with friends or none at all. His choice. As for not seeing his friend the next day, well, I felt bad about that but there are consequences to actions and he had been pushing the boundaries of his actions for a whole week. My finally saying no doesn't mean I get angry too quickly by any means. In fact being patience for a week to see him make good choices on his own was above and beyond what other parents would do and he should be grateful that I feel he has the ability to be mature and responsible enough on his own without me micromanaging his life. Then he went on about about how I was a liar and how I always say positive things to him but bad mouth him behind his back to Cade. Cade tells him how I think he is lazy and stupid etc.. That's when I started to cry. I told him I never said such things and I would be speaking to Cade about this. Right now I wasn't even in a place to know if what Connor was saying was really true or something he was saying to hurt me and Cade. I was also really upset after everything I have said and done if Cade real did say such things that Connor could so easily believe such a thing. I finally went to bed that night but only had four hours of sleep before I had to work the next day. Although he didn't apologize he did see me at work the next day with over half of his math work he needed to get done for the whole year done. As well as bring me lunch and he did almost all the chores. I knew it was his way of thinking things through and realizing he had been lax in things and he wasn't angry with me anymore. Still, I am wary and still hurt by it all and I feel some distance between us on my part. It's something I will have to work through. It reminds me a bit too much of his dad for me.

I am still using slippers to get around. I went to the store to get new shoes but I only had time to go to one place and they didn't have what I wanted in my size. I ordered some sneakers online so they should be here any day. I am still looking for some sandals though. Thank goodness for online shopping.

Sofie has been having a blast. She has been earning ice cream with memorizing poems for story hour, and cleaning up the beach, building fairy houses and playing tennis. I helped he make a little "nursery" in my room for all her babies. She has been having so much fun with that. She has been looking for sea glass, making jewelry, doing bridge school work, dancing, swimming and playing with the sprinkler. The most exciting thing has been her bike riding. I think she may be off the training wheels by the end of the summer. If she manages it she will have done it long before the boys did. Here's hoping.

Cade doesn't want to see his dad next weekend. Sean has been asking me why and I told him they needed to discuss it. Cade was willing to go and talk to his dad last weekend and Sean said he couldn't take him. Now this weekend Cade wants to have friends over and doesn't want to go. Sean facebooked Connor saying he wanted to talk to him so Connor called him and Sean never answered his phone. Sean called back several days later but Connor was spending the night with a friend. I told Connor his dad called and he just shrugged. I'm not the middle man.

I had better get back to work now. Break is over.