Okay, okay

So I'll come back. I've partially written so many entries, but just couldn't bring myself to publish any of them. I tried and I tried. I avoided my blog email account like the plague, because it fills me with guilt knowing that I haven't written a soul back in ages and I have ignored so many really good blog friends. I've peeked in on everyone though - still following along silently on other journeys through life, yet unable to chronicle my own, even in a private journal. I've wanted to return, but I know it will never be the same for me, and probably not for you either. See, I think I've lost my writing voice. No longer do I narrate my every move, my every thought. My inner Sedaris, if you will, seems to have gone on extended leave. I’ve missed writing, but without the narrating voice I sit staring at the Puget Sound waiting for the words to pour themselves through my now-idle fingers. I can honestly say that this has been the worst year of my life. Who wants to write about that? Or better yet, who wants to read about that. But after many, many months of waiting for it to return on its own, I've decided that if I'm ever to write again, I may just have to force it. So here I am - in a very different place than the last time I posted.

I had to get over the death of my son. Not that it’s something you can ever really get over, but I had to get to that place where I could look at another baby without forcing the sobs back to that corner of my heart where the pain burned. So a couple of weeks ago I went into Target and bought a baby shower gift for a coworker and I wandered through the aisles smiling at this cute cardigan or that cute pull toy, and never did a tear stream down my cheek. I was so happy. I have contained the grief at last.

I had to get over the horror of being taken to court on fraudulent charges of the neglect and abandonment of my daughter. I will always hate and despise that man, and never will I trust him again, which saddens me, because we had a wonderful, friendly relationship before this happened. Betrayal stings so much more when you are caught by surprise on a frozen windy morning when a doorbell you hoped rung by a mailman bearing photos of your daughter’s trip to Hawaii turns out to be rung by a nosy server who reads your personal papers before throwing them in your stunned face and the cause for this is the man you once thought you loved, the man you once thought you trusted. He still maintains that he did the right thing, but there is no excuse for the lying to his daughter, telling her she would go live in England , then destroying his daughter’s dream and her mother’s well-being in one fell swoop. All it would have taken was a phone call. So yes, I hate him. Yes, I think he is worthless. And yes, I mourn everyday he spends with her. How could I not? A good person and father would never have done what he did in the way he did. Bitter? You better believe I am bitter, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a woman that would not be. So we came to an “agreement.” Two days ago the judge signed off on our case. It's over. For better or for worse. It's finally over. We each have her one week on, one week off. Does he spend every day with her? No, he ships her off to his mom and other people quite often. He's dating her preschool teacher, which means he can fill her head with crap about me and bias the school in his favor. Do I think either he or her teacher are ethically in the wrong? Absolutely. Can I do anything about it? Oh how I wish. But for now I just try to be the best mother possible to my daughter. She’s stupendous. And even if she weren’t, I couldn’t possibly love her more, but still I will always rue the day I married that white trash SOB. What was I thinking? And mom, why didn’t you try harder to stop me?

As for Steve and me, well, this year has been no cakewalk. And some shadows tend to stick to us. We are still trying to rid ourselves of the Itch completely, but I will never again speak of that here. Steve and I love each other dearly. We are a couple made in heaven. We live together in a snug, little apartment near Greenlake. Some days it's a little too snug, but it keeps us all close. And most of all, Steve loves Audrey to pieces and she loves him “bigger than all the planets and stars and moons in the universe” (her words), and we hope to have another child. Timing on that, as always, is up to the Lord.

Steve is working at a job that couldn't have been written more perfectly for him. I haven't exactly found my dream job, but I have definitely found my dream coworkers. And that's just what I needed right now. Friends. It's been so long since I've just enjoyed having friends - well, since the divorce when I gave them all to Sam, because not doing so meant having to hang out with him, and after the wonderful party where Steve and I fell in love and a friend of ours starting raging at me for being a brazen hussy because she hadn't gotten the divorce memo, I'd had enough. Friends are great, really.

And I've missed all of you Internet friends as well. I just signed on to my email - I don't think I'll ever be able to answer them all, but I'll give it a go....as soon as I replace the cord on my laptop. It broke, my battery's dead, so I am *gasp* without a computer at home!!!

So that's it. My first blog entry in what feels like a millenium. I'll try my hardest to be a better blogger with a hope that that little voice soon returns...