Sunshine

Just missing my little sunshine and blue skies. Jensen really is my whole life, and it feels pretty lonely without him.

Ultimately, I have to keep reminding myself that him being with me, in a place where I can support him and give him a network of friends and family is the best thing, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. The short-term separation will be worthwhile if it can result in us being together everyday after the decision is made.

Right now I'm stopping off to visit family. My uncle is on a work assignment near Dallas, so I've met up with him and we're going to pick up my aunt at the Dallas airport in a little bit. She's flying in from Reno. I'll stay with them until Friday, drop her off again at the airport on my way home, and hopefully be back in Round Rock by dinnertime.

In the meantime, I'm working really hard to be busy, and my best distractions are books and the internet. I've already finished Mockingjay, and picked up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The first few pages of that last one were pretty dense for me, so I watched the movie through Netflix to see if I should continue the book. I haven't made an offiical decision yet, but it's hard for me to ignore a book lying around. At some point I'm sure I'll make another attempte.

Well-meaning people keep asking me how it went at court. Really, there's nothing to report. It was mainly just getting to know the players and exactly what was being asked for. Both Michael and I have spoken with a new social worker who was assigned just for the custody case, and I've been told to expect a home visit in RR sometime before the next court date. I'm not sure if the judge can issue a ruling at any time, or if there can come a point where she feels like she's heard enough even if we haven't jumped through all the hoops yet. Apparently at some point, Michael and I will sit with our lawyers and try to resolve things based on what direction the judge might already be leaning or how tired we are with the whole process. If that doesn't work, we'll be ordered to go through psych testing and who knows what else. So far, we are still early on in the process, and it might be several months after our next meeting before there is any resolution.

Right now, it is most important for me to find a job, make sure the house stays "visit-ready" and stay as optimistic as possible.

Until I can visit him again, I'm making sure that I call Jenny every day and send him little packages every few days. I think he understands they're from me... I just hope that we'll be able to be together again sooner than later.

Up too late

Looking at the clock in the right hand lower corner of the screen, I cannot fathom why I am still awake at this hour.

Court is getting closer, and that will continue to be a source of anxiety until things are sorted and I arrive in a safe place with Jensen.

Other than that, all I can do is work towards making sure I have as much of the necessary components for a happy, healthy, stable life for him. Lots of job applications to complete and send tomorrow, now that open positions have been found to apply for. :)

Now that I am crossing this bridge, I have been imagining what life will look like on the other side. As it turns out, all I really want is simplicity. I want to have a job doing something I like that pays enough for me to have all of the necessities, and a few luxuries, too. When I come home from that job, I want to be able to pick Jensen up from his warm and cozy daycare and bring him home to a place that's ours, kept neat and ready for him to dive into play or snuggle with a good book. After that, I want to be able to make a healthy meal for us and then give him a bath, change him into comfy jammies, and tuck him safe and happy, into bed.

On weekends and holidays, I want to take him and visit all of the little friends he'll have here, while I sit with the other mommas, talk about books, and laugh at the kiddos playing together.

Sounds boring, right? But after being with someone I couldn't really be with, and then being with someone who was never actually "there", I have come to the conclusion that while I have a wonderful web of friends and family, at the end of the day, it will be just be and my boy. And for us, getting to a point of having a life that is safely routine and predictable is all I really want. And for that to happen, I will ultimately have to depend on myself.

I know that I can be resilient and self reliant, because I have been.

I continue to be.

I have to be.

Those old desires of finding a man, winning a man, keeping a man....these ideas will never be a priority, because my priority will be raising a man. My focus revolves around bringing up Jensen to be the kind of man I always wanted, but have never found. And if I accomplish that, I will be content with the fact that I will never have the romantic fantasies I had managed to concoct out of nothing.

Interesting that after years and years of wishing and hoping and praying that a wildly handsome someone would show up at my door and simply ask me to "come home," that the desire for that would fall away so completely, to leave me looking at the reality instead of what I'd been dreaming. And the truth is, the reality was never going to have a fairy tale ending, even if I'd gotten the big chance to ride off on the white horse as I'd originally envisioned. And so, it's okay that the dream never came true and that I woke up instead, and figured out it was just a dream. Took me long enough, but there it is...

I fully understand that my life will never be what I had previously imagined, but it was only today that I realized that is going to be my greatest blessing, because it paves the way to create a new life, a real one, that encompasses my true self, and my true desires.