Geez, I had a good day on WP.  Not a lot of visitors, or likes or comments, but like double the normal amount of views.  I have no idea what caused it, someone was reading old posts.  But it gave me a lift, it’s nice to see interest, although a few likes would have been nice, lol.  But then, maybe it was someone who didn’t want to register. 

Whatever.  Brene Brown says the world needs us to share our creativity, and this is mine, at least it’s my most passionate creative effort.  So I am happy for a day when twice the normal amount of my blogs are read. 

I got my hair done tonight. It’s such a treat to have it done.  Feels like pampering myself.  My hairdresser has two young girls who play hockey, and since my son played for 10 or 12 years, we have a lot in common.  I so remember our lives being wrapped around that sport.  Crazy. Hours in the car, driving all over New England for a one hour youth hockey game and turning around and coming home.  It would have been great family time, if my ex hadn’t been such an ass, and had to “coach” my son by telling him about everything he’d done wrong and “motivating” him by telling him he sucked at the game.  Poor kid.  I tried to stay out of it, because that only made it worse.  But there were times I couldn’t.  To sit in that enclosed car for 2 or 3 hours and listen to him verbally beat up my son was unbearable at times.  So I’d interfere, and redirect my husband’s anger at me, and off my son.  About the time my son got bigger than my ex, and a lot tougher, my ex stopped.  It also helped when I moved out, because he needed my son as an ally. 

Luckily, my son loved the game, and played anyway, and actually became quite good in spite of his father. (It’s no coincidence he hasn’t talked to his father in about 5 years.)  Many years he played up a year to the next age group.  He’s a big strong athletic kid.   He finally had to quit to be free of his dad, but he learned a lot of good lessons.  How to think on his feet (hockey is one fast game), what team work is, commitment to something, to other people.  How you can’t bullshit your way through life.  If you throw bullshit around in that game you’ll get hurt.

And how to skate like the wind.

Well, life lessons for a young man from hockey.  Some for his mom too.  Maybe even for his father, if his father can sit down and own what he did.  But I doubt it.  He seems so stuck on a life that didn’t work out the way he wanted, despite his best attempts to control the behavior of everyone around him, via threats, and yelling, and brow beating, withholding….

He never understood that the only control he ever had over my son and I was the amount he loved us. And that never showed up at all. Both my son and I tried endlessly to earn his love, his approval, to meet or exceed his expectations. Never could. Not when he changed by the minute what he expected or wanted from us.

I don’t understand the mind set. Well…I do. He believes love is something you earn, not something you deserve just because you are. He used to tell me to “use” my love for my son to motivate him. To give it and take it away as a reward or a punishment.

Can you imagine? Geezus.

It was the main reason I left him, almost 9 years ago. I had to give my son a choice, I had to let him know there are other options, other ways to live that are joyful. I wanted him to know that living in a household where two parents can’t say a kind word to each other, and the father has a temper tantrum on a regular basis that included throwing things, and making messes for me to clean up, wasn’t normal. I needed it for me, but if I didn’t do it for him, I would have lost him, I know.

So, wow, I wasn’t expecting this blog to go here, but it did….

Better times started the day I moved out. There were rougher times, but that was the beginning. The end of the fighting, anyway. Except in court, we did that for long enough.

We have such a good life now. Just blessed, really. It all turned out well, I think we learned our lessons. I know that love is the overriding emotion in this household. And that’s the only way I would have it.

Love and light, all…..