I don’t celebrate the Fourth of July.  Not because I don’t care about our country, but because when it came time to pick and choose who gets the kids on holidays, my husband chose all of the bank holidays.  We settled without going to trial, because my counselor couldn’t go to court that day.  She was moving into her new house, and had scheduled the movers for the day of the trial.  It was too late to do anything about it, so the whole thing fell apart.  An honest mistake, but as far as my husband was concerned, he had an easy victory.  I couldn’t testify without her there for support- she was never supposed to testify herself, she just needed to be there in the room so I could, but the whole thing got mixed up, and my lawyer didn’t communicate this to her until the very last minute, and my life has been a living hell ever since.  So, for the last ten years, I have blocked those days out as much as possible, and I work or stay busy until it’s over.  I try very hard not to think about the past, and all the fun things my daughters and I did when they were little.  Today they are at Disney World, and will be there tonight for the fireworks.  Two weeks in a condo on the beach, dinner on a cruise ship, Disney, Epcot, Universal Studios, etc. but he can’t pay their medical bills, or the college bill, because he’s ‘broke’.  And, he took them at 8:00 on my birthday so that I wouldn’t get to spend the day with them, so even that was ruined.  All I want is to be on vacation with my family, without the girlfriend, of course.  I want to go to Disney World.  Is that too much to ask?  No, I want my girls to have fun and be happy.  This is all my fault for marrying him in the first place.

It has been one hell of a horrible week.

I don’t do well when they’re gone, especially with him, and so here I am again, sitting in the middle of a pile of boxes, with nowhere to go.  One year older, not a hell of a lot wiser.  We were supposed to be out of here by the first of the month, but I don’t make enough on disability to qualify for any safe or decent housing, and I can’t get off disability until this mess with my counselor is cleared up, so that I can actually go to my appointments.  So, here we are. I will be the first to admit that I should be talking to a counselor, probably today, but I have absolutely no control over that.  It has simply all been taken away from me, and is not an option, for reasons that make no sense, to me or anybody else, and really don’t matter any more.  None of it really matters at all;  it’s too late.  I can’t get any of this time back.  I don’t even really want my money back; although it would solve a hell of a lot of problems right now;  it would keep us from being homeless, which we technically are, I guess.  I just want my life back.  And it’s gone.

I miss my kids.