Rough Day Yesterday
There was nothing super dramatic, but a few things happened that made yesterday really rough on me and DS13.
Yesterday was my STBXAH's birthday, so he had the baby at his parents' for the birthday celebration. DS13, although he never says it outright, is always hurt at how he is left out. STBXAH was his live-in stepfather for 8 years, and despite his drinking problems, they had a pretty good relationship. He basically dropped DS13 like a hot potato when we split, and his parents, who are well-respected, upstanding, wealthy members of the community, haven't made any effort whatsoever to contact him or include him in anything they do. It's a huge rejection for him.
Whenever I go there to pick up the baby -- STBXAH is still unemployed and living in their basement -- it's clear they blame me. All of them. I know better thanks to my time at SR, but it still hurts.
On Saturday, after hearing about the prior cat fiasco, an old friend offered to take two of my four cats to relieve me of the burden. To recap, a neighbor complained that I was letting my cats outside, and the city police fined me. For real. When I then demanded that STBXAH stand up and finally move his stuff out, including HIS cats, STBXAH told me he wouldn't take any of the pets, even though one of them was a cat he'd cat as a kitten for 14 years, and do to "whatever I needed to do" to take care of the problem. This solution was not ideal, but it was the only thing I could think of to do with these old guys -- they're basically too old to be adoptable. The friend took them and they are happy there -- she sent tons of pictures of them cuddling and being cute -- but DS13 is sad that I gave away two of his pets.
Can you blame him? I can't. I feel like **** about it.
Finally, my sisters are in town, and in her usual fashion, my mom somehow found a way to drop a major, hurtful insult about me, right out of the blue, at the end of an otherwise really nice afternoon with the four of us together. One of my sisters was like, "Why would you say something like that?" and the other one was all, "That's water under the bridge now." Yes, that thing that happened literally 2 nanoseconds ago is water under the bridge now, okay. We got home from our outing and I was like, "Bye!" and just went home to my house without any explanation. Part of me is still shocked at how she likes to pull the rug out from under me, even after she's done it over and over and over for twenty years. It's like she can't even help it -- it's reflexive.
But it still hurts.
Today I'm practicing self-care and looking for silver linings.