intermission

So, no record of him at the dmv... The state child support offices of Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky couldn't find him... Private investigators had no luck. Haven't been able to find him on myspace or facebook for the few years I've been looking. Then, one night, while surfing through myspace, I decided to look for his siblings. I found them. Two of them, anyway. I found one of his brothers and his sister. Needless to say, I started messaging her, trying to find him.... But, in the meantime, I found him on her page. After a few unanswered messages, I decided that he wasn't interested, and we should probably leave well enough alone. Then, on a Thursday night, while I am sitting in my night class, my phone starts ringing...incessantly. I don't recognize the number, so I didn't answer. When I check my messages after class, there are multiple messages from him. After all this time, he wants to be involved. How is it that I was never able to find his myspace page before? Just at the right time, he appears...

So, sitting across the table from Dakota, I lay out pictures of his father, aunts, uncles, cousins, step mother, and his brother and sister. He has a 14 year old brother and a 4 year old sister. He cried and said he wanted to go. After he promised to straighten up and get clean, and a week of talking to his dad on the phone, he was on a plane on his way to Montgomery. And for the first time in a very long time, there was peace in my home.
I talk to him almost daily and some days he sounds happy, while others, he sounds frustrated and homesick. The good days seem more often than the bad.
I wonder how long the honeymoon will last...

the search is over

So, the old addage "there is always a light at the end of the tunnel" turns out to be true after all. Sixteen years of searching... Who would have thought that after 16 years of searching that the search would actually prove fruitful? I thought I searched in vain. I thought I was just going through the motions, because if the search were going to yield results, wouldn't it have done so years ago? How is it that the Goddess seems to know exactly when to intervene? At the point when hope seems lost, when it seems there is nothing left to do but give up and give in... I found him. I found him in the same place I have been looking for years.... I found him basically right where I left him. Someone must have had him cloaked before. It's the only excuse I can think of. Why else wouldn't I have been able to find him before? And after 16 years, it was no longer even fathomable to me that he might have ever been looking for us, but evidently he had been... since 1996...

So, how do you tell your 16 year old fatherless child that his father has been found, and not only has he been found, but that he wants to make up for lost time, forge a relationship, be a part of his life? How do you tell your 16 year old that you can't even talk to, or even be in the same room with, the biggest news of his life?
You drive over to the hospital he is in and put a picture on the table in front if him. And you don't say a word. You let him look and you let him connect the dots. And you hope when it's time for you to speak, to answer his questions or confirm his assumptions, you hope that your voice still works. And somehow, it does. Somehow, when he asks who it is and you don't answer, somehow he figures it out. "Is this my dad?" he asks. I nod. "You found him?" he asks. Again, bobble head. "Does he want to see me?" This time, the nodding causes the tear ducts to well up. But he doesn't notice. His head is down and he is sobbing viciously into the crook of his arm. His whole body shakes. When he finally looks up, he asks how I found him and it's time to tell the story.

life sucks

Oh, how the mighty have fallen... Five months ago I was on top of the world... Now I'm wishing I could exit the world... 16 instructional days left until summer break... I can't wait. Maybe I was overly ambitious to think I could successfully raise my family, teach full time, direct an art gallery, design web sites, maintain a marriage and attend masters level classes... something had to give... it's a shame i sacrificed my kids... or maybe I didn't... Maybe they were destined to fall because they are mine. Maybe it was inherrent, inevitable, unavoidable... Maybe being mine predisposed them to a life of angst. I guess I shouldn't say "they/them" since it's really only the one. The oldest. The one I had way too young. The guinea pig. The one I screwed up the most. I'm sorry, Dakota... I am sorry for being the world's shittiest mother. I am sorry for thinking I could ever do you justice as a parent. I am sorry I made such crappy decisions where you were concerened. I am sorry I wasn't there for you. I am sorry I put so much time into trying to make life better instead of making you better. I did my best with what I had at the time. I am sorry I did a better job with your siblings. Maybe things will get better as you get older. That's how it happened for me... I guess somewhere close to adult-hood brains kick in...
I just wish for my sake and his that it had happened sooner...