I don’t know if Hammy escaped in the middle of the night and plotted his revenge against Sloane, but somebody or something evidently turned her dream catcher around at 2:30 in the morning today. After blood-curdling screams and me darting into Sloane’s bedroom like Usain Bolt, I found out that she had a nightmare and was blaming it on a two dollar trinket that one of my exes “spiritual” friends (and I use that term loosely) had gotten her years ago. The vaunted dream catcher let her down for the first time at our house. After extinguishing the widespread panic that had spread throughout the house I got my daughter calmed down, and made a mental note to check the latches on Hammy’s cage before everybody is in bed tonight. This could be the beginning of a war between me and the KGB mole.
After that early wake up call and all the frigging joy of waking up in the middle of the night and realizing “Shit, I have to get up in three hours” the rest of the night was peaceful up until it was time to leave. After stowing away Sloane and her gear, I realized her heavy coat was nowhere to be found. My immediate reaction was to check Hammy’s cage but since I saw no pink shreds I cleared him immediately, rummaging through the house like a lost episode of “Pawn Stars” I still couldn’t find a trace of her coat. This went on for ten frigging minutes then it dawned on me that when I picked her up yesterday she had not worn it. I was about another 30 seconds from making the dreaded phone call to the ex to let her know that I somehow lost a hot pink heavy coat. So that tragedy was at least diverted.
It’s not even 6:30 a.m. and with two crisis already solved, the kicker of what would otherwise be known as “one of those days” was of course Circle K was out of Diet Dr. Pepper. I should have just taken Sloane back home and come down with some sort of animal flu and toldmy employer I would see them Friday, buy I didn’t. Work was pretty uneventful, and I cut out after a half a day so I could drive through not one, not two, but THREE frigging major construction areas to get to some remote hayseed town in Kentucky to look at a car.
On the way down there I emailed the prospective seller to let them know it would be tomorrow before I would have the cash to buy it, but that after test driving it if everything was like she said I would be back tomorrow with the cabbage. This is where things got borderline screwy or hell for all I know the new normal for me. Without going into elaborate detail 30 minutes later I was turning around and traversing through the same damn construction I just drove through. Since I couldn’t purchase it today the seller instead was driving to Florida tonight in this car, I asked if it would still be for sale when she got back. She wasn’t coming home I was informed and she would just sell the car down there. So I guess in a small stroke of luck I didn’t buy a car that evidently must be stolen. Only me in 2014 could find myself in these situations.
Speaking of 2014, get this damn year over with!!! A small sample of my year in review. May 19th celebrating 13 years of marriage, June 19th learning of divorce, next five days in a stupor that ended with a stint in hell on earth (and one of the most life changing events, positively for me), A nasty custody battle, learning of an affair that had been going on for awhile, luck that degenerate gamblers would even say “Damn that’s a bad run”, going through all this while somehow trying to focus on my real job that had it’s busiest year in a decade. Going absolutely broke in the process between vehicles, divorce, and relocating. You know what though I’m still smiling.
I’m still smiling because I’m alive, I have an amazing support network that kept me on my feet mentally until I was able to venture back out in this rat race of life on my own. I don’t wish the 2014 I’ve had on anybody (well I can think of one person), and you must be reading this in Swahili if you can’t figure that out.
Most of all I’m smiling because her name is Sloane, and through all the nasty shit I had to endure all summer, I became a better man, I became a DAMN GOOD father! (that is what the ex-wanted isn’t it) She is my new best friend, the crap she had to go through this year with her parents splitting up, and the batshit crazy decisions my ex still makes when around her, hasn’t changed her one bit. There are the normal highs and lows, but she’s seven years old! The kid is tougher mentally than a Mossad agent, and I couldn’t be more proud to be her father!
Going to wrap this up tonight, Sloane and I are going to play a riveting game of Monopoly Jr., plan for our big contest tomorrow, and after she is asleep going to scan the internet to see where Katy Perry will be for New Year’s Eve on the oft chance I win the Powerball tomorrow. Now that would kick off 2015 in style!
“I don’t wish the 2014 I’ve had on anybody (well I can think of one person)”
I can think of two people!!! 😉 hehe!
Amen sister!
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2014 has been good in so many ways….but there has definitely a lot I would like to forget and say goodbye to in this. I’m trying to remind myself that 2015 WILL be awesome. So I hope yours is too!
If 2015 doesn’t get any better for me I give up LOL. Thanks for reading Martyn glad to have found you and all the other dad bloggers.
I really hope 2015 is a much better year for you. It’s nice to read the positives you manage to find even in such a hard year. Happy new year to you and your daughter.
I’d be happy to say goodbye to 2014 sooner than later.