After slowly working on projects over the last few months, the daily efforts are paying off in tangible things to continue to focus on. Tomorrow I shall be doing my first virtual class and the university is not prepared. However, I have to be ready no matter what. So I am moving along to my plans B, C and D. I shall be writing about the experiences, I am absolutely sure. I am excited about working again. I also have two exhibitions to prepare for and some considerations regarding how to do the Symposia that was supposed to do in March,now carded for March 2021. I am grateful to be able to focus on so much. My ex-husband is at it yes again. I may have written about it already. He now wants me to only visit our daughter at his home, and I cannot overnight. So that would mean seeing her for a few hours at a time with the understanding that I would have to leave in the evenings. He would then want me to pay three times the amount I presently pay. I have started my counter proposal and have to have it ready before the end of the month. As usual, all of these things are not boring, that's for sure. I am involved with a friend of the family on an audacious project that should begin to come together in 2021/2022 and that is also extremely exciting. Also, when I stand in place long enough, a few new projects fall in my lap. I can never say that I am lacking ideas, and that makes me feel so happy. With all that focuses my mind, when I am faced with the challenges I have, I am always appreciative that those things keep my optimistic and above all, confident about what I can actually do.

with all of that happening

I had a lovely surprising reprieve from juliemangoman. He sent me an unexpected note that has kept me smiling. It was just so sweet, and I appreciated it....and I want to keep that feeling in my pocket...as my neice says. So nice, so lovely...just....ahhhhhhh.

cobwebbing

The day after my friend 'broke up' with me, my ex-husband sent me a Lawyers letter. It was not entirely unexpected, but of course I was not considering that I would get it when I did. He of course wants me to have the time I get to see our daughter reduced considerably from the very generous (to him) every fortnight for two days...to my going to his home (no overnighting was specifically mentioned...as though I would want to even consider that!) and he wnts me to pay three times what I do now. After the break up, this other thing was just a pile on. However, I did what I have become very pleased with doing for myself. I sat with the emotins and I let it filter through me. I was not afraid. I was not upset or angry. I thought about our wonderful daughter and I was also even able to recall really good times with him in our past. In fact for the last few weeks he has been coming to mind a great deal. I even found myself speaking about him quite a bit and even defending much of his behavior to others to set the record straight about him...so that's why I write that I knew something might be up. But still...I was not fully expecting such a letter. I have to the end of the month to respond, and respond I definitely shall. This year I find that my writing these last few weeks have really gone deeply into territory that I usually protect within myself. I feel vulnerable. But, I like the feeling. It helps clear up the things that I feel I cannot touch, and are so cobwebbed, so much a pattern of my character, where I think that if I don't touch these feelings, I could just procrastinate and they may disappear. I do write about difficult things, but, even so, therre are things that I am just shy of admitting fully. I am getting there with these last few entries because I just want to get them out of my system, my mind...onto a black piece of paper and really syep away from the preceived conflict. I feel so good doing this.

Break up

My friend whom I have discussed here a while back called me on Monday and basically broke up with me. It was the wierdest thing! Two days before the incident, she called me about five times to help her with her usual project. There was nothing ontoward in the exchange. Then I had my daughter for the week-end and did not hear from her as I usually would. I sent her a text letting her know that I was taking my weekend for myelf and my daughter , but did not get a response from her. On Monday I decided to send her some images for her project. I did not get a reply from her. Instead I got a call that began with a statement question. Of late she has been doing that to me. She asks me a question but it is really a statement. I brought that to her attention right away and decided then and there that I was not going down this road with her again. I saw all of the signs and I beat her at the pass. I spoke up and made it very clear to her that this was not about me...a trigger statement that I know she hates, but I had to state it, becuase it was indeed what was going on. I then stated that I would withdraw in every way, if he felt in some way put upon by me. I think that she was not expecting that, and tried to rally by telling me that perhaps we need a break. I found that absolutely laughable, particulalry when she is the one calling me almost all of the time. She even tells me this when she calls. After the last big blow up that we had, I have noticed two things about our relationship. The first was that after trying to get her to agree to discuss what had happened and how to be better communicators. she did not want to have the conversation...and secondly, when she would call me about her project and I would give the advice that she saught, she would say disparaging things about herslef that I always had to call out as absurd. She would say things like, well I am not as bright as you...or, well, I only went to high school! These things were horrible! They aso told me that she was still carrying a grudge from the blow up. This time, I am tired. I told her that the proverbial ball is absolutely in her court. If she ever wants to talk to me again, fine. If she doesnt, fine as well. I cannot seem to please her and I have no intention of trying. She has made being friends very unpallitable to me. I have been feeling as though friendship with her is a job, and one where I have to wait forever on my payment and I work damn long hours. Lol. This has been something else. I do not know what to make of it really! I can only assume that the distancing, social distancing is for my best mental health.

Don't be frightened

My day was going really well. Then I decided to check my email, only to be faced with a Lawyers letter from my ex-husband. He is at it again. He is trying to extort money out of me while giving me even less time with our daughter. Now he wants me to be the one to visit when he feels like allowing me to. He also stipluates that I am not allowed to stay overnight. I can however speak with her on the phone when he allows it. Control freak anyone? In the past, I would be so emotiona about the letter. I would be frightened and devastated. Now, because he has pulled this over and over again,I warned my child that this was what he was going to do next. What can I learn here? What am I to do? I know what I am not going to do? I am not going to sip from his cup of poison, that's for sure. In four years our daughter shall be an adult. This situation shall not last forever,it only feels that way, and boy does it ever. Yet, by writing about this, there is my side, another side, and that side is not a weak side as I have always believed. He has played this hand one too many times. I would love to delete this post. But I am not going to do so because I shall prevail.

Hikikomori

Over the last few weeks I have been working steadily. I have stopped worrying about outcome or income. Having a sense of discipline feels so good. I know that it is all about controlling some part of my life. Nine months on from the first knowledge of Covid-19, there is a constant push and pull of views about getting back to work and locking back down. Here at home, we now have the dreaded community spread, and no one is going back to school until 2021. The Pandemic has obviously changed every single thing we human beings do, thank and are. We talk about 'the new normal.' The new normal is everything but. We want to live, but we have a contagion. How do we live that way? To go out is to risk getting the disease, and the information we all have about contact tracing makes every movement a weighted, challenge on many fronts. The only thing to do is to live in a way that I actually read about three to four years ago and was so intruigued by that I discussed it many times with people. Now it seems that those Japanese people knew something. They are called Hikikomori. We are all now living such a life.

Living with imperfections and empathy

My child called me last night to vent about one of her favorite shows writer making a thoughtless racist comment on a Twitter feed. This is particularly agregious to her as she also has to deal with her own father's image right now. She and I have never been closer to a difficult reality such as this. On the one hand, the favorite show is a moment of entertainment. Her father is forever. How do you deal with someone who believes that their race is an impediment, yet, uses said impediment as a crutch to state that they are one, discriminated against and two, the reason that the disrimination happens is because another group keeps his group down? Worst of all, there is woeful little proof of such a belief. He can write all that he does in a public forum. He goes on seminars, he is listened to. There are countries in the world where such freedom of speech is met with jail time. However, because this situation is such a hotbed, I find that I have been trying to understand where his hate comes from? I spent almost a whole day with a Reporter/Researcher whom I know casually, and whom I respect, telling her about him. She too was confused by his vile article and past writings denigrating the very group he received so much help from for a very large part of his life. I have to conclude that his disappointment with the way things turned out for (only him)was such that he cannot move forward as a well adjusted emotional being. he has to blame someone outside of himself. He thus sees the problem as a race and not as something that he has experienced that was difficult and has to be seen as not unique to him. But that has definitely prooven impossible. So now he is writing things that reflect what he has never worked out within himself. Yesterday I was very tempted to contact him. But I now realize that I can do nothing but look on. He has chosen his path and he walks it. What I care about is that our child gets no splash back for his actions. Then, on my part, it shows me that there is complexity in love. He was a huge part of my life for a very long time. I do not make a distinction between the person I am constantly challenged by and the person who loved me so much. I do not have to like him now. I do not have to like his behavior. But I will always care about him, and if he is ever in need of something or he is hurt or ill, of course I would do what I can to assist. I conclude that I must have empathy where he is concerned. I must have it, as whatever he is going through, it is hard to watch and hard to know about. As last week, so many people just had to tell me all about what he did. It does not matter that I have divorced him many years ago. I tell people that, and they still turn to me for answers about him! Go figure? He is kept alive in my thoughts all the time. I cannot ignore it outright. So I have decided that it will be my decision to respond to him and about him as is comfortable for me. He does not represent me in any way and he does not represent our child either. All of this tells me to also keep my focus and my eye on the best for the lovely person we created together, and that is the point that I will deal with whatever comes down the road.