As for my responsibilities; what I am charged with supplying…I can do that. I can do the accounting for the entire county because the supporting agencies have employed a population of citizens that struggle with a calculator on a good day. I can also do all the driving to and from Dad’s house every single day because Dad cannot, will not, outright refuses to put our child in a safety seat. (Course, this one’s almost outdone itself since the NYS child seat laws extend up to age 8 and July marks that birthday. Five years of non-obligatory conduct and the justifiable answer is: “Mom, you can do this since Dad can’t”)
I can sit and suck up my $4.11 / gallon gasoline at the rate of my truck idling for fifteen minutes at each of those pick ups/drop offs because Dad decides in his controlling demeanor that either (a) he won’t interrupt his television show to assist our son with gathering his things, or the more likely candidate of (b) he decides that I can wait until he’s ready to let my son out the door. I can continue juggling hours of second grade homework each night with making dinner, starting laundry, doing dishes, putting clothes away, weeding in the garden and completing my own graduate work, because once again – dad was playing in the ding-weeds, or scheming his next move at alienation. I can write letters to verify that what I have said, I mean and what I mean, I will write to each agency that “forgot” to make updates or changes. I can even and do, pray every waking moment that this is all meant for something. That the language I pass along to my son to make sense of this chaos is all worth it. That good does win out in the end and that there are reasons for everything we encounter. I can dry tears and pretend to be strong a hell of a lot more than I actually am, and wake up the next day to do it again.
What I cannot do – is feed this animal any more. It baffles me to the core, to think that if what I think…what I do, and what I’ve experienced in the field of seeking justice through and unjustified system is but a trickle in the bucket of it all. I am one case - sitting on the bell-curve of insanity with hope, luck and a touch of “well maybe” in my hands. There needs to be change in a big way and it has to start somewhere solid enough to support the waking moment. I do not feel as though I have that; the change. I do think I am coming to the point of understanding how to start it, but I struggle with the formalities of all the pointless processes that are supposed to give substance to the “we’re here to help you” slogans slathered on billboards, court room cork boards and county offices.
They are a lie.
What they should read is: “We are dependent on you being dependent on us. Without you – we would not exist. So thank you for seeking help and assistance; we’re counting on you!”
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