With no visit for me and Cecelia next week because the entire staff is “off” and I’m unable to see Cecelia this year for Christmas, I wasn’t sure what to do. So I did this: I wrapped a bunch of presents with a letter to Cecelia, plus stuffed her monogrammed stocking full of goodies to go through at our visit, so we’d have something there, and she’s have a way to celebrate ON Christmas with something for her from me. Although I doubt the letter is going to ever make it to her, ever since her mother will have to read it to her, which she won’t do, I know for a fact. But there are a lot of sentiments she’ll be able to take away from the letter as well since I knew she’s now the sole translator for Cecelia, which is a powerful role (the reason it was fought for so vehemently by her mother after agreeing to joint custody) that’s being handled as sloppily and poorly as imaginable. It’s why I’ve been pushed as far aside from them as possible by mama. Casey claims I scare her, but what scares her is the responsibility, discipline, and accountability I represent to her, which she doesn’t possess and thinks neither she nor Cecelia, have any need for. Period.
So I asked Cecelia this past Thursday about her life, and Christmas plans, and everything I am desperately so interested in.
She says her mom got them a fake, small, pre-decorated tree. That’s all that the 2 adults living in her house could muster. And no church. What does Christianity have to do with Christmas anymore?! Who Cares!(Say most Americans anymore) I live alone, and my apartment looks like Santa’s Village. Which she’ll only see in photographs, unfortunately.
But this clearly represents the effort she’s willing to make for her child. A six-figure salary on top of that. Cecelia is being mistreated in my mind. What her mother is thinking, or not, is anyone’s guess. I don’t think she is at all, except about herself and how she can keep me away from our child for the reasons I just gave.
Why and how long she believes she can sustain that is fantasy, but that’s where she lives. I have no control over that. But I do plan on changing what I can, which is what I’m fighting with all my might to do as quickly as possible. It’s been frustrating to be at the mercy of other people’s schedules and whims. But it’s where fate has placed me. It’s not where I planned on being or worked for so long to be. And I’m determined not to allow Casey to inflict the upbringing she did with her first child, which I had to sit aside and watch her squander that poor child’s life, who now just turned 19. No direction in life and no life skills upon her. And she’s now being made a role model for our child by her mother making Cecelia stay with her (in another state, with terrible eyesight, mind you) more than she even stays with her mother, who is staying God knows-where. She bought a smaller even dumpier house in a worse part fo town near her drug dealer, who is also a babysitter/overnight house place Cecelia stays in all the time.
I’ve told the Judge about this a hundred times now, and she cares not. Not her worry as a family court judge appointed directly to our family’s case for life, apparently. Not in Jefferson County, KY at least. It’s a feeble governmental arrangement if you couldn’t guess. And is what my ex-wife has humbly deemed to be far better to make decisions for our child than her own parents. In her case, yes. But not mine, or even Cecelia’s, who her mother tells she has no opinion or stake in the matter, which I hold as an evil thing to tell anyone, much less your own small daughter. But it’s how her mom sees herself: as decision maker for every single person around her. Her students, her live-in father, our child, her ex-husband(s) and separated husband, even. It shows how not EVER playing team sports growing up will cause you to think. Incapable and unwilling to work with others on anything at all.