Happy Halloween, everybody. My morning got off to a rough start, but after a bowl of oatmeal and some fresh coffee, I’m feeling somewhat better. Daylight Savings Time ended on Saturday, so our dogs are a little confused. Arran got up at 3:40am, thinking it was an hour later, and he demanded his breakfast. And because Bill is a good guy, he gave in to Arran’s demands. I’m a little tired and out of sorts this morning.

Bill got a message from his younger daughter. I had sent her child a birthday gift, and it was delivered to the wrong apartment. There are a bunch of single guys in the apartment, and younger daughter went over in her church dress and knocked on the door. They ignored her. I guess they figured she was going to ask them to go to church, as they live in Mormon mecca. I hope she’ll leave them a note and tell them that the package they got (and for which we have a photo) contains a present for a child. She doesn’t care if they go to church. She just wants her package.

Bill sent her a link to my video of the song, “Bill”, which she had never heard before. She apparently loved it, probably because the video has tons of pictures in it of her dad. For so many years, she was denied contact with him, so she never got to see the warm, funny, and sweet side of him that makes me love him so much. She also had questions about how I made the video and others like it. And that just struck me as kind of sad, because she’s a young woman in her 20s, and she should be teaching ME about stuff like this. Unfortunately, she grew up very sheltered. She’s very bright, but her education is apparently not as good as it could have been. At least when it comes to basic computing skills. I was thinking that if Bill and I could have been involved with her life when she was growing up, we could have taught her some of these things, along with some other stuff. But that was too threatening for her mother to contemplate.

I’m glad she liked the song, especially since she has a music calling in church. She said that she listened to a couple of the other videos, including my version of “There Is A Reason”, a song written by Ron Block and made famous by Alison Krauss and Union Station. To date, I think it’s my most popular video. It even gets ads! She wonders how I made the video, having never been exposed to Garageband and iMovie, and she doesn’t know the songs, but likes them. If I had known her when she was growing up, imagine how much broader her experiences could have been. She might have made different choices.

That’s not to say I think she’s made bad choices, per se. She has a beautiful family and is completely on her own now. But I can see that she never learned things that most young people get exposed to when they’re growing up, because she was basically trained to be her mother’s minion instead of a person in her own right… with her own hopes, dreams, and desires to fulfill. She got away from her mother, anyway, thanks to people in the LDS church who helped her. But she never had the chance to get exposed to other things– other experiences and beliefs that she never considered. She’s been all over the United States, thanks to Ex’s love of road trips, but she’s never been to Europe or anywhere else outside of North America. If Bill had been in her life when she was growing up, she would have had those experiences. She might be living a completely different life– for better or worse.

Last week, I posted about how Ex has been hinting that maybe her marriage is not working so well lately. She had tweeted to actors on a certain TV show that their on screen relationship might literally save her marriage:

Today, after hearing younger daughter express amazement at my simple and quite amateur videos with music and pictures of her dad, I went looking to see what Ex might be up to… and this is what I found:

She’s “unlearned” that someone besides her kids would someday love her. If I take off the “un”, I get “I’ve learned that someone would someday love me.” What does that tell us? Apparently, #3 might have expressed in some way that he doesn’t love her. Add that to what she wrote a few days earlier, when she tweeted to actors about how their relationship could “literally save [her] marriage.” This doesn’t sound good. But then, from what I’ve seen, Ex isn’t very good at returning love. Love is supposed to be reciprocal. It’s hard to keep pouring love and positive regard into someone who is incapable of returning it. It’s like investing in a losing stock. After awhile, it seems crazy to keep sending good money after bad, and you move on to another investment, right? I don’t know what Ex’s relationship with #3 is, but if it’s anything like what it was with Bill, it’s probably very unfulfilling and frustrating for #3.

The irony is, I think I’m actually living the lifestyle that Ex wanted. I got it because I truly love Bill back, appreciate him, and want him in my life because I have regard for him. She just wants men in her life to use– to help her with the children, take orders from her, and support her lifestyle. And this is not necessarily the lifestyle I had planned for myself, because I had planned to have a career and kids of my own. Things didn’t work out that way.

Also… I have it on good authority that her kids don’t necessarily unconditionally love her, either. At least two of them moved across the country and don’t have much to say to her anymore. And this is because she was abusive to them, and denied them an upbringing that prepared them for adulthood. Both of those kids were plunged into adulthood in a baptism by fire, and both were assisted by other benevolent adults who cared more about them than she did. Like it or not, everyone grows up, and the vast majority of people, sooner or later, move out on their own. It’s up to parents to teach their kids how to function. It sounds as if she failed to do that, and the kids were left to figure things out for themselves.

But kids are resourceful. Ex introduced her children to the LDS church, and for years, it served as a parental alienation tool. My husband left the church; therefore, he wasn’t “good enough” to be their father anymore. She replaced him with #3, and demanded that they call him dad, whether or not they actually felt that connection. They were required to forget about Bill, who was the father of two of them, and had served as substitute dad to her oldest son, as his father was out of the picture even sooner than Bill was. Ex took photos of him away from them, wouldn’t let them talk to him on the phone, threw away his gifts to them, and told them lies. The end result was that at age 18, former stepson visited us with his girlfriend, now wife. For awhile, they had a connection, until Ex manipulated former stepson into trying to put one over on Bill by using him for money. We discovered what he was up to, and there was a falling out that, 13 years later, still hasn’t been rectified.

And then, younger daughter finally broke down the barrier. Her curiosity got the better of her, and at age 23 (in 2017), she finally talked to her father. She gradually found out that she was told many lies. Five years later, she is now being exposed to a lot of stuff that is probably blowing her mind. A lot of it is actually good stuff… but even the good stuff will probably eventually make her sad, because she’s going to realize that she was cheated and used. Her childhood was wasted being a support to her mother, instead of her mother helping her learn how to function as an adult, facilitating new experiences, and encouraging her to get a good education. Now, she’s a married mom of three, and while I know she loves being a mom and is a very good one, she might soon realize that these are the years she could have spread her wings and done something really exciting… and just for her.

I can tell that younger daughter is a very bright and capable young woman. I hope and expect that she will eventually get the chance to see the world and try new things when her children are older. I’m glad she loved the videos– the music and the photos of her dad. Maybe I can teach her some things, if she’ll let me.

As for Ex, I think if #3 is finally done with her, she totally deserves it. However, I worry that if he leaves her, she will end up in a crisis. #3 doesn’t have the resources Bill has. #3 is older than Bill was when he and Ex divorced, and he’s not in the best health. He can’t bounce back financially the way Bill did. Moreover, Ex’s youngest daughter is already an adult, and her youngest child is disabled and will likely never be on his own. Now, I don’t care if Ex is in a crisis, but I do worry about the vulnerable people in her sphere that she will try to exploit. She’s already shown us earlier this year that she’s capable of stooping pretty low, preying on Bill’s stepmother. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hit up Bill’s stepmother or other people in his family for money. So I hope Bill’s family is aware. But maybe this is much ado about nothing.

Anyway… I hope you all have a Happy Halloween. Maybe I’ll play my Halloween mix, since this is the one day of the year it would be most appropriate.

Edited to add: Got tossed in Facebook jail again today, for sharing the video of the claymation guy who says “You can look at my butt.” Apparently, Facebook deems that “sexually suggestive” and “nudity” content. It’s a fucking cartoon, and contains lovely sentiments of acceptance and kindness, even if it is kind of weird and creepy for some. Anyway, it’s too bad Facebook no longer employs human beings, and it’s even worse that they allow some of the most vile insults and rudeness, but a video starring a claymation type dude being kind, comforting, and positive gets me banned from posting in my groups. And because I run two groups, that makes Facebook less useful and functional for me. I think these ridiculous and draconian censorship policies are going to cause their demise sometime very soon. They’ll be the new MySpace.