joint custody

I can share my food. I can share my money. I can share my time. 

Alas, I don't wanna share my kid.

Divorce leaves you in a catch 22. You know divorce is best option for you, your spouse, and your child, but losing half of your child's childhood is painful - achingly painful.

When she's not there it's as if I walk around with a lung missing - always trying to catch my breath.

In my mind when she's not near little maggots of worry wriggle all about my brain.

Is she safe?

Is she happy?

Is she understood?

Is she respected?

Is she empowered?

I miss her little hands and her big energy.

I miss her intense love.

I miss her humor.

I miss her curiosity.

I was at home with my little nugget for the first four years of her life; to be cut down by 50% leaves me anemic and angry.

Her father is a good father. She loves him dearly. I want not for her to be without him. But I want to be with her all the days.

The rock becomes of a granite type when the other parent has an existential crisis after the divorce, and becomes someone whom you don't know anymore. Someone who does not accept you for who you are. Someone who doesn't respect your beliefs. Someone who sees your disease as that of weakness and of mockery.

I dance in the silver lining of the depths to which I dwell in appreciation of her presence.

Viktor Frankel says that when we find meaning to our suffering is when suffering ceases to exist.

I suffer not in vain; yet it is for my child to have her father in her life, for my child to see that two folks who believe totally different can still work together when love is present, for my child to see that being true to yourself is worth the high price tag, for my child to see that you know not what you have until it is gone, for my child's mental health and emotional health to flourish in a world where hardship is inevitable.

I want not to share my child's childhood. I want it all to myself. Yet, I know this is wrong.

Joint custody sucks, but it is still right, and hiking the right path is a responsibility I have to this life and to my daughter.

h