Daddy Time

Before I left High Level I was trying to secure a townhouse so I had somewhere to go immediately. During all of the packing, and the arguing, and the trying to work things out, (working it out meaning mutually agreeing to not work it out right now). I have been carrying around a heavy bowling ball in my stomach of anxiety. When I am stressed this is how I feel it. It disturbs my digestion, I don't feel like eating and I need help to sleep. I am distracted, easily unnerved and irritable. Yesterday that feeling lifted a little as I have almost secured a lovely home for my daughter and I.

Damage and first months rent will be paid tomorrow and I will have somewhere to rest my head that is my own. It is not the townhouse I was hoping for but more of a condo. The price is right, the location is great (there is a Starbucks a few blocks away) so I am feeling much better about things. 

Today my husband will take our daughter for a "visit". That feels really weird. I don't like the words "custody" and "visitation", they make parenting sound like a chore or something that has boundaries. He has never actually had her on his own for an entire afternoon like this which also feels weird. Since I was at home with her and he has been working so much it has just never worked out that I had anywhere to go by myself for an entire afternoon in High Level, and he was hardly home or awake long enough anyway since he worked nights for the last six months or so. They will be apart for months coming up and if the situation were reversed and I didn't see her for months I think I would die a little inside, or at the very least carry around a big ball of anxiety in my stomach.

She loves her Dad. The love of an 18 month old girl towards her father is such a pure beautiful thing. He would sleep during the day and she would point upstairs and ask "Dada?" She would sneak into our room, climb on the bed and wake him up at any opportunity, and when I went to retrieve her she would yell "Dada!" and cling to him, so proud she had found him and not willing to give him up. Today he held her and she just leaned on him and cuddled. No one will ever love him as much as she does, and he doesn't even have to do anything. her love is completely unconditional. 

I want a cohesive, whole, family unit for her. I want her to know she is standing on something solid. We can do that apart but it will take work, and patience and love just like it does when parents are together. It was hard to look in his eyes today, knowing where we have been and not knowing where we are going. He will leave for a couple of months tomorrow and I don't know when she will see him again.