Friday...

Thanks for the good wishes/prayers people...

Outcome of today's court hearing is:

I'm restrained (for now) from taking the boy to Australia to live...

His dad and I go to trial in a couple of months to fight it out...

In the meantime, we will probably have to undergo a parenting evaluation, with the boy being questioned...

And on January 13 I have to go defend myself against contempt of court charges because I won't physically force the boy to go visit with his dad, I have to argue why his dad ought not succeed in his motion to pay less towards the boy's care and I have to convince the judge there's still a need for the Protection Order...

I had hoped this part of the journey was over...

Still things to discover and expand into, obviously...

Interesting times...

It has occurred to me that I am being asked to find a different way of relating to boy's father...

Perhaps that's why I chose not to go on the attack in the hearing...

Though it did feel like I was fighting with one hand tied behind my back, not feeling I was free/it would do any good to articulate some of the understandings I have about our situation/that have driven my choices at each crossroad on this journey...

Not sure a judge, constrained by rules and regulations and legislation that is so uni-dimensional, firstly would understand, and secondly be able to issue Orders that would honour the realities of this situation as I see them...

Boy's father's attorney was making a meal of the "fact" of our "homelessness" and 'instability"...

In all of this, we have never been without a warm roof over our heads, food in our bellies, clothes on our backs, a vehicle to get around in and access to health care etc...

Not sure a judge would be sympathetic to my view that we are on an 'adventure' and that the gift of this "homelessness" is the connection and insights we are gathering from being able to live in community with other people, all doing life differently... 

Weirdly, on some level, I am OK with all of this...

I know it's about stuff happening on multiple levels, inner, interpersonal, and on a community/societal level... 

and it needs to play out to the end...

"Focus on the journey, not the destination. 

Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it."

~Quaker quote

Practising What I Preach...

@11am Thursday 17th November 2011, I sent out this message:

"To my Seattle friends... Please - I need help NOW.... thought I had the housing thing sorted out yesterday with the building manager, but the OWNER of the building doesn't want to wait for the money that was promised to hit my bank account so he can cash his cheque, and he won't accept a cash payment and says we have to leave by 12 noon... (and this is a week-to-week to arrangement so there is no lease and no recourse - he calls the shots)... 

He's adamant... says he'll call the police and impound our van if we are not out by 12... Boy is beside himself, as I am...

I need help moving us, the cats and stuff out and somewhere to "be" for a couple of hours to regroup... to find a place to stay and a place where I can write this court response which is due in tomorrow... if you can help in any way, can you please call me on ............."

Update - 1.05pm: Panic over, sort of... still have to move out today, but friend called owner and negotiated (how come men who bully women, back down when faced with another male?) that we have until this afternoon, when friend can come with truck to help us move our stuff/cats... 

And we have been offered a place to stay for a couple of days over in West Seattle...

And there I can work on this court response tonight, and caravan around the city to collect character references tonight and tomorrow morning...

There are unkind people in the world, like this man who would not live up to the agreement we had made with his son, who said he didn't care about our situation, that he was running a business and he wasn't interested in our problems...

AND as I said to the seriously freaked out boy - look how lucky we are that we have friends who care about us and are there to give whatever help they can.... see, WE ARE, AND WILL BE, OK...

Off now to shower and pack up... I am tired!

Exhausted Maenides on the Steps of the Temple of Amphissa (After the Dance), circa 1874 - Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

and the thing to know in all of this,

is that what's happening in our lives,

is happening for billions of people around the world,

every single day... 

we are not alone... 

we are part of the 99%

 PS: this just landed on my FB page, from Michael Meade: 

"Through the exact twists of fate we find our own unique soul. 

Our true goal in life is to become that self."

 

 

Keeping My Eye On The Prize...

Tough few hours today...

Went into the city to file papers at the court house:

• Notice of Intention to Relocate (to Australia),
• Proposed Amended Parenting Plan, and
• Motion to Convert a Separation to A Dissolution... whew...

Oh, and swallowed my pride and applied to be considered a pauper, so that I didn't have to pay the filing fees (turned out later there were none)...

Sat in the Ex Parte court room, waiting for the Commissioner to make a decision on the In Forma Pauperis application...

She and her clerk got their knickers in a knot because apparently I had used the wrong forms - forms I had downloaded off the Court website!

Then she took a cursory look at the history of this case - six years of horribleness - and got it all wrong, thought I was - or should be - swimming in resources...

I tried to clarify what she had misunderstood without much success... When I get stressed, PTSD and perimenopausal fog make it hard for me to think and articulate clearly what needs to be said...

She was in a hurry and didn't want to listen to my tale of woe, and, deciding I had enough resources to pay the $56 filing fee, denied my application...

As I said, it didn't matter in the end because there was no filing fee... but she didn't have to be such a bitch about it all...

It's really hard moving between the world I'm working with others to create (which has no regard for all of this crap and doesn't recognise the validity of it) and then being pulled back into this one, to get procedural and legal issues - which do still have power over me/us - cleared up...

It took a huge effort to keep my mouth shut, and not give her a lecture about what life is like in the real world for so many people...

Then I tried to serve the papers on my ex-husband's attorney...

He wasn't in his office and none of the office staff would accept the papers and give me a receipt proving I had served them...

Called the attorney, left a message, and shall try again tomorrow...

And if all goes to plan, will be divorced by the middle of next week, and two steps closer to leaving this country WITH my son...

... patience, fortitude, inner calm...

And really, not much of my angst is/was about the process or the bitchy judge... it is/was about the journey with my son's father and the grief of unfulfilled hopes and wishes and dreams...