The Mother of All Posts

Mother's Day was Sunday.

We set aside this day to acknowledge mothers in all their forms and abilities. We are reminded of absent mothers, new mothers, single mothers, mothers who lost babies, babies who lost mothers. I have been sitting on the concept for this post because I wanted to remove as much personal emotion as possible. I tend to be an angry writer sometimes and when that happens, I don't necessarily make sense. Then I remembered: this is what I do. I write emotionally. I pride myself on writing directly from my soul, a place where words seem to navigate themselves directly from my core and lunge to my fingertips. I am fully aware that a blog, mine in particular, is a place of opinion, freedom and unfortunately judgement. I'm willingly opening myself up to be judged. There are times I move in silence, just kind of sit back and watch, but this year I made a personal vow to not allow myself to take too many things to heart, be more laid back, and most importantly "Don't get walked on." It's a work in progress. I'm naturally a planner (which hasn't really let up much) and when something crashes into my plans you might as well have dumped pudding into my bra and forced me to go meet the President. I'm a little more than a wreck trying to adjust.

With that said, I feel like I've been doing a pretty great job adjusting to some of the "unplanned" moments life has thrown at me. With one exception. So here is where the disclaimer comes. Before I continue writing:
1) I know this is a public forum. It's open for anyone to read, I know this. I also know that there are people who are unaware of my blog and wouldn't know how to access this page.
2) I know that what I am about to write is solely MY opinion.
3) I know that I am still a baby in this whole co-parenting thing and when it comes to "sharing" my children and not having them all the time
4) I know this is going to ruffle some feathers
5) Before my divorce I was in my children's lives every day
6) It takes time to adjust to life and we all need to remember this

Here it goes:

I don't know if there is a line or ever will be a line with the new woman in my children's lives. There are moments where I feel we have a joint understanding of who she is to them and what is/is not appropriate and then suddenly I'm exposed to a post or picture via third party and I'm forced to deal with all these emotions I didn't know I would ever have. She's pregnant now. (With my ex's third child). She claims my children as her own so this would be "her fourth." It's been more than difficult having to handle myself with grace and poise as I hear her tell people that she doesn't care what gender she has because she "already has two girls and a boy." I know. Realistically, if they're having a baby together they (my ex and kids) will be bound to her forever and YES I would rather her love my children than hate them and treat them poorly. However, this doesn't change the pain I feel in my heart when I hear her call my son her son, give him a nickname his father and I agreed we didn't want people to call him when we named him, or refer to herself as their mother. It's not because I'm possessive about my role, it's because I feel honored that God gave me that role. I went through hell to be their mama. He gifted me with those two children. He molded them perfectly in my womb. He tore my body apart so that they could give back to the world and now, here....there's another woman who seems to not even recognize my relevance. It's not completely her fault. She does what she's been allowed to do. My ex grants her permission and the "power" to behave certain ways and honestly my compliance is allowing it as well. I'm constantly in a mental battle trying to survive run-ins or being treated poorly by opposite parties.

By no means am I trying to make myself a victim here, just trying to gain perspective and continue transparency. Many times I try to put myself in my ex or his girlfriend's shoes. How would I want my kids to interact with the man I'm seeing? How do I desire my freedom of love to be accepted? For almost two years I've been alone in all this. Attending functions at my ex's family's home so that my kids can still maintain their incredible relationship with their family and so that I don't lose out on time with them. I've allowed myself to be injured and my heart to be hurt so that my kids don't have to feel it. I've apologized multiple times to people who I don't feel deserved it and waited for mends to be made from them. A wait that has never ended.

Like I said in my points, I know this (invisible) blog may ruffle feathers, but it's how I feel currently. These are emotions I've been trying to navigate for almost two years (silently) and have seemed to only make slow progress.

So.
Stepmoms.
Stepdads.
Co-parenting aficianados.

Perspective?