And away we go...

So I got a job and you'd think I'd be happy about it. I'm finally going to be able to start rebuilding but no everyone around me is just shitting all over me. you were right about so many things. you were right that my dad didn't give a fuck about me, you were right that no one in my family did.  they are just as bad as you, just as bad as your family and it's not wonder why I stayed in the relationship with you for as long as I did, I had no one to turn to, no one to talk to and now I have no one still.  we should all be happy that I got a job but no one is.  Two duffle bags, that's all we have, that's all we came with and no one knows what it's like to lose everything and have to start all over again. They think they know what they would do, they think but until they are truely in that situation they have no fucking clue. I don't want to talk to anyone, I don't want to hear their stupid advice I just want to be alone. I'll figure it out on my own...once again...you don't need to help me no one does.  lisa will do it alone again, cause that's what you all want. you either want to break me or want to watch me suffer.  people around me with too much fucking free time, too much money on their hands and they all seem to think because they weren't "stupid" enough to get themselves into the trouble that I did that they shouldn't have to inconvenience their life at all...and whatever let them have their fucking lives...from now on we'll all just live in this superficial fucking world were we neve rmention hardship or heartache or anything like that.  We'll talk about the gym, we'll talk about the house, we'll talk about stupid mindless bullshit just so we can satisfy everyones need to just life a meaningless existence where nothing ever goes wrong...how fucking truman show of you all. I'm just tired of being the black sheep, the inconvenience...that's one thing we had in common we both know how it feels. It's no wonder you were attracted to me, you saw the same thing they did, someone you can beat up on all day long and it's ok.  GO ABOUT YOUR LIVES EVERYONE Lisa won't bother you anymore.

I haven't counted the days since we last saw you, I stopped doing that. I stopped caring when we last saw you.  Therapy has taught me to walk away from you, as you wanted us out of your life, I didn't owe you anything.

Your mom seems to think I care about how you're doing.  She thinks that by sending me updates about your recovery will make me feel better about the situation. As if that will change the damage that you've done to me. As if that will take away the pain that I feel everyday.  As if that will take away the nightmares, the flashbacks, the images of you holding on your fist and clinching your teeth at me.  As if that's going to take away my anger.  My anger of how you didn't even care that your daughter was standing right next to me when you struck me, threw me down, stabbed me. As if you being clean for 2 months has any impact on my life. It doesn't make it any easier on me. I don't care if you're sober, I don't care if you have a job. I could care less what you're doing in your life right now.  That's how I feel, sorry if affends you and your fucked up family. Your mom is a delusional cunt and neither one of them are coming near my daughter. I'd sooner let you around her then them. They have absolutely no care in the world for me as a human being.

It's not that I don't want you to do well in your life, it's not that I don't want you to succeed, it's that I'm just not ready to give a FUCK about it. Hate me for that if you want, call me a cold hearted bitch. I'm just not ready to hear how great your life is without us and how miserable it was with us.

Your mom is fucking happy you're doing well without me, so they can blame me for your behavior. No one asks how I'm doing, no one asks if I need anything. She wanted me out of your life just like you did and I'm fucking done communicating with them. They are just as sick as you are.  They enabled your behavior they said "go ahead beat your wife we won't do anything".  So either your playing a game with this rehab, you're just doing it for court orders, or you never meant anything that ever came out of your drug enduced mind.

I hate you, I honestly do. I've lost so much in my life because of you. I was robbed of the first moments of holding my daughter because of you.  You left us in that hospital all alone. You took pictures of me holding your 2 week old daughter with a black eye cause you thought it was cool. I CAN NEVER FORGIVE YOU I CAN NEVER TRUST YOU. I can't stand the fact that you are her father, and the fact that you may come after her one day makes me want to scream. I can't handle that, I can't handle EVER trusting you with her. If you ever hurt her like you hurt me so help me god I won't know how to handle it. She is so beautiful, so innocent, so perfect I CANNOT allow you or your DRUNKEN parents to ever hurt her.  SOMEONE HAS TO PROTECT HER AND IT WAS ME. I was the only one to protect her.  They never cared, you never cared...IT WAS ME. I turned you into the cops to PROTECT HER. I wanted to give her a better life and you had no interest in her. Now you got the "responsibilities" out of your life so you're free. I know you made a huge mistake by hooking up with me....well now you have your freedom...go for it. I FUCKING HATE YOU.

I think you should....

What you've missed day 42. Took her for a walk today on a nature trail...can you believe that she walked .5 miles all by herself? I can't believe it, she has so much energy. She said 'pillow' today and when she said it she put her finger up to her lips and said "shhh" it reminded me of all the times we'd crawl into bed when you were asleep and she'd look over at you and go "shhhh" and i'd say "that's right daddy's sleeping".

It breaks my heart that she'll never know you. It breaks my heart that you had such disregard for our well being that you'd risk it all to push us away. I realize now that all you were doing was pushing us away, but to have to go that route is pretty pathetic if you don't mind me saying. You could have been a man and said you couldn't handle it, but you don't know how to do that all you know is to push everyone away that you think is getting in the way of the life you want for yourself.  We were never trying to get in the way we were just trying to be your life, we just wanted a family. I hope you find what you're looking for cause as long as I have her I'll always have what I'm looking for.

Do you remember how her face would light up a room and everywhere we went someone would stop us to tell us how beautiful she was? How she'd make a perfect stranger smiles and laugh? Do you remember what her smile looked like? What she smelled like? How her laughter sounded? Do you cry every night like I do? Do you even miss us? Do you wish you did things differently? I can't help but feel this void and it hurts, it hurts so bad because you let us down. You let me down in the worst way ever, and now I can openly say this. You never loved me, I don't know what I was to you and I'll never know. You've caused me so much pain in my life, the agony, the terror, the anger I still remember what it all feels like. If I close my eyes I can imagine what your fist felt like when it hit my head, I see this image of you every time I close my eyes, it's you gritting your teeth with your shark eyes and lunging towards me...I fucking hate it, I hate that, that is the image I picture when I close my eyes. I wish I could remember you in one of those moments we shared that were tender, I wish I could remember what feeling secure in your arms felt like. I wish I could remember what it felt like to kiss you for the first time, I wish I had a happy memory. I wish there was one, but you and I were aren't those people. We're not the ones that look back on our lives and smile over a glass of wine and a steak dinner...we're lost souls for ever to wonder this earth in pain.

Another Day Another Heartache

Well it's been 41 days since you last saw your daughter. Today her and I took a shower together for the first time. She's always so curious when she watches me in the shower. She holds the shower curtain back and watches and I see her trying to climb in.  So today, I took her diaper off and got in and encouraged her to get in with me...sure enough she came right in. She was laughing and cracking herself up, she had such a fun time. It was so much easier washing her and a lot less messy! She loves to color, she forces you to color with her. And by forces you I mean tries to push you out of the couch on to the floor opens your hand for you and puts a crayon in your hands.  Oh yeah also, if you color with the wrong crayon she'll rip it out of your hand and give you a new one. She loves to dunk her french fries in ketchup...she just sucks the ketchup right off. Remember when we gave her ketchup and she was grossed out by it and we said "just like brodie" well now she loves ketchup. Her appetitite is different then it was before, she isn't eating as much and she's OBSESSED with drinking milk. So much that that temporary milk intohlerance thing came back so I had to switch her to soy milk. I give her half regular milk and the other soy. I'll discuss it with her pedi at her two year appointment and see if he wants me to switch for good. The more milk she takes in the looser her stools get, and I am not a fan of that. We didn't do much today, I'm still not feeling well so we just stayed home. She said "cereal" today for the first time, it's so cute the way she says it, I wish you could hear it. I wish those things mattered to you, I wish that her and I were the most important things in your life. I'm getting used to the fact that we're not.

I started thinking today about how betrayed I felt by you and your family. How I could walk around that house with two black eyes (and other injuries) and no one do anything, it tortures me to know that I meant that little to you but also to them. It tortures me to know that the disregard me as a human in that way and then expect me to let them see their granddaughter. It hurts me, I want to walk out of their lives for good.  They are in serious denial. I pushed for you to go to a mental facility, they pushed for you to go to rehab. Even the social worker and legal advocate from the shelter tried speaking to them and suggested they learn more about the "cycle of violence" and that drugs and alcohol are only the lighter fluid, that violence is the true fire. Until they get a grip on that they are forever going to think that if you "get clean" your life will be a polo shirt and a golf club. It's not EVER going to be that way, yes you have a problem with drugs and alcohol, but that anger that violence that "anti social" person inside you will FOREVER rage on. Your mom one night wrote me an email about how positive she felt about you having an "aha" moment in jail...and to myself I thought "the criminal mind does NOT have aha moments"...what the fuck is an aha moment to someone that crosses boundries and attacks his own wife right infront of his child???? She is in serious denial of what you are and It is NOT up to me to let her know, cause they think if you stop drinking and drugging you'll be fine...NOT TRUE...I was choked one night by a man who was not on drugs or alcohol.

A friend of mine asked me today if I think you're thinking of me and Leah. I told that person, that someone like you doesn't think of what other people are doing, they only think of how they're going to get through the day. I'd love to hate you and despise you for being who you are, but I can't. You are the man you are, however that man can never be a part of our lives. We will forever be connected by our daughter but that's the only connection.

I will continue to keep a diary of our daughters life for you, incase one day you come looking for us, but I will also fight every day to keep you from us. The ball is one day going to be in your court, till then I'll make sure she has the best life she could ever dream of. The day will come when she'll ask about you and I'll tell her the truth, good and bad.

Well Hello Misery

So it's Friday night at 9:24.  Just another night just another day, but one more that you were not here for. Today our daughter is 22 months and 21 days and it's been 1 month and 10 days since we both last saw you. I've had a rough day today, thinking about you...mostly missing you. I don't know how it's possible to miss someone who beat and terrorized me as much as you did. I can clearly remember you stabbing me in the head with a fork, yet I'm in the kitchen making taco's for us and I'm sobbing over the tortillas because I remember the time when we used to cook together. The weekend I left I begged you to give me a glimpse of that and cook a meal with me,but your cousin came over and you'd rather be snorting adderall up your nose and drinking wine and intelletualizing then giving me what I actually needed. It was never about me or our daughter, was it? I get so angry at you, I get so mad. We could have had it all, we could have had everything, but everything was something you never wanted. Everything meant responsbility, everything meant loving something, everything meant losing someone, everything meant someone else existed for you to worry about besides yourself, and everything well everything just wasn't in your cards was it? I don't blame you for not wanting it, I just blame you for the way you handled things.

I always told myself "if he ever hurts the baby, i'll leave"...I remember you were standing on the staircase and you socked me right in the eye with your hand wrapped around the cordless phone and I looked down at my daughter, standing right next to me and I said "he IS hurting her".  That's why I did what I did, that's why I had to do it. Her life meant more to me at that moment then mine, then yours then anyone. To subject her to that kind of violence, that kind of life...I was no longer comfortable. I could no longer allow you to hurt us the way you did. I cared about her, someone put her first and it was me. My intentions were for us to never end up this way, I have learned a lot since leaving you...I learned alot in the shelter and now alot in therapy. The thing is, you aren't so unique you are just like all other abusers, there is nothing special about you, nothing new that the people I surrounded myself with never heard about. Mostly, you fit every single text book definition of what an abuser is...and guess what I fit? Every single text book definition of someone who SURVIVED.

You've missed a month and ten days of your daughters life. And in that month in 10 days, she's become a little toddler and you've missed it. She helps mommy out so much, she brings in groceries, wipes up her spills, picks up all her toys. She is an absolute angel, and absolute picture of perfection and I could not ask to be blessed with a more wonderful little girl. Each day she says more and more words. She is obssesed with coloring and blocks. She still loves Yo Gabba Gabba, nothings changed there. She walks around the house with her baby doll in the stroller, pushing her around every room with her purse and my car keys. It's the cutest thing ever. She was playing with this book that my brother got her, it teaches her numbers, she was pressing the numbers and saying the numbers. It was so funny, she would hit the eight button over and over again just cause eight was so easy for her to say. I'm starting to use flash cards to teach her shapes and colors. We've both been sick, but you know her she's a little trooper...me on the other hand I could use some rest.

I found out that Jenji Kohan also used to write for Sex and the City, that's something I would have shared with you if you were here...so I feel like I'm sharing it with you. I will forever love you for giving me my daughter, and that's the only love I can offer you at the moment.