The Persistance of Memory

There comes in every human's life at least a brief period where the world is more surreal than real, in which the tight reflection looking back at you is the real world and the funhouse mirror reflection is where you live. In which it seems demons instead of angels sit at the right hand of God and that the righteous and good and pure of heart are cast into Perdition or outright Damnation at the caprices of an insane Supreme Deity.

Such is my life as of June 9th, 2009. The rules have changed, and it is not even advisable to trust or believe in gravity or even Newton's Third Law of Physics. Anything you were ever taught as a child about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, turning the other cheek and all that jazz no longer applies because someone who has no business being above you decided to change the rules.

And the rules would at least seem to imply that when you welcome into the world a beautiful little boy who would grow to love you more than almost everyone else in the world, you will be allowed to help him celebrate each birthday even if you've been demoted from a member of the immediate family to an extended member of the family. After all, it's a small child's birthday party. Presents. Cake and ice cream. Balloons. Hardly the makings for the potential of disaster.

Tell that to my ex and the Hudson Police Dept.

They paid a visit to my house clutching printouts of three emails from me to her that have already been adjudged even before being read by some hypothetical judge to be "borderline threatening." The cop said he had three such emails in his possession that he was willing to show to a judge. This is the only one I'd written yesterday that can even vaguely hope to satisfy the definition of "borderline threatening":

It doesn't sound to me as if you're respecting my wishes so...

I cannot believe, even knowing you as well as I do, that you would take it upon yourself to plan a birthday party for a child who doesn't even live there, anymore, and then deliberately not invite me knowing how much I love that child, and then not even tell the parents about it.

Because (Gavin's mother) said this morning she doesn't know anything about any such party. Which I don't believe for a minute.

It's obvious that since last winter, you've been quivering for the slightest excuse to say what you did in that last email, even though all I did was speak the truth. If I misunderstood our relationship past or present, then I guess I was misunderstanding the part where you were acting in collusion with others behind my back to keep me from Gavin's birthday party.

And you call me overly political. Look at you, turning a two year old's birthday party into a political statement and then trying to enforce a homemade restraining order on me when I ask too many uncomfortable questions. Barring me from that party (which isn't your call but the parents'), knowing how much I love that child, knowing what I've been doing for him to keep milk and food in him and diapers on him, knowing I would literally die for him, is a new low even for you. The biggest gift I got him is in (Gavin's mother's) possession and he'll be opening a major present from a grandfather who's been banned from his party and won't be permitted to see him open it.

You want to help organize and even finance a birthday party for our grandson? Fine. That's perfectly acceptable. But don't presume to disinvite me without even giving his own parents a say in the matter and archly tell me I don't need to know what plans you're making with your family. I'm getting sick and tired of being treated like this when all I've ever tried to be is nice, respectful and helpful.

So if you're planning on inviting that two-timing psychopath who's about to marry into your family and your "former SEAL" boyfriend, then Gavin's going to have one memorable party. So, if I were you, I'd immediately put the skids to whatever it is that you're planning if it involves making political statements you haven't the right to make.

It's up to (Gavin's parents) to decide who can go or not. Not you. It's a two year-old's birthday party, not a presidential inauguration.

Another notion of which you need to disabuse yourself: That you retain complete control over my life and the actions therein, that you have all the power. You. Do. Not.

God only knows what other two she and the police could possibly construe as "threatening" but that's honestly all I can find.

First of all, a little backstory. There may or may not be people there who would be very willing to do me harm and all I was saying was if I am either figuratively or literally pushed, I will push back. All I wanted to do was to be involved. Ever since last week, I have been lied to. I have been told there will be a party for him, my participation is not welcome yet the kid's parents are telling me there is no such party.

Whatever. It doesn't matter anymore.

She is so determined to destroy me and entrap me in this dark, twisted evolution of hers that everyone else has noticed that she is quite willing to deny Gavin the company of someone he loves with all his heart simply to flex some muscle, to assert her neverending control of me to the point of even dictating my comings and goings.

And when Robert stands up for himself, well, then that's proof he's mentally unstable. I so fear for his mental health. Please offer him some help, officer. I care so much for him. Now I know what Susan fucking Lindauer went through with the feds.

No pun intended, this latest drama is merely the icing on the cake. Only a very small handful of my intimates in both the real world and online, perhaps five, know what precisely is going on, things that would knock the rest of you on your ass if you weren't sitting down. I am at a point in my life where the rules no longer seem to apply and I have less and less incentive to play by those now discarded rules.

I am a man, a man with feelings, not some statue that will endlessly endure pigeon shit and garbage laid at its foundation. I am truly, honestly and sincerely not looking for trouble yet it seems to find me and I am getting sick and tired of running and cowering from it.

I had until very recently been trying to make atonements for not being the man I was supposed to be by helping loved ones as much as I could financially afford to. It only started with my grandson because his poor parents are struggling. I have tried to help other bloggers and someone else whom only my fiancee and perhaps four others know about, a person whom it cannot be said has repaid my extraordinary kindness.

I have only tried to be a better human being yet it seems the more altruistic I try to be, the more resistance and more ingratitude and more adversity I face. If that sounds melodramatic, I am sorry but that really is the only way I can put it. I have spent vast sums of money trying to provide some practical assistance to whose whom I dearly love and have gotten nothing beyond a few thanks yous. No recognition, no respect and sometimes nothing at all.

I'm living a Rodney Dangerfield monologue as illustrated by Salvador Dali. The rules no longer apply. I'm living proof that it does not pay to observe the law, to play by the rules.

All I wanted to do was go to my grandson's birthday party. I did not seek trouble. It sought me.

And I will no longer run from it, even if it derails my marriage plans.