I won't ever lose

What do you do when you're confronted with someone who has spent eight years grabbing every possible negative narrative strand and whipping everyone in their orbit with it? The outrage and frustration is overwhelming at times and compounded by the fact that our natural instinct as humans is to want these things to heal themselves with time, as we've been told they will.

So we wait and we take it. Attack after attack. I know the truth. I know what reality is, and that's the strand I have to hang on to with both hands.

Tightly.

At the other end is this angry, hurting person trying to shake me free and off into a groundless orbit, like a beach ball at a Padres game. Hanging on to this narrative thread, knowing that I love these little girls that I give them something they need. I've moved away from that unstable, abusive arena, hoping for quality time, over quantity. The Oregon legal system did my kids wrong. I know I'm the parent who is the best choice to have kept this family together. Given the reins, I would have steered us along and things would be smooth and easy. I have no desire to displace the girls' mother. I love them and I see their need for their mom. In fact, I see it even more clearly through the fog she creates, ironically. I can see the girls' being slowly and steadily co-opted as their mother actively campaigns to force me out of their lives and paint me as a villain at every step.

I've not forgotten that her closest friends didn't understand why she had taken this path and that they couldn't even stop her from attempting this violent coup, forcing me to the sidelines and attempting to drive a wedge into our relationship.

I know her one honest moment was her confession that she was afraid the girls would love a step-mother more than her. That's a normal fear. It's completely unfounded in this case.

And yet here she is, maniuplating every person, every action, everything to create this widening physical gulf.

Go ahead, build a massive gap. I do not fear I will be replaced. I love those girls immensely. They know who I am. I have a place in their lives I won't ever lose.