I have been thinking a lot, lately, of my personal power and how little of it I OWN.

You see… I wasn’t raised to believe that girls had any real power. Girls were supposed to be delicate, fragile, powerless creatures. We were things protected by the fierceness of our fathers, our brothers, our boyfriends, our husbands… without all these wonderful POWERFUL males to encompass our soft fragility we would be nothing.

What a load of BULLSHIT.

Yet, for YEARS I didn’t question this notion of male power. It was taken for granted, in my upbringing, that I would follow the Path that my family wanted for me – I would dutifully get my high school education, go to university and get a suitable degree in a nice cushy area of generalized “Arts and Sciences”, find a suitable man from a good, upstanding family, marry, have children and go on to continue the lines.  In my early years my grandmothers taught me the “womanly arts” – knitting, sewing, baking, cooking, gardening, cleaning, needlework – and the ways of female society. I hated it.

I was dragged to church to learn obedience and faith. I was dragged to learn to fear the male POWER that the Christian God represented and to learn (apparently) that this same power resided in not only the ministers of God, but all males — and that someday, if I was “good enough” I would be lorded over by a husband who would have ultimate say over me.

GAG ME.

Early on in my career as a woman (pretty much right after menarche) I rejected Christianity and the ideal of a Patriarchal God-Being that preferred men to women.  I out rightly denied the tenets of Christianity in my first attempt to “find myself” in my teens… and ultimately became a Wiccan.

You’d think that having rejected the God-Man-Power Triumph-ariate (yes, I made that word up) I would have awoken to my own powerful nature. But while I rejected the Male-God-Power-Over bullshit in favour of a more balanced Male-Female-Power-Sharing spiritual ideal I never quite made the mental leap to intimate relationships being equal partnerships…

In SPIRITUALITY I was willing to raise and celebrate my own power, yet I continued to life my mundane life as if my gender identity meant I needed to be cared for and protected and lorded over by the Godhead of a male figure. I continued in my social life, to believe that I needed to have a boyfriend and eventually a husband, to fulfill the female destiny and to take my place in society.

UTTER. FUCKING. BULL. SHIT.

What can I say, hindsight IS 20/20,what I can see standing on the fallout of 36 years of life shows me that I had the power all along, I was just afraid to use it. And what was more, that someone, somewhere KNEW that girls had power, and tried to teach the impressionable ones (like myself) that wanted to please, that in order to  have a place in the world they needed a MAN to hold them up.

So, here I sit… resting on the baggage of 36 years of experience on this earth, and what do I see clearly:

• Everyone, from my grandmothers to the school system to the formalized religious institutions, was AFRAID of the power that I held. Instead of teaching our girls to embrace their powerful natures as much as our boys, our culture seems to have tried to deny us the power.  Men hold power, women cower. Despite how far we have supposedly come, there are still people teaching their daughters to FEAR being FIERCE, SELF EMPOWERED PEOPLE, and I was one of those daughters!
• The abuse I suffered from theEx came about because, right from the beginning of the relationship, I handed him not only the right to use HIS power but MY power as well. I would never have accepted the “I am your husband, I have the RIGHT to make the final decisions” bullshit if I hadn’t BELIEVED he had in some ineffable, inalienable RIGHT given to him by virtue of his owning a fucking PENIS! This belief in this could be explained by virtue of upbringing and culture, but more than that I need to OWN the fact that I never once scrutinized these things or challenged the way they were.
• The best way for ME to change the world, is for me to change MY world. That means CHALLENGING the things I take for granted and NOT letting the world wash over me as “the way it is”.
• I can start now, challenge the way things are and find the way they work best FOR ME without it bringing down the whole of the fabric of society.
• And for THAT matter, the idea that we have to follow certain customs or norms in order to maintain this fabric of society? That’s another load of bullshit.

So… also looking back, things I wish that I had known these truths:

• Have a man if you want, but don’t be afraid to leave him.
• You have the right to change your mind, even in love.
• Divorce is not failure.
• No one has the right to abuse you physically, mentally, emotionally, verbally, financially or sexually.
• Protect your body from harm but if someone does you harm SPEAK UP and don’t be ashamed for THEIR actions.
• You don’t need to get married; you can choose to get married.
• Love is not something to be hoarded or something that only one group of people is allowed to celebrate.
• Babies are a blessing, not a curse. Don’t marry for the sake of children.
• Never quit learning, and don’t ever let anyone tell you learning something is a waste.

Now is the time for me to Challenge the status quo and come into my power…

I hope it’s not too late for me….

Years ago, when I would have identified myself first and foremost as a Wiccan*, I came across something called the Celtic Tree Sign… sort of a Celtic Pagan Astrology thing. I don’t know if it was real, or yet another thing created by those displaced European Pagans who desperately wanted to connect with something, and so looked back to their supposed Celtic roots. But there it was, another “what is your sign, what does your tree say about you” and I remember that every iteration of this “tree sign” thing I came up with the same, damned tree…

The WILLOW

My concept of a willow was that of the obsequious “weeping willow” a droopy sad looking tree that fairly oozes the idea of self pity and “oh, woe is me”. I associate it with a WEAK, mopey, quality of self-reflection that gets one stuck in the “what’s wrong with me” thinking.  It was of a tree that was whipped about in the wind, never standing solid against the storms being thrown at me…

This is what the Celtic Tree Sign says about Willow:

“If you are a Willow sign, you are ruled by the moon, and so your personality holds hands with many of the mystical aspects of the lunar realm. This means you are highly creative, intuitive (highly psychic people are born under the sign of the Willow) and intelligent. You have a keen understanding of cycles, and you inherently know that every situation has a season. This gives you a realistic perspective of things, and also causes you to be more patient than most tree signs. With your intelligence comes a natural ability to retain knowledge and you often impress your company with the ability to expound on subjects from memory. Willow Celtic tree astrology signs are bursting with potential, but have a tendency to hold themselves back for fear of appearing flamboyant or overindulgent. It is your powers of perception that ultimately allow your true nature to shine, and what leads you to success in life.”

Maybe I’m wrong about the willow.

Have you ever seen a willow, truly SEEN one? A willow bends in the storm, the flexibility that allows it to adapt but not break. It sits on the edge of the marshy wetlands (the emotional aspect?) and thrives without drowning. Even the WEEPING willow, the sorrowful member of this tribe, can both reach for the sky and touch the ground!
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Recently I have been thinking of who I am… and what I am… I started this blog for the purpose of finding my voice and finding myself and finding my true strength.

For years I got caught up with what other people thought of me – I was caught in the reflective pool, gazing at myself and wondering why I wasn’t happy and how I could become what other people wanted me to be – and I never once even CONSIDERED doing something counter to that.

I graduated high school and immediately went to university. Was I ready? NO. But I went because it was what was expected of me. What did I WANT to do? I wanted to travel somewhere, but I felt that I wasn’t permitted by my upbringing (until I was 32 I never went ANYWHERE outside my city BY MYSELF) and so I did what I thought I should do.

I dated men that I knew were acceptable to my family – they had good earning potential and good family – and never considered anything other than the headlong trip into marriage. Was I ready? NO. Did I love the man I married? NO, but I was too afraid to say “no” to a proposal because that was what I was groomed to do, get married and have children. While I wanted children, I didn’t necessarily want the man I married.

Even leaving the abuse was hard because of the expectations surrounding the image of who I was… I was a wife, I was a mother, and to those outside my home, I had a good husband and a “good deal”. I was miserable. I felt that I had grown up too soon after university, been pushed to get a job when my kids were too young (therefore not getting to be the kind of mother I wanted to be) and leaving an abusive husband necessitated that I work more to provide for the kids and pay the lawyer to get divorced.

I should have been free to be who I wanted to be once I was free of the Ex’s bullshit, but I wasn’t. I lived with my parents, so I was careful to be what they felt was “good enough”. I lived under threat from theEx of him taking my children or cutting child support, so I played the role of “good girl”. I dated the person he accused me of leaving him for, because I might as well do the crime since I already paid for it!

Not once have I considered, first and formost, about what *I* wanted in my life.

Until recently, that is. I always worried more about what others would THINK if I did this or that or the other thing. Not how I would feel about myself, but what OTHER people would think or say, or god forbid, DO to me if I did what I wanted, said what I needed, or admitted to what I really wanted to do in my life…

That is absolute BULLSHIT.

I am a 36 year old woman. I have a job that pays my bills. I have a car that is paid off. I have very little debt. I have enough to make my bills. I have retirement savings. I know my limits. I know my rights now, and I know what the Ex can and cannot do to me if he disapproves of my life style.

I am an adult. I do NOT need anyone’s permission for the choices I make in my life. I do not have to cower (anymore) for not loving my husband, for fighting against him to have my daughter, for choosing to leave my marriage, for the mistakes I have made in the process of my divorce.

I do NOT need permission from anyone to live my life the way I want it. Not to save or spend, travel or stay, love or leave, hold or release… My life is for me and my kids and whomever I choose to share it with – not my ex husband, not my ex-stalker, not friends, not employer or coworkers, not my parents, not my extended family – and if people choose not to agree with the things I do, then that’s okay.

Maybe I am learning from Willow… before I saw willow’s ability to bend as a weakness… now I see that being able to adapt and change, to stay grounded and rooted while the storm has whipped about me, is a strength. I see the ability to live with emotions and not be overwhelmed, to reflect on the patterns and cycles in life as a BENEFIT and a BLESSING…

I know, now, that I can grow towards the sky while still staying in touch with the grounding emotions and intuition that allow me to grow to my full potential. More than being rooted to my past, I am able to draw on my awareness of the emotional side of things to soften my approach and allow me to bend and whip about without breaking.  I’m learning that what I thought was a weakness (my ability to feel and share my feelings with others) is really able to be a strength as I ground myself through my awareness of not only my foundation but my emotions.

Have you ever found your perceived weakness was really your truest strength?

* I no longer primarily identify myself as Wiccan. This is a new thing that I’m starting to explore, I still identify as Pagan, but no longer want to focus on being Wiccan.

Randomly I participate in Jamie Ridler’s Wishcasting Wednesday meme. Sometimes I intend to do it, and forget. Sometimes I just don’t really have a concrete answer. Sometimes life just gets in the way…

So… this week’s question is:

What do you wish to have?

I notice, once I have written it down (or typed it out) that it isn’t “what do you wish you had?”… it’s not a regret, it’s not yearning, it’s looking forward to gaining something that isn’t there YET…

Profound

So what do I wish to HAVE?

1. Family.  I don’t feel particularly close to any of my family, and that’s something I don’t really know how to change.  Because I am not exactly the kind of woman my mother wanted in a daughter, I have not felt love and support growing up that fostered my innate desire to explore and take leaps of faith. While they aren’t necessarily bad, my family has not really been there for me through the worst of my divorce or after and I have ended up feeling completely abandoned.  I wish to have “family”, even not-biologically related people who stood in for family – a set of people that I felt I belonged with and who cared and supported me and whom I cared and supported, a set of people who I knew would not “I told you so” when I took risks that didn’t pan out.
2. Family (part 2). Ever since I left theEx I have felt a lack. I always wanted to be married and have children, and a part of me felt like leaving the marriage (even an abusive one) was giving up half of what I was and half of my dreams.  Since I only have joint custody, there are weeks I don’t get to see (or talk to) my children while they are with theEx, which stresses me more than the lack of life partner. It isn’t a “GOAL”, in that I don’t think that I would do anything JUST to remarry or cohabitate with someone else, but it’s something I do wish to have… someday. To have someone I love to be there at the end of the day, to raise children with someone as an equal and cared for part of a nuclear family… I wish to have a life partner and children.
3. Passion/Purpose.  I know that it’s out there… somewhere… but I have to find it. I know that there HAS to be something I am good at, good enough at something that I can make a career out of it, or good enough at something that it’s all I want to do. I’m just not sure what that is… yet. I want to have the peace of mind that comes with knowing why I am here…

What do YOU wish to have?

 With my divorce finalized, I have come to realize that the relationship with theEx has not only legally changed, but is ripe for a complete overhauling of the rules of engagement. While the rules have slowly been changing since I made the momentous step of walking out of our marital home and it has been difficult to create a sense of my complete independence from the role I played for so long.

The relationship with theEx was abusive. Verbally and emotionally theEx would use guilt and threats to subdue me and make me feel as small and unimportant as he could. Whenever I tried to create a boundary he would push through and stomp out my efforts. While most people would think that it would be easier to get away from someone who was “just” emotionally and verbally abusive than someone who hit you that’s not true.

 The was weakened boundaries for myself. Since standing up for myself, making my own decisions and trusting MYSELF were often triggers for abuse from theEx (because control was important to him) I avoided those behaviours. He could control me, and he wanted to keep that control, and anything the questioned his control/authority caused him to REMIND me who “kept” me (same with the Stalker) using care and money as a reason and induce feelings that I would have to stay.

When I broke loose and started looking at things clearly for the first time it was pretty obvious to me that I needed to decide FOR ME what was and was not acceptable. I needed to have boundaries so I could become the person I was meant to be.

I Needed to Build a Sanctuary of ME

I had to come to a place in my life where I felt safe to explore myself.

That might sound strange to some people, but the effort of avoiding negative emotions from things around me had stopped me from really finding out who I was. I hadn’t had space of my own, previously, where I felt I was free to unfurl my wings…

The first thing I did was to realize that I needed both PHYSICAL and EMOTIONAL space I needed time to make my home my OWN space. I wanted to sleep by myself, I wanted to do my own podcast by myself, I wanted to worship alone, I wanted to cook for myself, I wanted to parent my children alone, I wanted to watch tv, do needlework, read, write, blog, bathe…I wanted to taste life and EXPERIENCE things without having to please someone else or SHARE every single experience with someone.

I (started to) disentangle myself from a toxic relationship. Some of the elements of control and guilt and verbal abuse that I experienced in past relationships were violently waving red flags:

• being made to feel “selfish” or guilty via email for not agreeing to what the other wanted
• being made to feel pressured to share/hide my spirituality
• finding “gifts” on my doorstep intended to woo/buy/guilt me into response
• text messages/emails threatening me if I didn’t respond immediately
• attacks for my blog/diary/journals

While it was hard to leave theEx, realizing that the Stalker was just as bad wasn’t as hard. Part of realizing what I wanted in my life necessitated cutting out what I didn’t want, no matter what the other person wanted. Realizing that things were heading down a road I no longer wanted to walk, I choose to walk away. Saying that, the cutting of ties was harder than just saying that I was done. All told, I had to screen email, change locks, change my phone number and resist reacting to the threats, pleas, angry outbursts, drunk texts/calls, and viscious attacks on my blog for 6 months before I felt I could let down my guard and feel SAFE again.

 I went through a massive decluttering. I threw away/recycled/donated/gifted items that were in my home that no longer spoke of who I was. I was no longer Mrs. TheEx, after all. I was no longer bound by his rules for asthetic and status objects!

 I made room in my space for ME. I cleaned. I reflected. I enjoyed. I created sacred space for myself to shine through.

I modified my living arrangements to fit my lifestyle. The biggest thing I did was stop renting and make the jump to purchasing my own townhouse. Yes, I gave up savings, but it gave me a way out of an insecure and increasingly unlivable situation with my upstairs neighbors and a deadbeat landlord. Which lead to…

 Making lifestyle changes to fit the person I was becoming. For the first time in my life I started to really think about what I wanted my life too look like — present, near future, distant future — and I started to create a plan to get there. That meant having to make hard decisions in my life– what things I valued the most, what financial goals I wanted to meet, what interpersonal goals I wanted, what kind of relationship did I want to have with my family/kids/friends/partner/self — and start to make the necessary changes.

Setting Boundaries

Building the boundaries (for me) was a process of getting to a space and time when I was able to be secure enough in my environment to start working not just to survive but to thrive as a person. Realizing, for the first time, that my life didn’t need to be lived to please or appease another person, that I could make my own decisions without having to justify or ask permission, was a truly NEW experience for me.

I feel like a new person.

I have started to change my relationship with my (now finally truely EX) ex-husband. I would like to say that I have become an expert on setting boundaries with him and maintaining them. I would be lying if I told you that.

Like all people who are used to getting their own way, setting boundaries with theEx has had the unfortunate effect of causing theEx to… well… to throw “temper tantrums” and exhibit bullying, abusive behaviour. And, just as his past behaviour would scare me into bowing to his demands or appeasing him, I have often felt the express “need” to give in to his demands, felt guilty, felt like a shitty mother, worried about my abilities to “make it”, and accepted blame for actions that were not MINE.

I have sometimes FAILED to stand up to him and defend my boundaries. I have continually taken on responsibility for his feelings, his reactions, and his needs, at the detriment of my OWN feelings, needs, or rights. Little by little I am unpacking the words he uses, the feelings that are evoked, and what my rights REALLY are. Little by little I am building stronger boundaries with him. Little by little I am gaining personal space and letting go of the fears that gave him control over me in the past.

I am standing firm.

 My relationship with theEx has to change. And that means that his role in my life has to change:

• I will no longer be afraid of him, since he no longer holds any power over me. While I was married to him I was economically tied to him (and his spending habits), but now I am financially free from his BS. The most he can threaten to do is take me to court for not “cooperating” with him the way he wants me to… and at the worst they will charge me money and uphold the status quo because I am a good parent (albeit strict) and a healthy person
• I will no longer accept responsibility for his financial fuckery. It is a well known fact amoungst the people who know theEx that he spends money faster than he earns it. But his spending now has nothing to do with me. NOTHING. His legal expenses are his problem and I am not going to remediate his costs (I can’t trust him enough to deal with him without legal assistance) or negotiate to keep his costs low at my expense. His child support payments are the MINIMUM required by the courts… I have never asked for more than was legally owed.
• I will no longer allow the guilt or blame. I realize that theEx exercised control over me by making me feel “not good enough” because it made him more secure knowing that I was insecure, and the easiest way to make me insecure was to make me question if I was being good enough by making me feel guilt for something I haven’t done or blame for something I supposedly HAD done.
• I will no longer accept control from outside me. I will no longer worry about meeting arbitrary demands and deadlines. Since there is nothing he can really do to me if I fail to live up to his expectations, I will make the conscious effort to put a stop to his expectation that I will drop everythign to answer his calls or respond to his emails immediately. Unless someone is sick, injured or dying there is no reason he should expect me to jump to respond to his demands. Again, he has nothing he can do, other than throw a temper tantrum.
• I will not allow him to corner me. I will not enter his home, I will not invite him into mine. We have no real reason to socialize together, and I have nothing I want to “talk” to him about that desperately, and its usually a code for wanting to pressure me into some sort of clandestine agreement when HE says it…

I imagine my personal sanctuary being fortified by my “rules” — I build a door by not letting him have power over me, I create a peephole when I view but don’t respond to his “urgency” via phone or email, I create myself a piggy bank when I control only MY spending issues and stop enabling his, I create a fence when I keep him out of my home, and I create a MOAT (full of karmasharks) when I take away his power to use guilt and blame…

What do you see when you create boundaries to keep toxic people out of your life?

I’m having a hard time writing lately. Things are feeling… hard… right now. I am distracted, trying to keep so many “balls in the air” in so many aspects of my life.

It’s hard to talk about things, even here, because I know that my words will be judged.  I appreciate people READING/Listening to my words, but there are some times when I do not necessarily need the FEEDBACK on my decisions, just the support that I am doing things the way I need to do them.

That being said… I have things that I want to get off my mind that don’t necessarily need the judgment of minds outside me (although support is okay, I don’t necessarily need “shoes” thrown (to use a Havi-Brook-ism) right now)…

1. Divorce

Amazingly enough, the order of divorce has FINALLY been signed by a judge, meaning that I will legally be no longer married (according to the Government of Canada) 31 days from that date. For those keeping track, the divorce judgment was issued April 15, 2010, and so I will be legally divorced as of May 16, 2010.

I don’t know how to feel about it.  My emotions are all over the place with the finality of the ending of my marriage.  I am:

• Relieved that this part is over
• Frustrated with the way things were handled
• Upset that I failed
• Happy that I made it through, relatively unscathed
• Annoyed that theEx continues to try and muddy the issues and play games with support
• Intimidated by theEx with regards to his constant badgering me to see how he’s the one presenting things “fairly” while I am being greedy
• Disappointment with the “death” of a life I wanted – married with kids and a home
• Realization that I am better off (emotionally, spiritually, financially, physically, socially) without theEx
• Unsure
• Self-loathing because I feel that he might be right in labeling me “greedy” for asking the lawyers to review the support documents rather than (yet again) agreeing with what he wants and sees as “fair”
• Proud of standing up to him and his bullying
• Afraid of the debt from enforcing my child support order
• Disappointed in theEx for trying to bully me out of support for our kids, when he makes THREE TIMES what I do
• Afraid. Afraid that I have been wrong. Afraid that the ex is right and that my asserting my NOW COURT GIVEN RIGHTS is “greedy” or “selfish” or will cause issues later on
• Virtuous. I did things right. I didn’t play dirty. I got out without bankrupting myself, and I asked for LESS THAN I was due from theEx and STILL made it through.
• ANGRY that even though I make 50-75% LESS than theEx he feels the need to constantly tell me that he can’t “live” on what he earns if he is required to pay support
• Guilt that he is “struggling” and feels that it is MY fault that he isn’t able to make his ends meet
• Frustration that I feel angry and guilty and a bit superior to him when he could definitely live within his means, rather than try to force me to give in and let him pay less and less…

2. CHILD SUPPORT ISSUE

There is a question of outstanding child support for 2009 on the table.  It shouldn’t be a shock to him, but he is trying to control the situation outside of talking to the lawyers. This is simply something he is struggling with, and getting DESPERATE trying to get me to agree with his interpretation of “fair”.

Most conversations go like this:

X: I had to wait to file taxes. I needed to be sure I had the money.

Me: I just need the forms.

X: I will get the forms when they come. But you DO see how it is unfair to have my income viewed at $X this year? They are counting it TWICE!! That’s not fair.

Me: I am not going to offer an opinion on that right now.

X: but it isn’t FAIR! 

Me: I do not know the tax and support laws/guides for this. Ask your lawyer, she’ll know.

X: But she charges me for every 2 min phone call! I can’t AFFORD that! But you can SEE its not fair this way! I can TELL Lawyer that my income is $Y and your income as $T and she will tell us what should have been paid.

Me: I am not agreeing or disagreeing. I don’t know the rules and I do not feel comfortable agreeing with you on this.

X:You’re being GREEDY!!! I have to live too you know…(much blah blah whining and email abuse about how I’m ruining him inserted here)

The funny part of this is that theEx makes THREE times what I make in a year. THREE TIMES. I don’t feel sorry for him. I don’t AGREE with him. I don’t DISAGREE with him, for the record.

I agreed to have it reviewed and dealt with… by SOMEONE ELSE, someone NOT theEx, someone who KNOWS about these things, is to look at both sets of documents and give us the answer…

I want to be protected.

3. LOVE LIFE

I haven’t wanted to write about this because I had enough of the negative reactions from people when I mentioned that I had been contacted by the Noodle.   And even worse when I mentioned that I RESPONDED to him

I got reactions that ranged from supportive but cautious to outright hostile about the Noodle. While I respect that things did not necessarily go very well between the Noodle and I, the ending was pretty much a letting go and stepping back away, not a blow out fight.  Responding to the message on FaceBook, then chatting on MSN, and talking on the phone??? Those were 100% my choices to make and didn’t affect anyone other than me and my children, and, those people are MY responsibility and no one else’s.

While there was perhaps a grain of trying to protect me from hurt, the vehemence of the proclamation that even talking to the Noodle again was “stupid” and that he was just going to “use” me again was a little disconcerting to me. Yes, the relationship went off the rails pretty early on – mostly due to lack of communication, stress of divorces (both of us were completing divorce processes), and child rearing pressures … but in the end only I know what I want and do not want in my life…

I wrote truly about the previous part of the relationship. The last day I saw him was January 1. The last time I talked to him was January 5 when I called to wish him a happy birthday. We drifted apart via MSN on January 12, and he had made it clear that he just hadn’t been interested in fighting for a future.

So I was shocked to hear from him 3 weeks ago. At first I wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted, but I was willing to listen, I was open to at least a friendship. I wasn’t about to pretend that nothing happened, I wasn’t able to just ignore the fact that I had felt very isolated and alone and unwanted in the relationship for most of the time we were “together”. I couldn’t ignore the things I had done wrong, but I couldn’t brush aside the lack of willingness to care and nurture a relationship on his side either.

In the end I decided, FOR MYSELF, to give the relationship another shot. There are changes in the way things are going to go – I am not hosting weekends at my place, we’re not getting the kids together yet, the focus (whether anyone else agrees or not) is on the Noodle and I (not on our lives as single parents) and we’re communicating regularly. And even though people would rather I just stay single and focus only on my kids and my cats, I know that my life path isn’t necessarily going to follow the “approved” path that everyone ELSE wants for me…

So… there you have it: My divorce has been signed and I will be officially, legally single again as of May 16^th, I am still avoiding agreeing with theEx on back support issues, and I am once again dating the Noodle…

Any questions???