February was not the saving grace that I had hoped it would be. It actually got worse. The contracts didn’t pan out. The money was painfully non-existent. The credit card I used to start up the business and to survive while getting things set up and while having no income approached the credit limit.

I had the staples in the pantry – but we were now using powdered milk and powdered eggs that I had purchased as emergency stock some time back.

Meat was a dream, although a few cans of “spam” remained and there were lots of beans. There was a great deal of rice in the diet and lots of oatmeal and pancakes. I didn’t have the usual stock of applesauce and fresh fruit for the pancakes and waffles – so we used standard syrup.

I no longer enjoyed cooking. The variety wasn’t there. I was discouraged. I’m a fresh fruit and vegetable and tossed salad kind of eater. This was different. It wasn’t comfortable.

I found a Garfield comic that pretty much reflected my own situation: In the first square, Garfield is reading a newspaper and two spiders are crawling on the table. Spider number two says “You may squish me, but you’ll never squish my spirit” The next frame is a big “Ker-Splat” and the final frame is spider number one looking at spider number two saying “How’s your spirit, Stewart?” to which the flattened spider responds “Bite me, Mikey.”

Yeah, that about summed it up. And, I was scared. I was worried that I wouldn’t find a way to make ends meet. For the first time in my life I was actually worried that I wouldn’t have food. And wouldn’t be able to feed the kids. I became horribly depressed.

My friend Bob listened to me regularly as I whined. He was the only person that really came around during this period. A few times, when I was at his place, he entertained the kids and let me nap on his couch. I felt guilty for dumping three kids on a bachelor while I slept — but any time I sat still for a minute, I fell asleep.

Alex climbs Bob like a tree, and the boys compete for his attention, so I’m sure he was in overload hell. He never complained. He never told me how rude that was. Bless you, “Bop.”

I avoided my other friends. I didn’t want to let them in, let them see. I stayed quiet and spent a lot of time alone. Well, if spending time with three kids can be considered alone. I spend a lot of time without ADULT company, anyway.

In February, like January, I couldn’t bear to make an entry on the Farm web site. That had to wait a while, until I could look back on the situation, but I did make the following entry to my sporadic journal:

2-13-02: It’s 4:38 a.m. and again I can’t sleep. It’s not that I’m not tired, I am. I’m exhausted. Mentally, physically and emotionally. I’ve not written the latest update to the farm saga because I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it.

My little experiment is failing. I’m failing. It’s all coming to an end. I’ve quit thriving here on the farm. The business is not at a point that it can support us and my resources are tapped.

The assistance from fathers is minimal in one case and non-existent in the other and I can’t continue at this rate. I should feel more angry, I should be ready to fight, I’ve always fought for what I wanted. But this time, I’m just so damn tired of fighting. I’m just so tired.

There is a battle on every front, in every direction and I just want to be still. I just want to be.

And the thing that bothers me the most is that if I’d known it was going to fail, that I’d have a year and a half here and then would have to ease back into the “real world”, I could have enjoyed it more. I would have quit working so damn hard to make it permanent and I would have enjoyed it a bit more along the way. I resent that I’ve traded my todays for my tomorrows.

I might have even saved the money I sank into the business and had a little more time here. I might have finished the novel. I might have taken more long walks in the woods, with the children, goats, dogs and cat all trailing along behind.

I might have done a lot of things other than find myself here, now, feeling this hopeless and crying all the time. I just want to run away. I’m tired of all the responsibility. If it had worked, It would never have bothered me. It’s the fact that I failed that makes me want to hide my face, to run away, to never surface.

Now I realize this sounds melodramatic. I can keep the farm, let it go back to the wilderness state where I found it and come back here and try again, when I have the money to build my cabin, when the kids are all grown and living their own lives, when the size of the cabin can be much smaller and less demanding. When I only need room for me and a place to write and sip tea.

Maybe it is the right dream, just at the wrong time. I dunno. Maybe a miracle will land on my head and the normal 3 years required to make a business fly will be amazingly reduced to 1.5 and maybe I’ll find a way to make my bills before they start cutting off essentials. Hard to run a business without a phone, especially a business conducted on the Internet via a dial-up connection.

I’m tired of feeling so whiny and weepy. I’m tired of being sick and tired. I’m tired of home schooling two boys that are fighting the process. I’m tired of watching my baby grow up without taking the time to hold her more. I’m tired of being in front of the damn computer with everyone expecting my time and attention to their pet projects – without pay of course – as if my time, my life is worth nothing.

I’ve over volunteered, over committed, and have done everything imaginable wrong. Now, looking back on it I wonder what in the HELL I was thinking – to drag three kids out to the middle of nowhere and try to make a go of it solo, even after my guaranteed income disappeared when the phone line didn’t get connected.

What was I thinking? That God would provide? Or that same misguided belief that no matter WHAT, if you work hard enough for long enough for the right reasons – and you are basically a good person with the best of intentions, that everything will just work out?

Well, maybe that is still true, but apparently I was not “meant” to be here. And I’m tired of crying over it, worrying about it and feeling so lousy. The last few months have been really hard. EXTREMELY hard. But January was the worst.

I turned 36 and realized that everything I’ve worked for is falling apart. I know that there is something I’m supposed to be learning here. Something good that is supposed to come from this, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is.

My cousin is coming to collect the kids and me in Mid-March. We are going to pack up and go for a month long visit. She’s promised to put us up, feed us, provide me a place to work and some free time away from my children.

Time to think, to sort to figure this mess out—this mess that my life has become. St. Patrick’s Day has always been my favorite holiday and I can’t wait to have a change of scenery. I love my farm, but looking out my window lately only depresses me. It only displays for me what I’m losing, what I have NOT managed to hold.

The stars are beautiful tonight, and I curse them. The goats play and Shadow teaches the boy, Merlin, how to “butt heads” in my drive. I watch and giggle, and then feel this wave of depression, sorrow and loss come over me that brings me to tears.

What am I going to do with these animals? The ones that I’ve worked with so long and so hard to be sure that we are all one big happy family? The ones that I got as babies and brought up together, the hours spent getting Shadow used to dogs – her natural enemy – and make her quit trying to hurt them anytime they got near Mieka and Merlin.

And then Wizard, the puppy that I saw thru the parvo hell, is chasing Drake – who has begun teaching him how to be a “big dog”. They roll and play and wrestle and Raven, the cat, comes out of nowhere and pounces on top of them both and then tears out and runs up a tree as Wizard gives chase. Moments later, he’s down and Wizard is mauling him – ever so carefully – and leaving slobber trails all over his belly.

Raven protests, but the moment Wizard loses interest, Raven launches a sneak attack from behind. I used to worry that Wizard would hurt him, Wiz has gotten so big now, but whenever it’s cold out, it’s wizard and Raven that curl up together.

Drake keeps watch and the goats bed down just at the edge of the woods.

THIS is what I have to leave. And how can I ever find good homes for them. This is basically all they have ever known, the kids, each other and me. They are just animals, it should be no big deal, but it is. They are all my babies now. Every one.

And I’ve made the discovery that I simply do not like men. Which is really weird since I’ve always adored men, even with their foibles. Course, I don’t really like women right now either.

I don’t want to go out into society. I want to stay here, I want to be left alone. I’m tired of fighting with ex’s, with the phone company, with the garbage man (whom I finally fired this month when he again didn’t pickup my garbage but did overturn my can and let the animals scatter it all over the yard again).

I don’t understand people. I don’t get it. I wonder if I’m a hermit in the making. I’ve always been a people-person, but lately I’d rather not. I don’t keep in contact with my friends as I should. I guess it’s just that I really don’t have anything upbeat or hopeful or helpful to say.

“Life sucks” is NOT a good attitude. Not that I feel that way all the time, only for brief periods a dozen or so times a day. And, when I do feel that way, I start to look around, count my blessings and feel guilty for feeling sorry for myself and not recognizing my advantages.

So, I’m spending a lot of time either sad, throwing a pity party or feeling guilty for the former two activities. Kinda hard for me to win with me lately. I’m negative. I’m a pessimist. The one thing I’ve never been. My glass has always been at least HALF FULL!

Now it’s completely empty. No optimism left. And hope is fading fast. I catch glimpses of it now and then, but it’s running for higher ground and seeking better company.

I spend my days working hard trying to give my best efforts to making this business fly – just in case some miracle does occur. I go nowhere that I don’t have to. I’m conserving my old car, each mile counts. I’d be sunk if it gave out on me now.

No one understands why I can’t just “pick up and go” to visit or whatever like I always have. I just can’t. I’m so broke now it’s painful. I’ve never really KNOWN broke before. Not really.

Maybe that’s what this is all about, showing me what it is to be REALLY broke. I’ve always bought for and done for everyone. Not now. Now I stay home. I don’t even call long distance. I don’t write letters, that requires stamps. I have a couple friends that come here to see me on occasion.

When I’m not working on the computer or the business end of my life, I’m sorting through things. I’ve begun a paring down process that makes my former “simplifications” look non-existent in comparison.

It is as if the ONLY thing that makes me feel any better is getting rid of excess stuff. Mom laughs at me and says that surely there is little left to discard. I’m nearly there now.

I dunno if I’m doing it to keep my mind off my problems, if I am tired of tripping over things in this tiny place I share with three other people OR if this is just a preemptive step for the move off the farm, if push really does come to shove.

If I do move, I’ll probably be able to do so in the back of a couple pickup trucks. I’m cutting things to the minimum. And, I’m feeling better about my home – much better.

Funny, I’ll probably get it in shape to where I like it right before I leave it. Isn’t THAT ironic. Funny, only not really.

I have just enough money left in my “retirement” account to move us and get us set up again elsewhere. After what the stock market has done to my investments the last couple of years, it’s amazing that anything is left, about 2/3 of it is gone. If I had cashed it all out when I left my last “real” job, I could have built the cabin with it.

I’ve never been the type to regret or wish I’d done things differently. I’ve always thought it was stupid to look back and wish for change. I always felt like you LEARN from the path you take and THAT is the value. But, on this one, I just feel that saving those thousands and using them for a cabin is what I should have done.

Now, I may have enough for a U-haul, first and last months’ rent and utility deposits. MAYBE. What happened to me? Where did the dream go? How could I have failed so miserably?

During this time of my life, I was only completely honest with one person about my situation. My cousin, Delayne.

Dee lives in Florida. We have been close since I she was 12. She’s two years older than me. I could open up to her, could tell her because she was far enough away that I felt safe. I have always told her the truth about my life. Even the ugly thoughts you have and try to hide from the world – Dee knows all of mine.

She started calling me every day in February – just checking in. Just to say hi and listen to me whine if that’s what I needed to do. She was a friend I could trust and could open up to, when I needed it the most.

My folks asked, I said it was challenging, but offered no details. I’ll be damned if I was going to admit that they were right and I really was off my rocker to move to the middle of nowhere with three kids and try to make a living running a business on the Internet. I could see how stupid it was now – and how easy it was to fail, even with determination and hard work.

I was embarrassed and I didn’t want them to see me as the failure that I considered myself. Dee told me to hold out, to make no decisions until our trip to Florida. We had planned this trip since November. I assured her that nothing would interfere. I had informed the boys’ father in December that I would be leaving for a month in mid-March.

The court papers required four weeks notice to change visitation, I gave him four months and options for making up the time. He, in turn, waged a four-month war against me with the boys which ended in Nicholas announcing that he wanted to go live with his father.

I would have expected this from Derrick – but to hear that from Nicholas really did shock me. Not a small shock – I was really shaken. This is the same child that has been verbally and emotionally abused by his father since the age of nine. The child that was not welcome at his fathers’ house while his brother was. The child that was enrolled in Daycare over the summer by his father, against my wishes, while his brother was welcome to stay with them during the day.

And all this was after the man took me to court to not have to pay his portion of daycare, saying that he couldn’t afford it, and that his wife was more than happy to keep the boys – IF I compensated her. LOL.

They quickly changed their tune on that when the judge queried them. But, the fact remained that the boys were to be “babysat” by the stepmother over the summer. And the second they get them, they stick my eldest in daycare, while planning special trips with the youngest and keeping him close during the day.

So, after all the “going to bat” for Nicholas, after all the wiping away his tears and saying “yes you do have to go to visitation with your father,” after all my own tears wondering if I was doing the right thing, when what I really wanted to say was “HELL NO, he’s not coming over there and neither is Derrick until you grow up and quit hurting them!”

After all that I’d been through with them and for them – now this?? He wants to go live there??!?!

During this time, I began to wish for an easier life, for less responsibilities, for less to worry about, for more time for me where maybe (just maybe) I could make a difference or at least find some peace…

The following is part of a journal entry made during this difficult time: And I sit here and I wonder is my life just simply too complicated? I have fantasies of living in an air stream with a yoga mat for a bed and my favorite books all in shambrala miniature, with my favorite DVDs, CD’s and Data CD’s all in one large notebook.

No cases, no space taken unnecessarily – and a laptop computer that meets all my needs.

And I would write and get paid enough to make ends meet, since my needs would be so few. I’m enjoying “taking an inventory” of all the junk I’d leave here and wondering how happy I would be with only two or three changes of clothes and the bare minimum to keep me happy.

I wonder… I wonder if I could sell what I have and end up with that. If the boys really do want to go live with their father, and if I should just quit fighting it and let them go. Just let him be their “role model” – God knows my version of it surely sucks lately.

I’m depressed. I think it may be bordering on REAL depression instead of just the “blues”. I’m tired. I don’t want to eat – and yet I’m fat.

I don’t want to do much of anything. But I keep working, busting my ass and working all hours of the day and night for NOTHING. Nothing “breaks” – there is no reward –only more drudgery. And I can’t blame anyone else. It’s only me. Just me. Sitting here, making things go wrong by NOT making them go right.

And I keep fantasizing about making it with just me. No one else to be responsible for. I love my kids, adore them, am blessed to have them, I want only what’s best for them, so why do I have these thoughts?

It makes me feel like a horrid person, and a criminal mother. I wonder WHY any single person would have more than a 4-place setting of anything, and believe that I would only carry two of everything.

I’m tired of being without adult company. But, I don’t have time to “build” a relationship. I’m tired of being the only one here to have responsibilities. I’m just so damn tired. Yet, the thought of ADDING anyone to this place makes me ill.

I figure the likelihood is great that I’d end up with another manic depressive like husband #1 or another “take care of me, I’m so helpless” like #2. And I’m tired of responsibility. SICK and tired of it.

I just want a little space of my own. A room with a view, if you will. A quiet place. Where I can dwell in peace. I need peace. I need soothing. I need quiet. I need a break.

Maybe Pops is right and what I need is to get out, get a “regular” job, get the kids raised and THEN do this “solo on the farm” thing.

But I need it now. I need it to grow. I believe that, and I don’t want to wait until the kids are gone to grow. But, again today, I get out of the shower, look around and I wonder, how much of this stuff do I really need? </I>

Before Nicholas’ announcement, I thought I’d hit rock bottom with my problems. I was wrong. I could still sink lower. And, I did.

But a funny thing happened… I kind of bounced off the bottom with that downward momentum and starting rising back up.

It took some time, it took a lot of crying and I was busy for awhile being angry and feeling betrayed. I never thought I could feel “stabbed in the back” by one of my own – but I did.

I know, “good” moms aren’t supposed to feel that way. We are supposed to know better, but sometimes we are human and even your own kids can hurt you so much that you can’t immediately be “mature” about it.

Sometimes even Moms have to take five.

I felt that life was not fair, that I’d spent years of my life trying to teach these boys to deal with the things their father said, the things he did, teaching them to handle difficult situations with a skill that surpassed my own at their ages – and often my coping skills at THIS age.

Helping them to grow helped me to grow myself. I was impressed, in particular, with Nicholas’ maturity level and his ability to handle such things with grace and poise. And, he turned on me. All of a sudden, without warning, he became a teenager. He got an ATTITUDE, he raised his voice to me, he told me that I was his problem, he sounded so much like his father that I recoiled.

It was brief, but it was there, I felt it. And I just hoped that at that moment HE didn’t. I did manage to stand straight enough to tell him that no matter how old or big he became that he was still living in my home and so long as that was the fact, that he would watch his tone, monitor his words and show me the respect I deserved.

Then I retired to my room and cried and rocked myself and felt like a complete failure in all areas of my life. My failure was now truly complete.

Derrick had quit asking to go live with his father, finally and now Nicholas began. The father never liked both boys at the same time. He always courted only one. The other was an outcast. He did switch every two or three years, but Nicholas’s time in the doghouse had gone on for over four years this time, and we all assumed it was permanent I guess.

I had to evaluate myself. I had to evaluate my motives. I had to be sure, before I started fighting in court again, that I was doing the right things for the right reasons. I did a lot of soul-searching. Looked at a lot of ugly possibilities about myself that I would rather not have seen.

Perhaps it was an ego thing for me. Perhaps I saw them more as property than I saw them as individuals. Maybe I was saying “mine!” rather than doing what was best for them. Maybe I fought their father out of habit, or a need to win. Maybe my motives weren’t as pure as I hoped. Perhaps the boys really did need a father figure. He really is the only one they have.

I could be lots of things for them, but a father wasn’t one of them. I had failed to provide an appropriate “male role model.” How could I teach them to be men? I have male friends that help out some, but they are never around enough to take an active role, and it’s selfish of me to expect them to take my boys to raise – even in that one area. And the toughest one of all… maybe he IS what they need right now.

Nicholas had told me that one of the reasons he wanted to go there was to go to public school AND because I was so depressed all the time. Considering that his father was diagnosed as a “Manic Depressive”, that was almost funny. But, it wasn’t QUITE funny. It made me stop and think. It made me look inside. He asked me how long it had been since I’d had a good day. I was shocked to realize it had been well over a month. He had made his point.

I reminded him that he was going to be returning to public school here in the fall. He told me that was too far away. I do remember 13 well enough to know that six months is a lifetime when you are that age.

He wanted it now, and his father had promised immediacy. His father wanted to get one of the boys living there – not both, but one – before his taxes were due at the courthouse at the end of April. Before the District Attorney’s Office discovered that his income was double what he claimed.

I kept these thoughts to myself. It was hard, but I kept quiet. I’d spent years not speaking my mind to the boys about their father and his motives, I wasn’t going to sabotage all that now. He was still half of who they were. I still would not bash him to the boys – even if he deserved it and even if every fiber of my body was screaming for it.

I told them that I would consider a trial-run. I asked if they wanted to have this trial during the summer – they did not. Nicholas wanted it now – yesterday if possible. I talked with the father and said that I would be willing to give it a six-week trial, but that he would have to sign papers as to the agreements between the two of us. He objected.

I told him that was the ONLY way I would consider it. The terms included that he maintain their home schooling schedule with me providing lesson plans and materials, that they not be enrolled in school up there, that I get visitation on the weekend before I left for Florida, that their school work be e-mailed or faxed to me daily for me to check and grade, and that they be permitted to get on IM no less that three times per week to discuss any school related questions or problems and that Derrick be available for my phone call on his birthday.

Derrick confided to me, after all of this, that he didn’t want to go. He said that he had been “dis-invited” to live with them. He said that his father was angry that he had tried and tried to get Derrick to live with him, and that he had spent “thousands of dollars in court and on lawyers” and that when Derrick decided he wanted to stay with me, that they were finished and that he was no longer welcome to come live there.

Derrick had never shared this. I asked him when this happened and it had occurred just before Nicholas and his father had finally started getting along – when the dad had begun wooing Nicholas to come live there.

I told Derrick that I was so sorry that he’d had to go through that, but that I would NOT have him and his brother separated. Not for anything. Even if it meant that they both went to live with their father. I told him that I wanted them with me, but that if they were not with me, that I would do whatever was in my power to be sure that they were with each other.

The father likes to pit the boys against each other, to encourage conflict by the extreme variance in the way he treats one over the other. He wants ONE boy, not both. My view is that the boys have lost their parents to divorce, and I will NOT have them lose each other – even when they fight and spit and dislike each other.

My dad disagreed with all of this. He said I should require the ex to take me to court, that I should not agree to anything. He also said that Derrick should not be forced to go if he didn’t want to. I think he was worried that I was giving up on the boys. I felt guilty. Everything I did, everything I didn’t do. Everything I thought, every emotion I had brought guilt.

My cousin called me and talked me through it. She said that the facts were, Derrick had wanted this and had smacked me with it for years. She said that Nicholas, Derrick and their Father needed a lesson. That dad needed to learn what it was really like raising kids, and that the boys needed to learn that living with Dad and his wife was not going to be Disneyland, and that I needed a break.

She said to stop feeling guilty, to just put it in motion and then wait for it to shake out on its own. I was too tired to fight with her logic. She told me to do the same things I had planned to do — she just made it ok to quit guilt-tripping over it. She told me to get happy. Told me to quit all the worrying. Something clicked.

I realized that I would probably survive no matter what happened. I never realized that I’d doubted my survival. But, I guess I had. I started getting happier. I forced myself to smile and dwell on the positive. It started to work and I started to feel a little better.

Nicholas’ response to this was a comment that I seemed to finally be getting happy because he was going to live with his father. Damn, it’s hard to win.

I assured him that I was getting happy because I was tired of being unhappy and that it was a decision, not a reaction. I reminded him that I wasn’t the “depressed” type and that this is the longest I’d ever remembered being “down” about things, and that I’d reached my limit and I wasn’t going to continue on this path anymore.

I told him that I was sorry if he took it personally, but that was HIS decision and had nothing to do with the facts. I believed that the trial run would be very “telling.” I didn’t know what it would tell, but I knew it would say something. And I felt that I needed to know, to prove to myself that my actions where the boys were concerned were done PURELY in their best interest.

If the trial-period went well, I could THEN decide if I would agree to a change in living arrangements. I could then decide to agree or let it be decided by the courts. But I really felt that the trial would be more than enough proof to the boys and to their father, that the arrangement wouldn’t work. And I hoped that I was right.

I withstood the angry ramblings of my 13 year old, the whining and “I don’t wanna go” pleas from my 11 year old, and I reminded him that for three years he’d wanted to go live with his Dad. I told him that I would not have them separated and that this would give him the uninterrupted time with his father that he had wanted for so long.

He finally agreed that time with his Dad would be nice, but still objected to the trial period.

Near the end of Feburuary, Delayne had $150 in groceries delivered. I am still not sure how she arranged it so seamlessly – but she had friends that not only did the shopping, but delivered them to my door.

They had instructions to unload the bags and leave if I tried to refuse. I invited them in, I tried to maintain my composure, and I ended up crying. First, because anyone thought I needed groceries delivered. And more importantly, because it was true.

I couldn’t have turned them down, not even to repair my pride. The fact was, I needed the help. I was really low now, and the kids had to be fed. I had applied for another credit card – one I had hoped to reserve for business expenses only, but had been secretly hoping that it arrived soon, so I could use it at the grocery store.

Delayne said that she didn’t want me worried about feeding my kids between now and the time she came up here to come get me. She told me to get over my pride and know that I was loved and that it was not a shameful thing to accept help when you had done your best. I was devastated.

But we ate well the next two weeks, really well. During those two weeks, I decided not to decide how life should go. I would wait to make any major decisions until I was in Florida – what had stared as a change of scenery, was now going to be a vacation – I wouldn’t have two boys to supervise every day with homework that they didn’t want to do, with the beach so close.

Now it was just going to be Alex and me – and some time to think.

Delayne promised me time alone to think out my life and make some decisions. I had to determine if I could stay on the farm, if I wanted to interview when I was in Florida, if I had a better chance of getting a good-paying job elsewhere so I could save up enough to get back to the farm as quickly as possible.

I had to figure out how things would change and how my plans would alter if the boys did go live with Tony. I had to determine so many things. But, I knew I couldn’t do it clearly yet. I knew I had more than I could handle just to get through until I left on “vacation.” So I waited on decisions.

In the interim, I hoped beyond all hope that I could pull it out and keep the farm and make the business fly. I worked harder than ever, and for more hours. Partly to be sure that I gave it my all, before packing it in – and partly because the busier I stayed, the less time I had to worry, feel sorry for myself and be sad.

I worked constantly. I seldom slept, I had nightmares and tossed and turned every time my eyes closed. I was still suffering from the decision to stop smoking and I craved them something fierce. But, I kept telling myself that if I could quit smoking in the middle of THIS kind of stress, that I’d never have a reason for starting back.

I landed a couple tiny contracts that helped me pay a couple of outstanding bills. I completed them quickly and got paid quickly. It was almost like having the relief of worrying about the groceries invited some opportunity into my life.

I started taking occasional walks to help clear my lungs, my head and lighten my heart. I couldn’t walk for long – because I’d look around at the beauty and the splendor of the place and start getting weepy about losing it. But, I did walk some.

And the crocus bloomed, followed by the Holland Iris that Derrick and I planted at the side of the steps. And the goats and dogs didn’t eat them this year. They were beautiful.

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