Adele

Ah, I love music. Every so often, a new song comes to my attention that really and truly captures my life in lyrics. Case in point: Adele's Rolling in the Deep. It was recently featured in an episode of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. (I think a contestant on the most recent season of American Idol might have featured it, too, but I digress). Either way, I heard it and was hooked immediately. There are other songs, too, that really give me a jolt, but not in the same way that I totally relate to the verses and refrains of Adele. As I sit here typing this, my husband is in Misery (Missouri). He is there to visit his son, my stepson, Tristan, because his mother has a (supposedly impartial) party connected to our custody case thoroughly wrapped around her "poor, poor, pitiful me" finger. Ever since Terry and the rest of my family pulled out of my driveway this morning, the anger, the anxiety, the tension, and the hurt that I have been feeling towards this woman--but suppressing in large part--came bubbling back to the surface. I've been sitting here at the computer for hours stewing, letting the indignity of this situation rise and plateau, then rise again and again, reaching new and hitherto unknown heights of which I did not realize my heart and mind were capable. When I finally turned on Adele, I was fire-and-brimstone, wrath-of-God, hellfire-and-damnation, almost-blind-with-rage furious. The ire I was feeling at that point reached such a level that I can only compare it to the way I have previously felt (at different points in my life) about Rodney, Chris, Chuck, Serena, and my parents all rolled into one and multiplied by ten. 

Righteous indignation. That's what Jesse Duplantis would call this feeling. There is a real, Bibically-based injustice happening to me and my family right now, and I'm rightfully angry about it! I have given the situation over to God, and it is by His grace alone that this weekend visit is even taking place. That doesn't change the way I feel about the situation, though. I'm trying my best NOT to hate her. I really am trying. But, at times like these, when I'm left alone with my feelings and don't have to hide them for anyone's sake, I am finding even that a challenge.

But, back to Adele. Her song Rolling in the Deep just sums up how I feel about this woman and the hurts she has willfully inflicted upon my family.

There's a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch, and it's bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your shit bare
See how I'll leave with every piece of you
Don't underestimate the things that I will do

 Ah, where to start. With that first part... I think I've already adequately described how the first two lines specifically relate to how I'm feeling at the moment. I love the next line--Finally I can see you crystal clear! For the first few years of my relationship with Terry, I defended that hateful wretch of a woman. As a mother, I was certain that I could understand, at least partially, the unique predicament that she was in. Yeah, then I got to know her, and interact with her, and I saw that it wasn't that Terry was exaggerating, it wasn't that he was bitter or angry at her--he was simply telling me the unfiltered truth about her. "Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your shit bare" you stupid psycho bitch. You have no idea of the crap that I have compiled and will continue to compile against you. "See how I'll leave with every piece of you/Don't underestimate the things that I will do." Self-explanatory. One day, in one way or another, I will have your ass. If you force me to, I will shred it and leave you crying as you stare at the pieces.

Baby, I have no story to be told
But I've heard one of you
And I'm gonna make your head burn
Think of me in the depths of your despair
Making a home down there
As mine sure won't be shared

You think you have dirt on me or my husband? Think again. Anything that you think you know can be easily explained away.I know all about you, girl. I know how you were taking your kids to work with you--only to leave them unsupervised. I know how you don't know who the father of your youngest child is--as evidenced by the fact that there is no current court order for child support for him. I know that, if you knew who he was, you would be attempting to milk him dry just as you have done to us. I know how you are playing the on-again-off-again game with your current boyfriend--damaging both of your boys' chances for learning to trust male authority figures. Speaking of said boyfriend, I know that there is a strong possibility that he is abusing your younger son. I know that there will come a time when all of this will come back to bite you squarely in the ass as the karma train comes back around the circuit. I hope you think of me when it does. I want you to sit back and know that I was right and you were wrong. I want you to roll-around in your own self-imposed hell on earth and know that I am a happy, productive member on society, as is my husband. I won't share your fate in this life.

Throw your soul through every open door
Count your blessings to find what you look for
Turn my sorrow into treasured gold
You pay me back in kind and reap just what you sow

You really have done that, haven't you, Lenya? You've thrown your soul to anyone who will listen. You play the pity card so often that you should just go ahead and get a literal version made for you to carry in your purse. Have you found what you're looking for? Something tells me that's a negative. Otherwise, you would be content. Eventually, though, somehow, some way, you will screw up big enough to "turn my sorrow into treasured gold." Then, and only then, will I proceed to "lay your shit bare" and show the entire world who you really are. Just remember, that they way you treat me will be bestowed back upon you tenfold, if not directly from me, then from Terry or Tristan or Hunter or any one of the other poor fools you've duped. You have lit an unquenchable fire in my soul that will consume you eventually, in one way or another, and it is very likely to be painful. Only you can put it out.

Wow. I feel slightly better now.