I love how this program translates to the rest of my life.

I start 3 weeks of exams next week and today I sat down to begin my usual pre-exam nervous breakdown (the one where I look at everything I have to study all at once, wail and moan that I can't POSSIBLY remember all of this and I am STUPID for leaving it too late and it's HOPELESS and spend the entire study period behaving like satan on waterskiis snarling and not sleeping and furiously procrastinating and not doing any actual study because ITS ALL TOO MUCH!!) I mean it was a great system and it has gotten me through a lot of exams over the years but this time around I seem to have a new approach that is somewhat more effective. I decided this morning to just "next right thing" it. From the beginning, one topic at a time, never mind whether I will have time to memorise everything, just here and now, what's right in front of me. It's a revolutionary approach; I got SO MUCH done today by just turning it over to HP from the beginning and just doing each next right thing. Brilliant!! Who knew it was possible to study without pitching a fit?

Next up is the fact that my little brother is coming to stay tomorrow night. I love my baby brother; he's a very busy musician but makes time to come and visit me every 6 months or so to have a movie night, make pizzas and basically sit in comfortable silence aside from laughing at whatever we are watching. It's nice; we have a very easy friendship and he's the only one of my siblings that seems to really value knowing me. (He's also the only one to live away from my mothers house and refuses to engage in any of the nonsense. He seemed to be born with some kind of pre-installed al-anon program lol, he's a great little unit).

So for as far back as I can remember, the day before his visit there has been some kind of awful miserable drama with ABF and I have had to really fight back tears to enjoy my time with brother, and lets not even contemplate times like the last one when ABF was drunk and just kept rambling on and on and on and on and made it impossible to watch anything or have a conversation. (He likes to tell my very successful 23 year old brother how to be a musician and it's so incredibly ridiculous because he knows nothing about music or the music industry whatsoever. Why do they do that? Ugh!!!) Anyway this time he isn't here, no chance of some dumb argument that leaves me crying on the inside, great huh? Well he sent me a message on skype before that he is thinking of coming to visit me tomorrow. I had already told him clearly I would be busy this weekend and I didn't mention little brother coming so I don't know how or why he decided this but now, there's a chance drunky mcdrunkerson will turn up and completely ruin our evening. He said "OK I won't come" but if he is drunk that will mean exactly nothing. Little brother has never said a word about A, he just humors him but his girlfriend confided to me that he "hates him with a burning passion" and that does not surprise me in the slightest. So I told A no, do NO come here, I am busy with family and I have to study. But if he is drinking, that won't make a shred of difference. And it's a big deal because little bro sacrifices to take a weekend off to come and visit and it's a 2 hour trip on the train for him. So drunk A turning up here will be so completely not OK. Why would he suddenly decide to visit now? Why????????

Anyway what can I do? It's no good projecting and chewing over the scenarios for the next 18 hours or so. No good being upset about what might happen or being angry at A in advance for something he may or may not do. I must just keep next right thinging it and know that it will turn out the way it turns out even if I don't obsess and worry. Except this way I will get stuff done and be happier in the meantime. Cool.

Finally, next weekend daughter's father has booked a caravan at a place near us with his family so that he can have daughter there and take her to school Monday morning. I think this is good, him coming to where she lives and doing stuff with her in her own part of town. But of course she came home today with an invitation to a birthday party for next saturday night. It's the first party she has been invited to at her new high school. So I am thinking, in all of these years, even when we all lived near each other, he has never been willing to take her to any of her own events or do any parenting, it has always been a case of she goes to his house, he usually works or goes out and she just gets lumped with angry step-mum and kids. Years ago when he forced me to go to pointess mediation he sat there assuring the mediator that he ABSOLUTELY would take her to any parties or school events that came up during his visitations and he never has, ever; she has always had to just miss out if she had something on during one of "his" weekends. So I thought if they are here for the weekend, just 20 minutes away in our old town, he can take her to the party right? It's only 3 hours out of the whole weekend and so important for her to be sociable and build new friendships, why can't he do some actual parenting for once???? So I tell him nicely she has a party to attend and it's important for her to go so will he take her...of course his answer was a very rude no, followed by the usual nonsense about how I "am never willing to make up for the time he misses with her" (he skips weekends when he is busy or on vacation and then expects me to "make it up to him"....huh??? 

So next thing I know my grandmother and mother are both sending me messages about how its not FAIR that she has to miss the party and she HAS to go and I have to MAKE him take her and its "time I stand up to him" (they both harp on and on about how bad he is and how I have to stand up to him yet each of them seem to make him a cup of tea and gush over him whenever they actually see him. The other week when daughter came home from his house and hurt herself he called my mother to rant about what a bad mother I am and how it is all my fault. She immediately called to tell me what he had said, and she said "well I suppose you expect me to say something to him but I don't see how it is up to me so I was polite to him and YOU can tell him I don't appreciate being put in the middle like that, you tell him not to involve me thank you very much". OK so chronic wussiness runs in the family but the urging me to "stand up to him" all the time is really so very unhelpful. She keeps opening her door to him and treating him like some kind of hero so, he thinks she is on his side and he can call her to complain about me and she will agree with him and stroke his ego...it's SO not my circus and he hasn't been my monkey for nigh on 11 years now.

And realistically even if I DID tell him he isn't to call my mother and she doesn't want him to, he would likely call her and tell her what I said and she would be all lovely to him and say "OH I didn't mean it like THAT". lol. I love and appreciate my mum, no mistake, but courageous and forthright she aint.

Anyway if daughter hadn't been going through struggles lately and everything was normal I wouldn't think it was a big deal to miss a party BUT she has been going through a lot, she has just started high school, just started counselling after cutting herself (we went to the first one last week and I think it's going to be very positive) and she is just starting to feel confident socialising with her school friends so this first party IS a big deal and she says she was really pleased because she hadn't thought she was going to be invited. And he SHOULD take her but he won't, and I am going to tell him I will come and pick her up from the caravan park, take her to the party and return her but I already know he will throw a big baby tantrum and refuse to let that happen and I don't know what my next move will be after that. I feel that he has NEVER done anything to actually parent our daughter in any way, it's nice that he is coming over this way to have a weekend with her but I would also be willing to bet money he has fiends staying down this way that he plans on getting wasted with around the camp fire and that is why he can't drive her to a party....he ALWAYS finds a way to put himself first and any time I make the mistake of thinking he is doing something decent or fatherly it turns out he has some big selfish ulterior motive. Also please note he did NOT turn up to her counselling session (after years of insisting she has serious psychological problems and needs professional help) and has not responded to any communication about it either. As predicted he doesn't want to actually DO anything other than complain and point fingers. As my mother rightly poned out, the counsellor would absolutely want her to go to the party and for him to take her and perhaps meet some parents and involve himself in her life instead of always expecting her to enrich his existence while he ignores her and wallows in his own hedonism.

So anyway I'm not sure what I am going to do about this. I do know that angry, upset or unreasonable aren't going to create a good result. Daughter just handed me the party invitation with a defeated look on her face and sighed and said "Dad won't take me, will he". 

It's nice that he has planned to come over this side of town to see her this time, but it wouldn't kill him to be flexible, it's kind of what parenting IS, GRRR!

Anyway short of ranting on here for a few minutes about it I am trying to stay calm, not get embroiled in arguments with him, mother or grandmother about what I SHOULD be doing and try to trust that HP will give me a hand creating a good outcome for my girl which is really all that matters here. 

Thanks for listening.

(((everyone)))