Still slowly letting go of Bozo. Saturday will be the end of 4 weeks since I changed the locks. Today is my birthday. I am grateful to Bozo for pointing out to me that it is my 51st rather than 52nd (was a year ahead of myself somehow), but that is the only 'present' I'll get as he and his Jehovah's Witness family don't celebrate b'days.

For the past month, I'd planned to spend my b'day weekend with my eldest daughter and 3yo granddaughter. Last Sunday when I phoned for final confirmation, my daughter had a fit of moodiness and canceled on me. She's like that, but I haven't seen them in almost a year. With all the stress and grief of breaking up with Bozo, I'd pinned a lot of anticipation on getting away to visit #1 daughter and granddaughter. It felt like she'd pulled my magic rug right out from under my feet. I cried hard and have been pretty blue this week.

Bozo and I teamed up on a contract job midweek. We're still semi-affectionate towards one another when in each other's presence, but frankly, I'm not even getting so much as a weak indication that he considers me or our relationship important. Not worth a bit of special effort or doing a damned thing differently.

He phoned that evening after he was back at his parents, I guess to make idle chit chat. It struck me how twice BH came out and Bozo (who was on the porch for privacy) completely stopped our conversation to conduct a discussion w/Baby Huey (14yo). It was 9:30pm and nothing to do with BH's bedtime routine or what he needed to be ready for school the next day (forgivable interruptions), just random meaningless "Oh Dad, btw..." crap. Bozo entertained it patiently, making no effort to discourage BH from rudely interrupting his phone conversation. I ended it during the second interruption by saying, "Well, sounds like you need to get your son off to bed, or go on to bed yourself." They share a room together at his parents. Clearly BH is feeling like King of Control Hill with his dad right underneath him every moment he's not in school. Nothing I can say since Bozo won't even offer a squeak of protest. (shrug)

We talked again Thursday evening. Bozo had hinted at wanting to spend time with me this weekend. I'd wanted to get away Fri-Sun evening on a camping trip and do some training with my dogs. It was supposed to be BH's weekend with his BM (after she canceled her EOW last weekend), so I told Bozo he was welcome to join in. He suggested we stay closer to home since the weather forecast was iffy and the dogs possibly being heady after a long inactive summer. Seemed quite practical on the face, until it became obvious that BM had once again circumvented her EOW w/BH. Bozo wanted me to restructure my plans because he was juggling to make weekend arrangements for BH w/his friends and factoring in a tentative short visit between BH and BM on Sunday. If she does bother to show up, she'll no doubt pencil that hour or two in as having served her EOW and get off for the entire month of Sept and possibly half of Oct without having spent a single full day or night with her son.

So there it was again. Right back into the old pattern of Bozo allowing BM (or BH or any of Bozo's other family members) to control our precious little private time together. I sorta lost it for a second; "How could you let her do that again?!?" He invoked his usual "This is what I'm used to from her" (everyone really) excuse and then moved right along to "Should I call you in the morning?" Me: "No, I'll call you." Bozo: "What?!" Me: "Yes, Bozo, since you're so 'used to' doing whatever whenever, I'll call you. Whatever, whenever." (click)

So accuse me of being a masochist. I'd probably only differ on what point in time I was masochistic. It was unpleasant being fully conscious and alert to Bozo manipulating my/our weekend in order to accommodate and avoid conflict with selfish BM, but I recognized it for what it was and said "no." Can't even begin to count the weekends in the past 2.5 years where I meekly accepted "that's just how she and everyone else is; I'm used to it" line, implying that I should "get used to it" too. Nope. Not happenin', Bozo.

So after almost a month, I am getting numb to Bozo. There is no hope and probably never was any hope. It was only me wanting to pretend and believe that there was hope. Given the weather forecast is so dicey, I'm still not sure what I'll do for MY birthday weekend, but at least I'll be following through with MY plans on MY schedule. That feels very good and right to me, for a change.