Eyes Wide Open

Wow! Going on holiday really interferes with blogging. I certainly had good intentions of trying to post once or twice but after a full day at Disneyworld, the only thing I was able to contemplate with any clarity was a nice tall rum with diet coke and key limes.

We arrived in Orlando on Saturday night after twenty plus hours of driving. Dylan and Olivia managed the journey down quite well. There were a couple of incidents where I threatened to leave them by the side of the freeway but generally, their behaviour was good. Originally, we had planned to take Dallas’s two children and an exchange student friend of theirs but the best laid plans……

Dallas’s daughter is in the throes of teenage angst. She believes her parents to be aliens that have been sent to earth to torture her. She doesn’t want to work or go to school or clean her room or shower or do much of anything unless it involves “hanging out”. A week before the trip, she had an enormous brain fart and sent a text to Dallas where she spat the “f” word at him which turned out to be the last straw so Dallas told her that she wouldn’t be joining us in Florida.

For weeks, we had heard about a sweet Japanese exchange student who had spent the better part of last year at our local high school. Dallas’s son and this girl dated. Then she went home. They stayed in regular touch. We got word back in December that sweet Japanese student planned to make a visit during spring break. Apparently, man –child had serious feelings for her. He told us that he wanted to see her so he wouldn’t be going on the trip. We suggested she come. Great! And that was the plan…

…..Until the morning of our departure. Man-child announced that he wouldn’t be coming because sweet Japanese student didn’t want to go. Well now. To make matters stranger, we also learned that man-child proposed, with ring in hand, to sweet Japanese girl. SHE ACCEPTED and in that moment, I am convinced that somewhere along the road, we slipped down the effing rabbit hole.

Engaged.

In high school.

Yep. Firm grasp of reality, there.

Listen, Dallas and I want to be supportive. We really do but JESUS H CHRIST! And the icing on this dysfunctional slice of cuckoo cake is that Dallas’s ex not only knew about but also supported the whole thing including the LOAN that newly eighteen year old man-child took out for the bloody ring. This is a child who, while of legal voting age, still needs someone to remind him to shower.

Boggles the mind.

Anyway, after bitchy teenage daughter antics, man-child romantic-movie-of-the-week nonsense and a reality-challenged ex wife performance, Dallas and I had an ugly epiphany:

We were enablers.

Yes, ENABLERS.

In that horrid, textbook psychology 101 way.

For months now, we have contributed to the issues by paying all of the bills and burying our heads in the dirt. We didn’t hold anyone accountable for bad behaviour and we chose to bite our lips and keep silent rather than make waves. Neither one of us much cares for confrontation and clearly, this “la la la, I can’t hear you” strategy didn’t work . So now, we have taken our pedicured big toes and drawn the proverbial line in the sand.

The bank of Beth and Dallas is closed.

There will be consequences for poor choices.

There will be consequences for emotional blackmail.

And while I have faith in the universal laws of attraction and consequently, have put my order in for peace, harmony and love, something tells me that we’ve just opened Pandora’s box. Those closest to us have advised that we hang on tight. Even though they believe we are moving down the right path, they feel that the ride is going to be a bumpy one.