I was outside last night with SO walking the dog when it hit me. This is my life. I am going to marry this man, raise his children and still focus on my career. I am settled, happy and for the most part my life is exactly what I want it to be. Then I started to cry. I couldn't help myself. Tears were streaming down my face as my darling SO was walking MY dog through huge snow drifts because he didn't want me to have to do it. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

Don't get me wrong. I love SO. I love the skids, I truly do. For the most part they are amazing children and I am always very proud to take them places and show them off because they have been through so much, they aren't really lazy or entitled, although of course they each have their moments. And to be honest, my cup runneth over so I'm not even sure that SO and I will want or need to have kids of our own, mostly because at 35 I am still on the fence and I kind of figure that by this point if I don't know that I want one of my own, it's probably better not to go down that path.

But what is getting to me is BM. She's a nutjob. She's exhausting, and she is making my life a living hell from day to day with her crap. And this is all without her having to contact me at all. She makes unreasonable demands, she says horrible things about me, she makes promises to the kids that she can't possibly keep. She threatens that when she gets custody she will take them away forever (in writing because she's crazy) and tells SO he's going to prison every other day for some delusional thing she has come up with that afternoon.

After showering to get the frozen tears off my face I realized something. I don't hate BM because she's crazy. I hate her because she reminds me of every girl I ever hated in high school. You know the type. The narcissistic, entitled bully that picked on weaker kids. The girl who stirred up shit and wasn't happy unless she was fighting with someone. The girl who played the victim and treated others horribly, but then when you called her out on it, it was always the result of some perceived slight that the other person did, something disproprotionate to the heaping of shit that was coming down the pike.

So for my New Year's Resolution I have decided the following:

1. I will not be controlled by the machinations of a crazy person. I will not allow her to take up space in my head and I will not allow her threats and insinuations get the better of me. BM, I am effectively revoking your power over my life.

2. I have to deal with this person only in one context, the context of activities involving the children, and she has already proven she is too afraid to say shit to me or my face at any time. She's had the chance, more than once, and if she decides to get the balls to do it, I have an arsenal of comments I could make.

3. I no longer need to know where she is, what she is doing or how her crazy is going to affect my life. I can't prepare for her special brand of stupid so I need to just live my life and let her bring her worst to the table.

That and I need to quit saying her name at all. The kids can talk about her all they want, but her name will not pass my lips any further. I have given her 8 months of this year. I am not giving her a single minute of the next.