18 November

So I'm sitting on my bed right now, waiting for my "friend" to get here.. He is walking from his place to come visit me, its like an hour walk so I'm surprised he would make such an effort. My "friend" - Tiaan, is probably the last person in the world I should be hanging out with. However I am deciding against my better judgment, for the sake of having some conversation and company. Silence is a rarity here in my home... I share a one bedroom apartment (and garden) with my 3 year old daughter. Alia. Alia is very verbal.. she loves to talk and isnt scared to raise the volume, and she has alot to talk about - she has alot of emotions to express, she wants to be heard, understood and noticed (although she struggles to understand herself as well.) Her developing mind is still not yet capable of introspection on any topic.. maybe for example noise levels.. volume is at an *outside* voice setting at all times, coupled with her being interested In pretty much.. everything .. plus with the energy of a rabbit on steroids.. it just equates to alot of noise.

Plus there's always noise from the TV/phone..

Basically my point is that it's never quiet.. and having said goodbye to Alia yesterday sucked. (Shes gone to spend the weekend in Hopefield, where her dad and his parents live.) Morgan's mom is the one who arranges and advocates for her visiting there, she also takes care of alia whilst she is there.. her father (Morgan) is jobless and is living with his parents, and hasn't paid a dime of child maintenance, I'm pushing for that to change, there is supposed to be two people contributing towards a child's expenses, Its almost 2 years gone by now since I left him and hes still jobless. (he was abusive and awful to me which is why i left him.)

For Alias sake ive been shouldering all of the responsibility of providing for her, feeding her etc.. and i have just been letting the lack of contribution from them slide, and seeing myself take on the work to fill the gaps they should be filling sucks. I could force them to pay child support by going to court, (by "them" I mean Morgan and his parents, who have to pay if he is unable, which is the current situation.) And since they arent paying what they should towards alias life they are then not entitled to visitations at all.. but i let them pick her up for holidays. Why? Because they are alias family and she benefits from the interactions and enjoys/looks forward to those visits.

I just don't want to be spiteful or selfish.. I don't want her to see me that way ever or have it on my conscience to have known for a fact they are struggling financially which they cant control or change, if I were to disregard this information and pretend like they are going out of their way to be spiteful by not paying in order to make things harder for us, then I would not be able to sleep for the unfairness of it all. (They very well might be intentionally doing these thing's but i highly doubt it.)

I think of my childhood, having grown up one of three daughters in a single income household means i watched my dad stressing about money, alot, money was tight. I watched him struggling to stay afloat, I've seen the despair that comes with constant stress about money when their is not enough to go around. I have seen my dad in the same position as uncle B (Morgans step Dad) is right now, basically left with no option but to sell your home, we lost our house when my dad hadn't been able to keep up with the mortgage payments when i was in my matric year, I'd angrily wish people would just back off and this frustrating never-ending flow of new costs and new expenses which were so infuriating and inescapable.

Id be devastated if someone were to take the relationship i have with my child away from me, because i had no money and was destitute... punishment for struggling.. endless cycle of pain.

Morgan may be a useless father but to Alia hes her only father. A broke dad would still be preferable to having NO dad.

And that is why I am here, on my bed depressed and seeking any form of distraction since she is there and away from me, I am taken aback everytime I realize how much of my identity and all of my days are dedicated to being alias mother, I am left empty and aimless when she is not here, the silence seems to grow louder the longer I am alone, silence feeling so harsh it suddenly gains mass and substance, taking the form of a wave that I find has washed over my head and is cutting off my air supply, drowning me.

In this hopeless position I can do nothing but try continue onward and hope the next breath of air and moment of calm in between the roaring waves would come soon.

Like if they could just start paying maintenance once their house is sold, that would be a breath of air.

And instead of relying on my dad who is sacrificing constantly to help us make ends meet each month, my income never makes it to the end of the month. We can rely on those payments, Having a week or two of grocery money in my wallet wouldn't be a bad thing. It will make things just a bit easier and more manageable.

I'm crossing my fingers hoping the house sells quickly. The house is in a small town in the middle of nowhere, I hope that doesn't make selling it take forever.

Tiaan just left, it was a fun evening . We didn't sleep, just had the motley crew playing on my TV while we sat on my bed and smoked a few bongs. I started getting anxious and paranoid that we were being spied on by the neighbour's but he hooked his pinky with mine and said "Stop being anxious, no one is going to do anything to you, not while I'm here. Okay?" I just stared back into his intense gaze and felt irritated that he would bother with this whole angel act, of course I giggled awkwardly... and moved to the next topic, he didn't make any moves on me though, and maintained a respectable distance on the bed.

I sigh, could it be that i actually enjoyed chilling with him? This is the.3rd hang out session we have had since we started talking when I had run into him at my other friend Koenri's house. Koenri is a Total loser, and not in a mean way but a literal one, he's a heavy druggie and totally lacks morals, will steal your phone and sell anything from your life and not care at all if you knew he was the one who did it or not. He only cares about scoring. I was relieved tiaan was there at his house that other time because I felt uneasy when I had been there alone at first.

I think Tiaan likes me, but he might just be trying to manipulate me..

Have I mentioned ... he stole alias phone. Like 2 months ago, regretting his actions he tried In vein to re acquire the phone in order to give it back to me after he had sold it, sadly his change in conscience came too late and the phone had been sold too many times to be recoverable as it had changed hands so much that it had been lost too deep in the deceiving folds of criminal circles.

But that experience made me realise he's trying to gain my favor, for what? I do not know. Why is he acting like he cares about me I wonder.

Alia should be arriving this afternoon and I am actually sad to see my break end. It's nice to be able to breathe and rest and do whatever without worrying that I'm being a bad mom. And just relaxing with a person was enjoyable without stress of alias reactions being taken into account and instead of languishing in a torrent of constant demands from my child, or having to tiptoe around her at night, I was free to roam and stay up later than 8 and just do my own thing in my own time. Makes me realise how little breaks I get, in my day to day life. I appreciated this break.. but I still miss her terribly and cannot wait till she's back.

It will break my heart if she's all miserable and upset at being back with me though..

It's always a slap in the face that she has so much fun there and they get to be the favorites rather than the person who puts in all their energy, time, money and is the only one putting in the work - I deserve to be the favorite because I am the one raising her.. but yet after every visit she will seem slightly different and I have to rebuild our closeness and restrengthen our bond, it's almost like Morgans mom is just so charming and perfect that 2 days of being with her, somehow outweighs, all the months of building trust and all the concerted effort that I put In to building a relationship with her is not fair, I hate that I give my everything to her, only for her to "want ouma" and talk about ouma .. EVEN to make a drawing of "me and ouma" and she's NEVER drawn me before. I just don't understand and am desperately hoping she will return this afternoon with her love and excitement for our relationship in tact.

We will have to see. I'll keep you posted.