August/September was a bit dicey; the going had got pretty narrow there for a while.
And the sparrow told me this:
STBX is STBX. So she has defined this divorce in zero-sum terms. Very well. Cold War. She's the USSR; I'm the US. Doesn't mean we can't come to terms on things. Doesn't mean we can't cooperate where there are mutual interests (i.e., Themselves). But that's all it means.
And the sparrow said this:
If, from time-to-time, glimpses of the "old" STBX appear, take them for what they are -- random bytes of data hiding in some long-forgotten sector of the hard drive of her life she hasn't yet had a chance to over-write. They are ghosts. They don't signify. ----------------
Privately, I find it very weird. Whenever she -- inadvertently, I suppose -- expresses even a hint of kindness or reveals even a bit of..."vulnerability" is probably the wrong word, but it'll do...vulnerability, she instantly shifts back into Hyper-STBX mode as if to compensate. As if even she has to hide from her own reality. Sad, when you think about it.
She asked, for example, that I commit to a custody calendar for next March, because "I am going on vacation."
I remembered what the sparrow told me: Doesn't signify. I replied, "I neither need nor care to know what you intend to do with your time; 'available' and 'unavailable' are more than adequate."
She replied, What does that mean? You're never going to want to hear anything about me ever again? So I'm not even a human being to you?
Doesn't signify. "All it means is that scheduling doesn't require anything more than an indication of which periods of time a parent is unavailable."
She replied, You're unf***ing believable. I was so right to leave you. You're going to just throw away 22 years that we've known each other, just so you can make a point. Do you think people feel sorry for you or something? They're just happy for me because they can see what a loser you are. It's laughable.
