Monday 1st November 2010

The first of the month. The first day of the week. The first day on my own. The first day to make decisions and be strong and move forward. Kinda.

My plans (if that's what they are) haven't gone completely to plan (huh) but that is ok. He is going tomorrow. He has talked to me about money - that's an absolute miracle and we had a short stolen chat about the next few days and what is going to happen. Chatted today in 5 mins more than we have in weeks. He is going to give me £300 to help towards the mortgage - its a start - a big one. He has to pay his sister and the vet and darts and fags.... but I am pleased we spoke. I am pleased we communicated.

But now the really hard work begins. I have tried to speak to my fostering support worker. She is busy (which is what I expected). She is going to try and ring me in her break - she will if she can. So I spoke to a fostering support line, something I hadn't thought of doing before. It was helpful. She said I won't necessarily have boy taken away - decisions will be made in his best interests. God I hope living with me is in his best interests. I will have to prove myself (again), find out what the husbands intentions are (that should be interesting), and of course the most interesting is to find out what boy wants. Maybe he wont want to stay. Maybe he will want to move to a happy settled family (who could blame him). We'll see anyway. One step at a time.

Practically I need to sort out what debts we have; what debts my husband has (hoping that they are not one and the same), speak to my own children and hope they can begin to understand, open a new bank account for the bills, see if I can cut any more payments (unlikely), begin to look really seriously about getting a school job to fit in with boy. And so the list goes on. And so the list will change every day.

I feel fairly strong, sometimes I want to cry but mostly I just want to feel like I have more control. I feel like I might have a future whatever that would be.

I didn't sleep well last night, I am getting lots of breaks in my sleep but I guess this to be expected. I am worrying about how boy will react. But the plus side is that I am reading lots and hopefully today I will start writing. I have a great idea to write a teenage novel and have joined the write 50000 words in a month website so positives as well as negatives.

Tonight I am meeting a friend who has been down this route (kinda) for a drink in the pub.