31. French

Dear London Fire Snake Scorpio,

I want to believe I am not a small person. That I am above being petty and vicious. When my kids ask me things about their dad, the Water Dog Libra, I am honest. Be it the good or the bad, I try to be fair. He is a funny, lively, mellow guy who is fun to be around. He knows how to make you like him. He is very gifted with languages; he knows like 7 of them well enough to communicate efficiently enough to get around. He is well-travelled.

I tell my kids all the time, no one and nothing is purely one thing, neither good nor bad, and we must always remember that. I try to tell them it is about fitting together and harmony. Which, in a way, it is. But they are intelligent kids and, as I am the more powerful one (saying that without any boasting in this context), they adopted this villainous view of their father. I am not saying they are wrong.

I am saying that I scream too, say things I shouldn’t, and lose my temper more often than I should. So I am not quite sure why they tell me how bad he is, unless it’s just kids complaining, and they do the same in his house about me (though they say they do not, and they don’t lie to me, cause they know I wouldn’t care).

But then he is he. And he does shit that makes my blood boil. And one day, I am well aware, this blog will have an audience and will not be a shout in the void; one day, I will reveal who I am, and as a consequence, his identity will be revealed too. So I am trying. I am trying to stay objective, I am trying not to be the typical toxic ex-wife who says bad shit about the ex because she sees everything he does through an evil lens.

But I will not shield him either. What he has done, what he is doing, he gets away with it because for many years I was smoothing out. Respect is important to me; to keep his kids’ respect, I often lied to them to cover for him. I am not anymore. So I will tell you when my blood is boiling, because these letters are not about him; they are a tool for me, like many others I told you about, to keep me moving. And telling you what makes my blood boil, seeing your eyes, your face in my mind as you read these words, is what makes me leave this anger here and not let it spill over to my kids.

So… After the morning I had with Piggy, I had a burst of energy. I quickly utilized it to make the kids’ French toast. I am having a sharp pain in my upper lats today, and it makes movement hard, but I danced through it. Singing. My lungs are free again to sing. And that was enough to get me through breakfast.

The kids are hostile. Take 5 high performers and keep them inactive and sick for a week, and they will start snapping at every word. And we do. But I knew that this would be the case today, so I told them at breakfast — No passes today. You cross the line, you are punished, end of story. Wait, babe, the pain is blinding when I type. I can’t see the words. Give me a second, I will take a pill and come back.

Done. Where were we? Yes, punishments. The truth is, I don’t have many punishments in the house because I don’t see the point in them. Punish an Ox, and you will only make me dig my heels harder into the ground. We have a system, yes, but I am rather lax about most things. Life is too taxing for my round kids out there in the square world as is. I am a stickler for values, yes: safety, kindness, kinship. I actually have a full wall of values printed right there in my living room. But regular human rules? Not really.

So I don’t quite have an arsenal of punishments to pull from. At some point, Wolfy hit someone, so I sent her to her room. Stallion got with me into one of those “yes I did” — “No you didn’t” loops he likes to trap me at. So at the third round, I sent him to his room too. Then, Piggy was playing quietly in the living room, and Drago and I just chatted. She’s jagged today. Hard to get along with. Detox at full bloom and inactivity drives her insane more than the others.

Then we were listening to a song. It reminded her of another song. I said, “Play it.” But Alexa couldn’t find the original version; only a French duet was available. I listened to two verses and said, “I am sorry, babe, you know I hate French with passion. It’s hard for me to enjoy this song on an emotional level.” — “Me too,” she says. We started laughing, “Why do you hate French? You only get that right once you are married to a French guy for 15 years and fall for another French guy.” See, the standard joke in my house is that I have a thing with the French. Or had.

My ex’s parents were raised in Paris, and he speaks fluent French. I liked French before I met him. I even petitioned to bring a French-as-a-second-language class to my high school in the warland. I was pretty good. My script is French, cause that’s the only one I was taught. But then I met him. The first words he said to me in French were “Ne touche pas”; it was during our first time being intimate. And that says it all, I suppose. He wanted me to be still.

I know. Sigh. I know, don’t frown at me. I know I should have kicked his ass off my bed that very first night and never looked back. But we have been through this: I was a slave then. Slaves are used to being used.

Anyway, the next French was used against me when his mother would talk shit about me when I would sit right there at her table. She is a rude person, but one of those French high-finesse people who offend you in a way that makes a rogue like me stumble. Especially bound by respect for elders, and the fact that she was his mother. Velvet hammer, you call it. Want an example?

Once we drove to her from the city we lived in, it took 90 minutes in a car. I was huge as a house and heavy with my firstborn, I believe. We were never wealthy, so buying specialized maternity clothes seemed inefficient, so I didn’t. And this last month, I was feeling scared that I would give birth at any moment and was feeling ugly and clumsy. I wore what fit me, a huge flannel shirt and some soft pants.

We arrived at her house, and I could barely walk. Sitting for 90 minutes in a car was painful by this point; I felt the joints and my pelvic floor literally opening, and I could not even walk without being awkward. So we come to her door, and I give a sigh of relief, here we are! We made it! She opens the door, gives me a look up and down and says, “Oh, I see you didn’t feel like getting out of the PJs today then.” I went mute. It happens to me often when the hit is so direct and so sharp that I have to shut my mouth completely, or I will gore the other person physically.

So, little by little, my mind just built a barrier to French. To me, it was a language I did not want to understand, so I would not get the fucking subtle insults that toxic woman would throw my way.

And when I finally left my ex, I dated a man. I don’t know if I told you about him. A Canadian French poet. It’s a long story for another time, but he solidified my aversion to the language that really didn’t need any more ammo.

“Actually,” Drago says, “I did date a French guy.” — “Ha! You did!” I recall. Her one and only boyfriend, one she had in 6th grade, was a French Canadian kid. “I don’t know why I listened to dad about him, lapse of judgment.”

“What do you mean, listened to your dad?”
“Well, he became really obnoxious to me. He hit me with a metal water bottle on the head cause he thought it was funny. So I told dad. Dad said, I should stay with him because his parents have a house in France. But anyway, I broke up with him in a text after a while. As I said, I don’t know what came over me talking to dad.”

I was quiet for a long moment. Swallowing what just happened. So this MF ACTUALLY told my girl to stay with a boy that was physically violent with her because he is rich. And if you ask that moron, he would say it was a joke. And for him it might have been, though I doubt it, because he is, in the best case of this story, a child himself who does not understand what he just said to a young woman.

So I spoke to her more. She said she could not talk to me because I was too explosive back then. I was. But it’s also not an excuse. Then again, it was 2 years ago. He and I split up only a few months before, and the kids didn’t see his true face, the one I’d shielded them from for all these years.

So I felt the pain in my neck and the itch to talk to you, and depositing this anger became overwhelming. The kids are watching a movie. Mate… like… what in the actual F? I don’t even… how do you… I don’t know how to eat this. What man, what HUMANBEING would tell his daughter that?!

Sigh. 
I feel like this week left absolutely no space for you and me. Parenting does that sometimes. It’s taxing. I know I told you before that I am using you as my power source, but I feel we were thinning out more and more this week. Tomorrow is Monday, but I do not see how the situation with the fevers will be resolved by then.

I can be patient. I hope you can, too. 
I miss you. Not being able to address “us” is stealing from my energy. 
With endless love.
Yours, 
Oxy. 
April 5, 2026

Help me find him: Have you seen this man?