Do Whatever It Takes In Your Heart

Being this close to my old home is hard. Really hard. We've been as far away as the upper peninsula, the Black Hills, even as far south as Evansville in that state at the crossroads of America. Now we're an hour or so from home (depends on who's driving) and I go back to see my adult kids fairly often.
Take the other day for an example. I called my son - I believe it was a Friday morning, Ohio sky the color of television snow but not cold or rainy. More of an absence of weather than anything, really.
"We thought maybe we'd come and spend the night tonight," I said to my son on the phone. "HB's gotta work on Saturday at six, but that gives us lots of time."
"Um, yeah," my son said. He seemed ready to relay something unpleasant. "Thing is, the little kids are coming on Friday."
For just a second, I leaped to conclusions. I haven't seen my own three youngest children in almost two years now. My ex-wife refuses to let me see them, point blank, and given where she lives and with whom simply going to confront her is not an option unless I'm ready for a shoot-out. Literally. "Really? What time? You think I could see them? We could stay until two or--"
"Dad, no," my son interjected. "No, we can't do that. Amber and I would get in big trouble with Mom. She'd never forgive us."
"Are you serious?" It was like he'd kicked me good and hard.
"Yes, I'm serious! Maybe you shouldn't come back to town at all this weekend." He sounded angry, but right then I was pretty pissed off myself. Gut reaction, and something I feel terrible about now, but to know that they're so close and then to have such a bright and momentary hope crushed immediately... It hurt. What else can I say?
"Fine, then," I said as calmly as I could possibly be - which was pretty calm, I think. "We won't come." And I hung up.
Later I spoke to my daughter. "He's so stupid," she said by way of comfort. "I had no intention of telling you."
"I suppose that's kinder," I said. I may have sounded just a trifle bitter.
"Well, what do you want from me?" she asked.
I told her that I was forced to conclude, from both her actions and her brother's, that they both agreed that I shouldn't be allowed to see my own kids. I told her that I felt she and her brother both judge me rather harshly over things that happened in their childhood that they're only seeing one side of, and not a very mature side at that - holiday arguments, privileges denied, things overhead meant to be kept between my ex wife and I that they misunderstood. She (rather loftily) replied that she loved me very much and understood that I had always done the best I could, but that if she were in my place in certain instances she might have done very different things. Then she told me not to think about it and said goodbye.
Since then, I've been sort of stewing over the whole mess. I hate that my ex can just stand up in court and say, "He's a sexual deviate, your honor - he lives with a man half his age, younger than his stepdaughter. He shouldn't be allowed to see his own children," and the courts in Pennsylvania (who were empaneled by Cotton Mather) will heartily agree, case closed. Even if I had the money to hire an expensive lawyer and plead my case in the media it would be a tooth and nail battle: the family court in that particular county being famed for its conservatism and rigidity in such matters.
So I sit here. My coffee is cooling in the cup by my hand; the apartment smells of fresh baked bread, espresso and incense. There is money in the box on the dresser for the rent and the car payment and the bills. My refrigerator is interestingly stocked with fresh vegetables and fruit, cups of yogurt and a few remaining slices of cappuccino pie; there is fresh laundry stacked in the closets and folded in drawers; the internet is here beneath my fingertips, the whole imaginary electronic realm available at high speed. It took me all of eight weeks to assemble these things, the trappings of a comfortable life, and the delight I took in that fact is utterly gone now. Instead I think over and over of the things I lost in my head, the needle of my thoughts digging a deep and painful repeated groove. It's as if I had never mourned these things, or consciously put them away like the mementos of a painful accident that left me maimed, less than whole, but functional.
So what will I do now?
I don't know what to do. I. Don't. Know.
More than anything right now I want to take Amber's advice: I don't want to think about it anymore. I just wish I knew a way to do that.

Title lyric from "Hate Me" by Blue October.

Blue October - Hate Me
by UniversalMusicGroup