Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your….

Dang! I knew I should have gotten those hair extensions at Bubbles. Shoulder-length hair just won’t do when you’re trying to escape an unfavorable living situation.

I often feel I live the modern-day version of the classic Grimm fairy tail Rapunzel. But instead of being trapped in a tower, I live in captivity in a basement apartment underneath the house I own and unfortunately share with my ex. The apartment is dark and dingy, no matter how many lights I turn on. Even the Christmas-tree rope light across a curtain rod in my kitchenette doesn’t make my room twinkle.

While we agreed to trade off living in the main part of the house so that neither of us would get stuck in the basement, I chose to live underground because I wanted to have my own space.

My rather terrifying witch-like ex refuses to let me escape unless I pay child support. He’s trying to enforce a divorce agreement that was predicated on dual incomes and and me moving to the West Coast, leaving him to raise the kids. But not, however, without frequent and planned visits from Mom.

That chapter in our lives got rewritten: We both lost our jobs within a month of each other. Complicated, I know. Explaining my situation never lends itself to an easy answer when someone asks, “Where do you live?”

For as much as he wants me out of the house so he can, as he puts it, “move on,” he’s making it impossible for me to leave financially. If I’m living in the same geographic area as my children and in a suitable apartment, then I have a right to see my children 50 percent of the time, which would negate child support for either of us, according to D.C. law.

I found an apartment yesterday in a contemporary high rise that would make me feel human again. Although it’s a one bedroom, I don’t have a problem sleeping on a pull-out coach or futon when my kids come to visit. The apartment is a bit out of my price range but doable. But I could never swing it if the heathen in my ex forces me to pay child support on top of a monthly rental fee.

My temp job doesn’t afford me the luxury, and that’s really not the point. It’s unfair of him to keep my children away from me and greedy of him to seek child support and then rent out the basement apartment and book income he’d never claim on his taxes, while he is now making a six-figure income.

My ex is every woman’s worse nightmare.

As in modern fairy tales, only I will be able to provide the resolution to my tale. But my mind escapes to the dream of a knight in shining armor rescuing me. Or, would that now be a scruffy guy in jeans who has always dreamed of playing the guitar on stage but finds himself singing in a barbershop quartet.