Lion and Magic Boy

We’ve been waiting all day, the children and I. It’s often like this. I’ve mentioned before the erratic shared custody schedule, and there’s not much I can do about that. The court views The Ex’s job in all its erratically-scheduled glory as much more important tha anything I could hope to do, and as an extension more important than the children’s well-being.

Bitter I am not.

But still, there’s the waiting. All day, indeed all weekend, we have known that they would be going wth The Ex tonight at 6:15 (so he doesn’t have to give them dinner, even though when they are with him he doesn’t serve dinner until about 9 pm from what I am told), so all day there is that foreboding, that foreknowledge, that they’d be packing up some stuff and heading over there to tonight for a couple of days. Now, no one here views it as a bad thing, simply a thing that will take place, but it does put this weird spin on the day. Joint custody is hard on kids. I have read studies and whatnot that supports this, but short of every set of parents remaining married despite their difficulties and pain, I haven’t a solution. And that isn’t any kind of solution, and itself presents its own set of problems. But at the same time, kids should have a relationship with both parents. In an ideal world, this would be an amicable thing with always an eye toward the best interests of the children.

[sigh]

30 more minutes.

Serena has abandoned the sore throat that has kept her sidelined all day on the couch, and Nathaniel has abandoned his depressed surliness that kept him sidelined all day with pre-teen angst, and they are playing together in these last few minutes, the first time all day. Both have abandoned the Yoda-speak that has dominated their conversation throughout the past week. And Eric sits, beside me, abandoned as usual by his brother and sister, sidelined as a result, but using his time to finish his last few bites of dinner.

2500 words to NaNo tonight to keep on schedule. Bah. I just want to watch a movie over a glass of red wine and have a hot bath. However, I pulled 50,000 words out of my ass last year and I can do it again.

Not sure that came out right.

I think it’s safe to turn my lights back on now. Every year I buy candy for Halloween and then either I live in the middle of whatthefuck and no on comes to the door at all or I am frightened by the thought of packs of three-foot tall people begging for candy at my door so I leave the lights off and cower in the bathroom for four hours.

I had the laptop upstairs and was watching some episodes of 30 Rock (only heard of it a few weeks ago), so it was okay. But I have at least $10 worth of black-market Milky Ways and Three Musketeers here that I have no idea what to do with. Any ideas? Is it recyclable?

You’re not suggesting I eat this stuff, are you?

Good. Because that so is not happening.

So today I found out what small claims court is all about. Needless to say, I was unimpressed. Is it just me or is it weird when a guy takes his ex-wife to court? Is that even legal? I guess it is. I have no idea as to the outcome yet, but I did get to wear my black court suit again so it wasn’t a total loss. Those black pumps are almost getting comfortable.

The children are with The Ex tonight, who has again co-opted the holidays this year, at least the ones involving major food consumption. It’s going on 10 pm and they are likely still trudging from house to house, collecting candy for his consumption. I so did not say that. Perhaps I am still bitter over the court experience, which necessitated having to leave Eric at a day care center that I had never been to before because I couldn’t find anyone to watch him. He seemed okay yet was regarding a cupcake and a lone apple slice quite dubiously when I picked him up, and I have yet to know Eric to turn down food, especially cake! except when he’s sick.

So I thought I would point out that although this will post on November first, it’s clearly still October 31 in my time zone and in several others as I write this (shhhh!), so is this cheating for NaBloPoMo?

Don’t answer that. I have already decided.

And oh, I have set the bar veeeery low for quality this month. Yay me!

As of yesterday, my divorce is final. Or rather, will be in another 30 days so as to give me time to find health insurance that I won’t be able to afford. Yay for joining the ranks of the uninsured!

Two years ago, I thought I would find relief, freedom, and jubilation in those words: “my divorce is final.” But I recognize that while there was a transcript made of two people saying “I do” to various agreements and there is a piece of paper that will be signed by a judge 30 days hence that says “go on your merry ways,” it’s far more complicated than that. And it’s really not over.

And seeing your life or a good portion of it, your relationship, your love, your dreams and hopes and frustrations, all of that combined, reduced to a list of things on a piece of paper, is very strange. And feels wrong. There is nothing to acknowledge the truth of what a marriage was for two people beyond this list of property. How can mere money and possessions possibly define love or a lack of it, life and the day-to-day aspects of living it, and all the other things that transpire between people when they decide to make a life together?

I could make a rather lengthy list of the patterns that have erupted for me during the past few weeks as a result of this. Ironically, I truly thought that I was divorced from any emotional aspects of the technical ending of what has been a 14-year odyssey and that I had dealt with the emotions long ago and that what was going to transpire yesterday was simply the signing a piece of paper. But oh, I was wrong. And since one thing affects another, and everything is connected, this affected everything and everyone else in my life as well. But identifying those patterns is a step toward rethinking them and forging new ones. I suspect there is an easier and less painful way to do this, one that does not require the complete disintegration of the self, the clearing of everything off the slate to uncover the deepest and rawest aspects, the ones that feel shame and terror at being exposed, but I have yet to find another way.

Which is in itself a pattern.

I find it interesting but not surprising that there are many others going through similar painful transformations right now as well. My heart reaches toward every one of you, and you know who you are, and I feel nothing but love for each of you.

Group hug.

As for me, I’ll be here gingerly lifting up a rock here and there to peer under it, looking for aspects of myself I’ve hidden there. Frankly I thought I had done this already, so I’m more than a bit surprised to be here again. But it’s either that or bury myself completely under one ginormous rock and just call it a day, and I don’t think I want to do that, as appealing as aspects of it are.

I began this post oh, about a month and a half ago, and it’s funny but things have continued to change and transform so seamlessly even since then that I’ve forgotten just how far things have come, and where they were when they began. I never posted what I began because The Evil Wordpress ate half the post and I felt unable to sufficiently recreate it, but somehow now the time is right.

It’s time to talk about my divorce. I haven’t mentioned it much except in an offhand way usually or expressing my frustration about aspects of it back when I still thought no one was going to read it anyway, and I haven’t talked about it mostly because things were either in a precarious position or I wished to show respect to The Ex and to the situation, and not talking about it all was much easier than treading on eggshells.

I feel like I need to explain something. A lot of somethings, actually. In fact, I feel almost apologetic in many ways.

Two years ago and a little more, I left a marriage of ten years and moved myself, three kids, and a truckload of stuff to Colorado because there was something calling me there, some magical something in the mountains and the sunsets and the very shimmering air, something I needed. I was running too, running from ten years of difficulty and miscommunication and discomfort. I tried so very much to create my dream through that marriage, but in the end I was left feeling isolated and alone and unfulfilled with a house and three beautiful children. I wanted the magic that happens when people really connect, and it wasn’t there.

Immediately upon the move and the announcement of the divorce, any pretense at amicability went out the window, even though I had harbored hopes that they could continue and that our friendship would simply move into a different realm. I hadn’t counted on the hurt and pain apparently caused by my move. I had felt so apart, so separated from The Ex in so many ways and for so long that I truly didn’t think that our not being there any longer would make the difference that it did.

So that is the part that I wish had gone differently. Corners were claimed and the fight began. Once communication stopped, everything was based on assumption, hearsay, and other people’s opinions. What followed may have been the worst year of my life: a mixture of the highest highs at feeling free and living in a beautiful place and creating a life for my myself and my kids, with the lowest lows of incredible fear and mistrust and animosity toward and from someone I loved. And how do you turn love off like a faucet, like closing a door? Doing so creates pain that must be attended to eventually.

Months went by. Decisions were made and enforced. Hearings were attended, won and lost. Bills were paid. I was told I must move back to Pennsylvania. There were other beginnings, endings, and beginnings. I had fought and fought to maintain what I thought needed to be maintained. I had lived for and through the children for more than ten years.

I’m embarrassed when confronted, in my own mind and in these pages, with the evidence of what may have been a mischaracterization all this time. In other words, I could only see others through the lens of my own self-doubts and uncertainties.

More months went by, and spring came. I was tired of fighting, tired of resisting, tired. Tired.

At first, it was the weariness that took the fight out of me. But as I finally began to allow transformation within myself, I began to look for it in other ways. My idealism kicked in. I saw a future, bright. I felt it, I knew it. But I didn’t know how to get there. Still, I knew the way wasn’t from being a battering ram anymore. It’s the spinning, the allowing.

But how…?

I didn’t want the animosity anymore. I examined this. What, exactly, was I looking for instead? Why was I looking to change this now? I weighed the possibilities, mentally crossing things off as they were discovered to be untrue. Finally, one stood alone: that it was simply the right way to be. For the children, for me, and for The Ex.

At the same time I was becoming immersed in new wisdom that reflected so much of my life, yet I didn’t know how to apply it. The answer kept coming to me: Apply Love to the situation.

Love? Howwwwwww??

Spinning, ever spinning. Let it come. Do what feels right. Be true to yourself.

I have done all of this. I know it is right. Gone are the days when I am so uncertain of my own mind that I must borrow someone else’s to make decisions. I am choosing now.

And the outcome?

The Ex and I have been talking about ways to address the balance of issues surrounding this divorce odyssey through mediation instead of litigation. If you knew all the details of the past two years you’d know what a huge step this is. I’m overjoyed, not because I think I’ll get a better deal or even because it will cost less, but because It’s Better.

There are still issues to be weighed. The trust that should be there isn’t, not quite, but it’s close, much closer than it has been. I am still buffeted by opinions that don’t all match, and I am picking my way through them to find what’s in my heart.

And, the children are happier. The tension in their lives is lessening. Nathaniel seems almost apologetic to report that he’s having a good time with his dad now. I assure him that it’s what I want for him, for all of them. They seem happier. It’s been a rough year on them.

I’m sure there will still be issues that cause discomfort that will have to be addressed and looked at, but speaking as one who measures her life in terms of how it feels energetically, this feels good. It’s a good path to be on.

[tags]divorce, amicable divorce, mediation, children[/tags]

Yeah. Well. Can I just say? Try to avoid being in courtrooms.

Actually, most of my day was spent in a waiting room, hoping my name would be called so we could go explain to a judge, a complete and total stranger, the issues that caused me to have to go and explain them. Yeah. Sorry to be so unspecific, but I’m going to have to leave it at that. But I did used to think how unlikely it would be that I’d spend any appreciable time in a courtroom. I’ve proved that one wrong, I guess. Who knew? Being naturally anti-litigious, this still boggles my mind somewhat.

And the experience has sucked most of my brain cells away today.

Some observations:

1. Hey, court people? Could you either clean your wipeable-looking wallpaper or have it replaced? Because it’s nowhere near its original color.

2. Most people who find themselves in family court don’t wear suits. Therefore it’s easy to tell which are the attorneys. Like people wouldn’t know anyway.

3. Conversations are amazingly easy to overhear.

4. When the sign reads, “Turn off cell phones,” they don’t mean it.

5. Neither does the sign, “No standing or waiting in this area” have any meaning.

6. Although practically everyone in family court has kids, the court is not interested in your bringing them there. One Tom Hulce lookalike was apparently unaware of this, but he and his two small boys provided quite a bit of entertainment. Here was a dad who clearly enjoyed being with his kids, and I loved watching them. They even touched the heart of the very butch woman in the sweatshirt with cutoff sleeves, with fabulous hair and a huge butterfly tattoo on her calf, as she found them some books to read somewhere and even cracked a smile when she handed them over.

The children were all quite tired when I got home and everyone went to bed early. Which is what I am going to do now.

Today I am headed into the custody courtroom again to defend The Ex’s suit against me. He wants to take Nathaniel and Serena out of the Waldorf school they have always gone to and send them to public school next year and forever. We made the decision jointly years ago that Nathaniel and Serena would greatly benefit from attending a Waldorf school as opposed to the public school that was next door to us at the time. Nathaniel, being a sensitive boy (who has grown up to play the cello and juggle), would have been lost in the sea of public school.

The Ex claims he cannot afford the tuition, but he keeps two cars, only one of which he drives, and that one isn’t the expensive Jaguar that he keeps for show, to leave parked in the parking lot across the street from me. He also has had more than two weeks vacation just in the past two months. So he clearly can afford the tuition.

Send me your thoughts and wishes today, if you will. I’ll keep you posted, but this one I’m gonna win.

Update: I won! Thanks for your thoughts and wishes.

[tags]Waldorf school, children, divorce, court, ex husbands, petty, small penis[/tags]

Up until about an hour ago, I was managing to keep a sense of humor about everything. But then just one more thing struck, the frustration with Eric’s nightly concerted struggle against changing from clothes into jammies, and the black shade then was securely drawn tight against all marauders.

All day I managed to sashay through every situation, averting disaster and maintaining everyone’s sanity and goodwill. Nathaniel have a sudden high fever last night? Fine, send him to bed, he can stay home with me today and play Solitaire. Serena come home from school jealous because Nathaniel had so much “fun” today? Fine, give her a big hug and divert her attention with an apple. Cat properly ass-corked yet still lacking in tests and medication for future corking purposes? Fine, bundle everyone into the car and motor over the the vet, Eric furiously grinding his teeth which will someday be completely ground-down little nubbins leaving us able to say, “See? You should have stopped when we told you to!”, large “sample” in place and well-hidden in a paper bag so none of the children know there is actual cat poop IN THE CAR. Fine.

My mom says I am a “strong woman”, and maybe this is true, but inwardly I roll my eyes a little and shrug, knowing that there are plenty of women and men doing as much and more. Every day. Under much worse circumstances. I know I’m nothing special that way, but I do know that it’s good when things kind of flow and no one gets hurt. Those are what we call “good days”, you know? And if something that I do or don’t do helps with that, well, so much the better.

I have spent the past couple of days anxiously counting my pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, hoping I had enough of them to meet my upcoming monthly rental obligation. Seeing that I did, or at least was not all that short and had the promise of some further income coming in, I should have felt relieved. I think I did feel relieved, actually, and proud, too, that I had somehow managed, after more than 11 years without a paying “job”, I had earned by my own labor enough to keep a roof over our heads for another month. Still, I was happy that most bills were paid for the time being, and there was a full tank of gas in the car and we had plenty of groceries.

Then this afternoon I received the surprising news that this month’s child support payment had finally hit my bank, several days overdue, and a surprise because neither of my banks nor the state support site knew anything about it the 20 times or so I checked them this morning.

I should have felt relief at this news. After all, I was going to be able to pay my rent! AND buy food this month!

I should be happy about this, right?

So why is it I feel so defeated?

Could it be because the money is coming from the coffers of The Ex, who by the way unloaded his TWO moving trucks across the street from me this evening while effectively blocking ALL his neighbors plus anyone else who wanted to collect their mail, from leaving the parking lot?

Could it be that I still have been unable to escape the bonds of “belonging” to someone, that this support, as much as it is clearly needed, represents my inability to provide for myself and my children?

Tomorrow is the closing on the house we own together, the one I loathed in the six years I lived there, with its mold and ghosts and leaks and vermin, and that I was so very happy to leave a year and a half ago. This closing means that my divorce will (finally) progress after so long in the making, with so much stress along the way. When it’s final, I’ll have some substantial amount of money as a parting gift.

That should make me happy, shouldn’t it?

So why do I feel that it’s just a slap in the face? Can the money make up for the past 12 years?

[tags] depression, divorce, money, what do I do now [/tags]

I’m disgusted. How could I write what appears to me now to be the banality below about the contents of my refrigerator, when THIS is going on?

Nathaniel’s three loves this past year have been playing the cello, juggling, and playing chess. Interesting choices for a ten-year-old, no?

He began playing the cello last year in the 4th grade. All his classmates had begun either cello or violin the year before, and Nathaniel was required to take private lessons in addition to the twice-weekly classes to catch up.

At first, he was immensely frustrated. He couldn’t play, couldn’t read music, and there were several very talented cellists in his class that he simply could not compete with.

But after about two months, something clicked, and something changed. He LOOKED like a cello player, his playing improved astronomically, and by spring he was one of the strongest players in his class and he even played solo pieces for his class play. He couldn’t wait to practice at home every day, mostly twice a day. He’d play for hours if I let him.

Juggling took off a couple of years earlier, but this past year Nathaniel taught himself to juggle three rings and moved from three to four balls, plus learned lots of new tricks with three. I can’t manage TWO. He’d walk around the house, deep in conversation, while juggling. He taught a couple of classmates and together they’d practice tricks.

Michael taught Nathaniel chess. On many a weekend winter evering, they’d stay up late and play or discuss the finer points of the game. By spring they didn’t play much, but Nathaniel was still able to beat his grandfather, who for me at Nathaniel’s age was definitely the one to beat in my house.

All that changed last August when the children had to move to Pennsylvania and be with their father. We had to return the cello and Nathaniel’s father wouldn’t help pay to rent another, or for the lessons. Nathaniel takes his juggling balls over there when he goes to his dad’s house but seldom touches them; he says it isn’t the same. And he took a chess board over a few times but doesn’t like to play because his father is intensely competitive.

More importantly, Nathaniel has lost his confidence.

This week he began to play the cello again. It’s been two months since he touched a cello. We found a teacher and he had his first lesson today, and I am securing an instrument for him to play.

This new teacher doesn’t know Nathaniel, and has brought him back to the beginning, to the very most basic elements of technique.

It’s been devastating. I assured him it would all come back to him, but the joy has left.

He’s been hanging on, awaiting that joy, for two months now, and it’s not there anymore.

Tonight Nathaniel and Michael brought out the chess board again. It’s been months. Again, Nathaniel seemingly forgot his aggressive plays and was close to losing before Michael stopped the game and turned it into a teaching session before the tears came.

I hate what has happened to my boy. And Serena has become a little wraith, pale with dark circles under her eyes. Eric is just plain angry.

Poster children for the failure of joint custody and the court system.

And mostly I hate that there is nothing. I. can. do. about. this.

The theme of last night’s New Moon was Re-evaluation. This cannot be more evident that within the context of my own life.

Michael is leaving me and moving back to Colorado. He has little money and few resources other than the goodwill of several friends who are willing to let him stay with them until he can manage a place of his own. That’s actually a lot, that goodwill, and it’s more than I have.

When he announced this yesterday morning during what could have become a heated argument about something or other, I felt……relief. There are so many issues wrapped up in all this that it’s difficult to sort them all through.

Michael hates it here in Pennsylvania. I do as well, but there’s something of a comfort in it for me in its familiarity. But it’s a completely foreign country for him. And his anger in being here has made its way into our interaction. Anger and remorse and grief. Those are not easy things to deal with on a constant basis. I know, because they are mine as well.

That’s not to say that everything was wonderful when we were in Colorado. The immense stress of the custody battle was exhausting for me, and although Michael attempted to help buoy me, it wasn’t enough for me and it was draining for him. In addition, there were other relational issues that burst through the veneer of physical attraction and mutual affection that simply could not be denied.

I knew from the start that it was a mistake to welcome Michael into my home and my life as quickly as I did. I knew I needed time to be myself, away finally from the grasp and control of The Ex, so as to sort out what things about myself I wished to keep and what I wished to discard. But I was drawn to Michael so emphatically that his siren call could not be ignored. I always told myself that I could deal with whatever it was that came up that required dealing with.

At first I was overjoyed that this man was so unlike The Ex. But as time went on I saw little thing after little thing that was in fact JUST LIKE The Ex. Don’t think this didn’t worry me, but I managed to pass it off as my own inability to see anyone without that lens of The Ex, rather than truly assigning Michael those qualities which, I have come to see, he really does possess. Sadly, or ironically, or maybe both, these qualities are also possessed by my father. So you can imagine what I’ve got to uncover to figure that one out.

Although I was ecstatic, drunk with the sudden freedom a year ago to be on my own, there was a part of me that still wished to be taken care of. I recount a several-year period, when I was between marriages and the single parent of my older daughter, that to me seemed to be the happiest of my lifetime thus far. I was independent, made my own decisions, and felt tremendous pride in my ability to function on my own. I seem to forget now how incredibly lonely I was, which is how I ended up in this 13-year odyssey with The Ex that has become, in its death throes, nothing but bitterness and conflict.

Welcome to life.

So I let Michael move in so that I could feel taken care of. A part of me was afraid, desperately afraid, that I wouldn’t be able to care for and nurture three children without financial and emotional support. Michael has actually been great in that department, if you don’t count the financial aspects, and it’s been so rewarding for the children to see a man, a father-type figure, who nurtures them and supports them and is affectionate with them, because they didn’t and don’t have that with The Ex. (On the other hand, it contributed in a very real way to us being dragged back here by the court, as the “expert” psychologists mistook the children’s anger at their father about his failings to be a real father to them and their anger at themselves at feeling duped all that time and finding out that their father wasn’t really such a nice guy after all, they took that anger and decided that it was me who had placed it there in an attempt to alienate them from their father when in fact it was his own behavior that created the alienation to begin with.)

So Michael couldn’t take care of me in the way I really wanted, since it is only myself who can fill that. And he felt his failing and was profoundly affected by it, eventually turning it around to attack me with it since he didn’t want to feel that it was a failure on his part. Which it wasn’t, not really.

But the resentment grew.

Oh what a tangled life we weave.

So I am envious, envious that Michael will be in the place I want to be, envious that he gets this opportunity to essentially start over.

And I’m frightened. I added up today what I think my monthly expenses might be, and for now, except for attorney’s fees, I can swing it okay, but the support amounts will drop precipitously, especially when the divorce is final.

Not that I want to exist on the support of ANYONE at this point, but here I am ten years out of the workforce, and what options are available to me? I cannot work a regular job with regular hours because the children are with me on an irregular basis, unless I find some way for them to be cared for when I cannot be there. And I’m not sure I want to do that to them, not at this point. There have been so many changes for them as it is. And Eric, what about Eric? He may have to attend preschool parttime beginning a month from now, and that so isn’t my wish for him, as I know it will take him into that box that everyone else sees as what he must fit into, but I may not have a choice, especially if it is decided by court order.

I keep holding the hope that SOMETHING will happen and that we can go back to Colorado one day in the not-too-distant future, unencumbered.

Until then, though, I’m on my own.

Be careful what you wish for, as it WILL come true, somehow, and not always in the way you expected.

Recently Michael and I had some soul-searching talks wherein we discussed how we saw our relationship and each other, and what roles we wanted to play. I was shocked and appalled to hear him say that he’s been considering this idea of mine of getting back into property management, probably commanding a pretty sum for my services even after 11.3 years of inactivity, and the mere thought of him being the House Dad and doing all that I’ve been doing for those past 11.3 years gives him the willies and, and as he put it, would kill him.

Well.

(and what’s it done to me?)

Which leads me to wonder if, indeed, I could land such a position. Would anyone want to employ me after 11 years of mommyhood?

For all my education, coming entirely I might add from reading books, several truckloads of them, I have no actual college degree. (I have three degrees of Reiki, but that doesn’t count, at least not that way. And I’m sure I have six or fewer degrees of separation with most if not all of you, but that again is something else.) Nope, I left my pursuit of a Theater Arts degree knowing that there was a lot of competition out there, a lot of talent, and it wasn’t simply talent that was going to get me anywhere. The odds were stacked, I felt, and running scared, I ran away with my student loan mid-semester (yes, they did catch up with me eventually, in case you are considering this) to begin a rewarding career in Telephone Sales, a natural choice.

My last husband, who has pretty much soured me on the idea of marriage entirely despite my usually idealistic outlook, observed once that it appeared to him that I never had finished anything in my life.

That may help explain a conversation which led straight to the current state of things, i.e. an extremely bitter and messy divorce, wherein he told me it was his opinion that a wife who didn’t work during the course of the marriage, choosing instead, as he put it, to sit around eating bon-bons, deserved markedly less of the hard-working husband’s hard-earned income from the time during said marriage than did said overworked and underacknowledged husband.

Which is interesting to ponder as I find myself in a position whereupon a judge who has never met me and doesn’t know a thing about me, will decide indeed what I am worth. This process, euphemistically called “Equitable Distribution”, means that the worth of the marriage will be split somehow between us, most likely by some predetermined calculation (which admittedly puts a non-working spouse such as myself to a slight advantage), but one skewed as much as possible by my husband’ likely exhortations of what is His and what was Ours. In other words, it will be decided in court What I Am Worth.

Another measure of a person’s worth, at least where we deal in the sophistication of money and power rather than in cows and cowrie-shell necklaces, which sounds much more civilized to me, is one’s job (and inherently, the money and power that rides along with it). I have none. That makes me a ….. what? I write a blog, so therefore am I A Writer? Must it be for money to earn a label? I would love to write for money, but so would at least 700,000 other people. I channel, I do Reiki, but are these worthwhile pursuits in our society?

I don’t care how many granola bars and pots of soup a person makes for her family, those things do not hold up to the general populace as Worthwhile and Worthy, unless they are mass-produced and mass-marketed and consumed en masse.

Internet, what are YOU worth, and how do you justify your worth to yourself and to others?

(Crawling back now to my Dark Hole of Depression.)

technorati tags: work, divorce, personal worth, prozac, anyone?