Ready for an new year

Without question this year has seen the most changes ever in my life. I have gone through the end of a marriage. I have ruminated over how many clients and friends for that matter who were about the same age as my daughter when their parents divorced. I have seen or they tell me how hard tit was for them and the role it still plays in their lives now. I know it has a profound impact on how children view adult relationships. I really grieve over this part of my decision. I fell in love this year and then that too went away. Along the way I had a great time and I am learning how to survive without the things you want.  It is not an easy thing to let go and I never want to stop being willing to take the chance. Then what else have you got? For me I too social of a person to close off that part of  human experience. I finished school this year 8 long years after starting. Too long. Ridiculous in fact.  I rekindled a lot of friendships that really had gone by the wayside out of neglect and circumstance. 

Three days till I see the kids.  I start to get overwhelmed with feeliings when I think about it.  The ywill be bigger and different. I hope I never take forgranted another second I have with either of them for as long as I draw breath. I am ready for a good time with them. I certain I will be really sad to see them go. If anything this year has taught me it is how to process feeling s of sadness and loss. That comfort comes from within and not from the outside in.  It feels as if my life will never be easy again, but I do not regret the things both good and bad that I went through this year. I n the end I think I better for it and will end up a happier person.  Still working on it though I still struggle and hurt people along the way. It is  a bad feeling to take the anger you have with yourself and direct it at other people, which is what I have done at times this year only to feel very small inside.  I am still growing up and I guess that is better than not growing up at all.

2 weeks and counting

14 days. I will not have seen my kids four four months to the day when I pick them up at Newark Airport on December 24th. I cannot describe what this past four months has been like for me.  I chose to let my kids move out of state. Not for my benefit but for theirs. I am not sure I can explain this decision to anyone. I made this choice based on what I thought would be best for my kids under the circumstances at the time I sought a divorce from my ex wife. My business that nobody really needs to know. I know what I did was the best choice. I have been second guessed by almost everyone I know. Fine. Gut wrenching, difficult, lonely heartbreaking and so forth. I have manged to get through it with the support of family (thanks Mel), friends (Kelly, John, Matthew, Keri), therapy and hard work.  Anyone who gets frustrated with the daily grind of their children, know that you have a treasure that you should never take for granted. I have hurt my kids in a way that I cannot take back and yet in the long run I hope that it was for the best. Really I will never know. I hate flying and yet I have never looked forward to getting on a plane more than I do now. Thank you to everyone who has helped me in any way shape or form. Those of you who know me know how hard this has been. My best Christmas gift ever will be having the kids for a mere seven days.

Thank you.

Insanity

If I have not heard the Big Book definition of insanity once I have probably heard it 500 times in the last 2 years.  If you are wondering, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. I have made some significant changes in my life this year but I am not sure I have left insanity behind.  Maybe its because I am doing the same things over again in just a different setting.  People are offering advice to me about any number of topics in my life, relationship issues, ex wife struggles, missing the kids. Whatever the case may be. I think there is a quote by Erica Jong that best describes advice

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.
Erica Jong

Anyway point is I already know what I should do in these situations the real question is why do do I chose to keep doing the same things. What am I getting out of it? I have more social activities going on now than I need. I waver back and forth about how much is too much, I still hate being alone all the time. I am used to it but I don’t like it. Not really in my nature I guess. The reality is I expect that I would be fine if my kids were here. I miss them more tan I can describe. It hurts. I think this feeling of loss compounds everything else. Or maybe I am just having a really crummy day. Sometimes my job takes a toll on my psyche, dealing with the problems of others in a kind of force fed unrelenting environment inherently has days which push the edges. Unfortunately there are few people were I work that I trust and respect enough to process some of what goes on. Which is too bad. What I can say is the gang violence which is happening in Seattle is starting rival the kind of violence I remember from the days I worked in LA and there is nothing for the city of Seattle to do but hang its head in shame about what kids in the city are living through right now.

30 days today

Booked my flight to NYC get the kids the morning of the 24th. Best Christmas gift ever!  It has been three months    to the day that they left, some sort of odd symmetry at work I suppose.  I am so excited I can’t stand it.

when is enough enough

I can honestly say that my ex is now just starting to express how angry she is at me for seeking a divorce.  It is obvious in so much as she has not spoken a word to me since she moved out of state.  Noe though when I pushed her on something that was a reasonable request, an accommodation really, that I sought from her she took it as an opportunity to say no and to tell me in so many words how selfish I had been over the course of the summer and how much pain I have caused the kids. All true to one degree or another. A page and a half detailing specific past transgressions. Which I understand. She is angry at me and this is not what she wanted.  In an attempt to appeal to the idea that making the kids stay in NY to finish the last two days of school and then fly back fly back to Seattle on Christmas Eve was probably not in the kids best interest, I earned some sort of written tongue lashing.  It is too bad that things were not better between us but they weren’t. I needed to make a change for my own sense of self and my health. Now when I ask her to consider deviating from our written parenting plan I am accused of selfishness and looking out for my own self interests. To be sure I would rather fly to NYC on the Friday before Christmas and return the next day. Much easier for me but really this is about not making the kids fly across country on Christmas eve when they could already be back two days earlier. even one day would be better than the day of.

 

What can I do? What do you say? Wait try and be patient continue to appeal to the notion that this kind of response is ultimately not good for the kids. The divorce has happened. I made the most generous sacrifice I could make. I let them move out of state, that was not some sovereign right you had to take them.  Not to appease you but that I thought in the end it would be best for the kids if you were as happy as you possibly could be.  I can deal with the issues in a more positive way, I never anticipated that you would or could. And you are proving me right.

Election Day

Yesterday was an odd mix of events and feelings. From the time I woke up in LA till the time I fell asleep in my own bed in Seattle. One day removed from finishing school it was a wrap up day in LA. Drove around the city a little bit went to my favorite place to eat breakfast and listed to people debate election issues. Most specifically Prop 8. Which was to amend the CA sate constitution to ban Gay marriages. It always surprises me when someone is so outspokenly homophobic in a public place.  To cap it off rely on religious doctrine to justify intolerance of others. Sad.  I too was already feeling a little sad and nostalgic. Having spent four days with some close friends and being told a dozen times a day, “you should move back to LA” and in part remembering how things down in LA were good times both personally and in my marriage. Not that you can go back but it did tug at my hear strings.  Instead I made promises to return to LA when I have the kids and spend time in a less hectic and pressured manner.  So after spending four days with my friends it was time to go back home. Weary from keeping a busy social schedule and the stress of defending my dissertation and staying out late the night before to celebrate, I arrived at the Burbank airport with a few hours to kill. I wanted to watch some of the election returns but I just didn’t want to sit in a bar. I knew that many of me friends were getting together in various places to watch a truly historic event. And I was sitting alone in an airport trying to check election updates on my blackberry.  As flights go it was good, plenty of room a row to myself and election updates from the cockpit. The news that Obama was our new president elicited cheers and clapping on the plane.  By the time I arrived in Seattle I was wiped out and looking forward to bed. After the ride home in which I was told about a family function was planned  on an evening in which I had told all parties involved I had already made plans. Whatever.  So I get home and walk in the door greeted by my mess of a home, and the silence. I realized how staying with Liz and Lance had given me that comfort of not being alone, alone.  It blew through me pretty hard.  It reallly took me off gaurd and It took all I had to not leave and go somewhere, anywhere and just stay out late, very late.  I take comfort in the fact that I chose better than I have in the recent past and I think that I will continue to accept where I am at as a way to move past it. Sometimes it still catches me when I am not expecting it. All this tempered by the fact that school is over and we have elected a leader who I think will have a profound impact on the psyche of this country.

Keep your head up

Is an old hockey term, meaning if you aren’t looking your about to get cracked.  Much like contact sports such as football or hockey it is often the hits you don’t see coming that often hurt the most.  There seems to be a certain violence that can happen in a relationship when one person does something that hurts the other in a way that is totally out of character.  Having inflicted this form of pain on several people this year and dealing with the ramifications has been a very hard lesson. On top of that we all have our own unexpected moments. Several of which have hit me recently, largely because they came unexpectedly.

Getting an innocent call from a telephone solicitor, I know why was I picking up the phone?, who launched into her spiel about  a children’s magazine I had ordered for my kids and since let expire. As she rushed through her “fantastic” offer I had to stop her. I told her that really the person she ought to be calling is my ex since she has the kids. I could have ordered the magazine and not said anything or just no thank you, but a part of me wanted to say what was really on my mind and quite frankly phone solicitors if anyone kind of deserve it.  Needless to say it was the fastest I have ever been able to get one of them off the phone besides just hanging up on them. Fact is I wasn’t expecting a call like that and it caught me off guard and made me both sad and angry. Those in your face moments that shine a very bright light on what I do not have in my life are often not welcome unless I turn that light on myself.

Two days later. I am in the parking lot at costco, a place I never go to anymore, since I live alone and don’t often eat in bulk. Anyway I am going there to pick up some photos and low and behold who do walk smack dab into just as I am walking past my car but my son’s preschool teacher from last year. Ugh. In what I can only imagine was with best intentions she asked how the kids were.

HER ”It’s really to bad that you aren’t together anymore. You were such a nice family. We all miss Ryan.

Why not just whip out a scalpel and cut my heart out there in the parking lot?

ME “Thank you (what do you say to that?). I hope to bring the kids in during the summer.”

HER  ”to visit?”

ME “I need to leave there for child care during the summer.”

HER “Oh so you get them for the summer?”

No I just want to pay the money just in case…

Capper though is the VM message my son who is four leaves on my phone Monday. He gives me a few quick updates an Halloween and his preschool class and then starts to get teary and sad and says to me “I love you and I really miss you because I am with mom and I really really miss you. I hope mom gets better if she doesn’t I want to stay with you. I hope you take care of me bye bye”

I love you too Ry

More questions than answers

Sometimes there are days that seem to typify your experiences with someone or something. I think I had one of those days this weekend. The only thing is I am not sure what it all really means. I think sometimes I think too much, I tend to live my life in my head, not sure I will ever change that part of myself. What it means though is that when something happens and I am not sure what to do with it I take it and think about it, I think about it a lot.  I was asked a question that completely caught me off guard and it was a good question. One that I have asked myself many times and one that I have probably answered a little differently each time.  I think the reason for that is, I am still largely in a state of transition. Needless to say my life has gone through major changes this year and I am still in the process of going through those changes, how they impact my life and how I can best move forward given the circumstances I find myself in.

So when asked “what do you think you should do?” given the circumstances that are less than what I would like them to be, in large part due to some a very stupid thing that I did combined with my global issues of the minute, I can’t help but think that this person is making the best choice for herself. Given that she tells me that at this time she has no interest in anything more that getting together from time to time what can I say. It makes perfect sense to me.  So given what I know and how I feel, which is that I still have a lot of feelings for her, I go back and forth. Do I just leave her be? Do I continue to spend time with her and see what happens? The rational part of me tells me that I should leave well enough alone and let things happen as they will and come to terms with what has happened between us. Another part of me tells me that even when I ask how she feels about me I never really seem to get a clear picture and that I still have feelings and I would at there very least try again when I am in a better place and time. Which is why I am working so hard on puttings things together in my own life. Not just for the purposes of this relationship but because I need to take care of myself in much better ways than I was earlier this summer.

The toughest thing about all this is knowing how much I did to turn something great into a mess. Tou can’t ever undo what has been done. Best thing I can do is learn from my mistakes and be a better person from it.

The kids are coming

Not for a while yet but I have had these overwhelming bouts of missing them recently. Especially when I talk to them on the phone. Not being able to sit with them. Play with them, wrestle on the floor with them, or share a meal. If my finances were better off than they are now I would be tempted to fly back to NY for a weekend but I can’t. Not yet.  I have a trip to LA to defend my dissertation. And I need to fly out to NY at Christmas and bring them back to Seattle.

In many other ways I feel very positive. I have shifted my focus onto the things I need to do for myself and getting them done one step at a time.  There seems to be a never ending array of things to do so I keep busy. My social life is good to. I have friends who I am reconnecting with and starting to do a variety of things that I stopped doing over the years. The best thing is that I am more comfortable being alone, that I think has been the biggest challenge in this whole process. 

It is very interesting to have conversations with my friends about my social/personal life. Some have tried to fix me up on dates, others have given their opinion about who or what I should be looking for in a relationship.  Interesting for the sake of conversation but I prefer to let things happne as they are. I am happy with my current situation and feel no need to rush anything. When I do go out with someone I have a great time and I feel comfortable, happy even.  For now that is enough, in fact it was much more than I had before. 

Finally started to share this link with a few people so I am a little nervous about it. I think it is hard for me to share with people in general so I should just get over it.

emotional weekend

I went to see my favorite band this weekend. Three days at the gorge and I was excited to see some old friends from years past where we congregate once a year to catch up with each other, share some food and drinks and have a great time.  But this year was different for me. The sax player for the band died the week before and the band was playing for the first time since his funeral. The Friday night show was an open tribute to their friend who they lost suddenly due to medical complications from an accident he suffered much earlier in the year.  The band was in tears at numerous point in the show, the sheer intensity of the moment had me weeping as well. I think I had been waiting for the right moment to have a good cry and this was it. I cried for the death of a musician I admired and have appreciated for many years. I cried for the pain that is a part of my life with the kids being gone. Music can be a healing force as it was for me this weekend. My only regret was I had planned to go with K and for many reasons that did not happen. I had looked forward to going with her all summer, since March when I bought the tickets.  It would have been nice to have her meet some of my friends and share my enjoyment of the weekend with her.  Never the less it wasn’t meant to be.  It is relatively late and it was very cold Saturday and Sunday evenings. It rained and hailed Sunday night and I have managed to catch a rapidly worsening cold.  Off to bed to catch up on sleep in my own bed and fight this dreaded cold.

 

It still hurts. My neighbors daughter was in my backyard this evening playing on the swingset and jumping on the trampoline. It made me cry again.  Sad is how I feel when I see her out there and my kids are a continent away.