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.

At peace with it all

After a week of ruminating over the kids, my decisions on personal matters and generally not getting much done I have finally unstuck myself.  After getting some good feedback from a number of friends I trust I can’t help but be thankful for the people I have relied on over the past 6 months.  Not long ago I was asked by someone what do I think I should do when it comes to matters of the heart and at the time I couldn’t really answer the question.  Maybe I just process things slowly or maybe I just didn’t really know.  Or maybe I had just kind of lost my way. Whatever the case I feel as though following your heart is the best choice. This has been a difficult year and it would be easy to see everything from some sort of negative or whoa is me point of view but that would just be setting myself up for creating some story about how I decided to get divorced and nothing good has come out of it. I lost the kids, relationships didn’t work out the way I wanted and that in general relationships are things to be avoided.  The reality is I still get to chose I view my experiences and I can continue to create my own life in so much as I do not need to be a passive participant in the whole process.

 

This week was full of conflict via e-Maill between my ex and I. She refuses to speak to me over the phone so all contact is via e-mail. After shutting me down on picking up the kids 2 days early over the Christmas break I finally did what I should have done from the beginning and looked up the kid’s school schedule for the year.  I have the kids more that I though over spring break and the parenting plan is written in such a way as there is a conflict in when I can have the kids over the Summer. When I pointed this out to my ex she of course believed that decision should be in her favor despite there being conflicting allotments of time. Mediation here we come.  It is sad that we can’t just negotiate these simple things so that we can both have some flexibility to the agreement. But that seems unlikely to happen so if at all. Too bad.

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

Random Thoughts on a Monday

Sixty. The  number of days exactly till I have my kids for 10 days.

Hatred is it better than apathy? Depending on the degree with which it is expressed, I lean toward yes.  I spent a part of an afternoon in which I could have been invisible for the most part. Ignored really by the group of people I was with (for the most part). Since it matters to me what they think (to a small extent) I think I would rather they hate me, at least there is some sort of common ground. Apathy is so all together different. The nothingness of it  is striking. But hey you can’t make people like you.  The funny thing is I have been around them enough to know have some sense of the kind of person they do like. I am not that kind of person.  Not animated enough, loud enough, outgoing enough (?). High context versus low context. ( Me being low of course).  Aside from that I had a good time and really a pretty damn good weekend. Emptied out my storage unit saving me 187 dollars next month and creating hours of work at home sorting through packed boxes of stuff. What to keep for the kids is the hard part. What will my daughter and to a lesser extent will my son possibly appreciated from their parent’s failed marriage.  Have I now become the keeper of my ex wifes wedding dress until my daughter reaches adulthood? Pictures, and stuff, artifacts and relics. I felled a tree in my backyard, kind of, My neighbor and I had a friend of his who knows how to cut down trees did the actual skilled portion of the event. I just cleaned up the mess in my yard. Sunny weekend days are things to cherish in Seattle and that’s what I did. Making the most out of a rare weekend of sun.

My bus ride in to work today is a series of random things loosely pulled tight. Guy sitting next to me on the bus, and not the first time he has sat next to me, always reading religious material. Typically a bible, but today a book, book. I am reading my own book, a satirical book of short semi autobiographical storys by Sloane Croasley titled “I was told there’d be cake”, funny book. She has devoted a chapter to the origin of her name and experience of having an unusual name.  Come to find out that she is named after the female character in a 1960’s Charleton Heston movie Daimond Head, yes of course that Daimond Head in Hawaii in which NRA prez Hess is playing a Hawaiin Plantation owner and his sis Sloan is in love with a no good local. Anyway back to the bus. At some point I look over  and the guy is starting Ch 3, entitled “Can a loving God really send people to Hell?”, I know for sure that a Jewish old testament God would. Lots of Sunday school and eventually Catholic HS taught me that.  Better yet and this is where it comes full circle Heston played none other than Moses who saved people from Hell and he played the astronaught in Planet of the Apes where he Damns everyone to Hell in the last line of the movie whan he finds the statue of libery buried in sand on the beach.

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.

Life is good

I had the best weekend I have had in a long time.  Friday I got to have Lucy the lab come and stay with me. She is great, she loves to be loved and it was nice to have that undivided attention of something who wanted to be with you no matter what you were doing.  I love that dog. It also reinforced how good it would be for me to get my own dog. Why wait for the fence to be finished what is the use in that really?.  So I have started looking at dogs on the Humane Society web page.  I also got a lot of painting and cleaning done Friday. Saturday I had company over for the first time. I made dinner for someone other than myself for the first time in oh maybe three months, and best of all the company was great. It was a very nice night. Sunday was more of the same good company followed by planting Hyacinth bulbs in the garden and then playing a couple of softball games. I am really starting to feel comfortable being on my own. I think the key really is having some balance between my desire to have friends and other people in my life and my developing sense of self on my own. Something that you can easily lose through the course of a marriage and parenthood.

It is a good place to be in.  I am feeling stronger now than I have in a really long time. Back when you are young and feel invincible and that you will live forever or at least a long time without having to think about what happens when you get old.  I am not feeling that way at all but I am finally accepting things the way they are.  I can’t wait for december to come. I need to book my flights with the kids soon.  I think I am really going to like having a dog. In part I like the whole aspect of learning how to interact with a dog. I like it.

living alone

It has been 16 maybe 17 years since I have lived alone. Even then it wasn’t that long of a period of time.  Maybe I will adjust, I am sure that I will, humans are by their very nature adaptive. Still I miss having people around. Most of all I miss my two children. I have not spoken to them in a couple of days. Not that I haven’t tried. Now I share a house with a cat that wants nothing to do with me and a beta fish.  I need to get a dog. Everything seems so quiet.  I feel a little like Tom Hanks’s character in the movie where he is a cast away and befriending a volleyball. It would be different if I lived in an apartment where there were people around but here I have no one to visit with. 

 

I made dinner and ate alone. I worked on my dissertation till I couldn’t stand it and stopped. I should go to bed, and go in to work early. I listened to the RNC and felt ill.  Politics has become a circus for the media to cover. Do any of them really care what is going on in the lives of most Americans?