Our first bondage kit

I am writing of this only because it is too funny to go unmentioned, poor taste notwithstanding.

My girlfriend and I were shopping for a "surprise" present for my upcoming birthday at a Spencer's store in the mall. Spencer's is a store with a lot of weird gifts. Some are creepy, some are funny, some are sciency, it's hard to explain. We were looking around the store, soaking it all in when mis-heard something, clearly not what my girlfriend had actually said. What I *heard* was "our first bondage kit". I laughed, turned and looked to where she was pointing: a box with "Our First Bondage Kit" printed on the side in big, bold letters. I swear I'm not making this up, I can't, it wouldn't be funny, too over-the-top, you wouldn't believe me. It had handcuffs, a leather strap, a feather, possibly other stuff.

I guess it's kind of like "My First Pony", the pink plastic pony with big blue eyes and a blond mane they used to advertise on TV to 7 year-old girls. But different. Very different.

Much like 'My First Pony' boxes, 'Our First Bondage Kit' Boxes have helpful illustrations of what one my want to do with the contents. Thoughtful of them, really.

I'm now imagining a movie clip , or, hey! perhaps an ad for 'Our First Bondage Kits': an old couple, in their eighties, walking on the beach, holding hands, maybe one is terminally ill, just a few months left to live. They are wistfully looking back on their life together, their kids, their youth. One turns to the other and says: "Dearest, do you remember Our First Bondage Kit (tm)?". Their eyes well with happy tears at the sweet, gentle memories of leather restraints, gags and handcuffs, whips and chains, screams of anguish and delight. The sun sets to swelling melancolic music as their intertwined fingers tighten and a tear rolls down a cheek.

We got a huge stuffed Homer Simpson doll.

Holiday Traditions

My family has a rather unique tradition at major holidays.

Whereas some American families eat turkey, watch football, gather to sing songs or watch fireworks, we undertake home remodeling projects. We seem to bond over hammers, nails, sawdust and insulation, long workdays toiling in the mud and dust, attics and outdoor brush. Or perhaps just because it's fun.

I should clarify that when I say "fun" it isn't Disneyland fun, body-surfing fun, going out to hear great music or eat good food or drinking "fun". I do know the difference. This fun is hard, tiring, at times frustrating and painful. No, this is the fun that comes from connecting deeply with another human being, getting to really know that person by working with them, achieving something together, laughing at the mistakes we make and the very paradox and weirdness of finding pleasure in hard work. It is the fun of giving of yourself unconditionally, without reserve or expecting anything back, or receiving that gift from others. It is the fun of knowing someone cares enough about you to give up turkey, football, drinking and fireworks, or the fun of being able to express that kind of caring from someone else.

Here are some examples:

- My brother Pete, my dad and I spending a 15-hour day crawling in my sister's house's crawl-space insulating her floor, then another day in her attic (partially insulated with blown cellulose, to make breathing impossible without dust masks) further insulating it. This was Thanksgiving.

- My brother Ben and his friend spending a couple weeks around Thanksgiving building a modest 12'x24', 2-story 'shed' (think 'garage').

- My brother Pete and my Dad coming over July 4th to clear an acre of thorn bushes (3 days), replace a couple doors, insulate and provide a floor to an attic space (30 hours over 2 days), and paint.

- My brothers Pete and Ben coming over another July 4th to help me finish my 1500 sq foot deck project (2 weeks).

- Me and my ex-wife hand-mixing and pouring concrete two Christmases in a row, one in a light snow with a 1-year old in many layers of blankets in the shelter of the eaves.

- Easter Sunday painting the basement my ex and I had just spent the last 6 months finishing (I guess you could count all the holidays in that 6-month period).

- Christmas driving up to Pete's house to meet him and my sister Debbie, who flew in from Charlotte, to help him remove wallpaper, paint, varnish floors, install stove and washer.

- Christmas driving 1500 miles to move the rest of the stuff from my old house, fix up a few sundry things and get it ready for sale. This was with my renter, Brian, who rapidly became a good friend.

This may sound strange to some, but those are some of my happiest, most meaningful memories. Perhaps it's striving toward a shared goal, facing a challenge together. I don't know, but I genuinely grew closer to those people during those difficult but fun times.

In what is perhaps sub-consciously a test of sorts, I spent a couple days just before and after this past Christmas with my girlfriend building a shelf which covers the entire back wall of my garage: 16'x8'x2'. We planned it together, discussed building techniques, measurements, pros and cons of different approaches. We then bought and hauled the lumber together, built it together, laughed together at our mistakes and accidents (it's no fun unless some blood is shed), hooted at the idea of spending all of Christmas Eve day "partying" by doing this.

We loaded up the shelves and I drove my car into the previously-cluttered garage today.

This is the stuff of life, the stuff that builds and cements a relationship. Regardless of what the future holds for my girlfriend and me, she has become part of my ritual of hard physical labor on holidays, brought me more happiness than she probably knows and given me the best present I know of.

Knights and Princesses

Men are born to be knights, it's in our genes.

Most men have a strong desire to be heroic, brave, self-sacrificing providers. It defines men as men.

An illustration of that is how men live to a large degree for their families, and particularly for their ladies. Wanting to please, impress their women is why men work, fix houses, stay in shape, pursue careers. It isn't that men don't have ambitions or interests of their own, but for most, a desire to be seen by their women as strong, useful, resourceful, is a huge part of their motivation.

The old stereotype of women leading men to accomplish things is largely true. Moreover, I think it is good, the way things truly are and should be, political correctness notwithstanding.

I have come to see this first-hand as I am now single.

Whereas I used to occupy much of my time with home improvement projects, yard work, cleaning the house and various other tasks, I now have a very hard time motivating myself to do any of those. Even my hobbies have fallen by the wayside. I am no more lazy than I used to be, I just find myself asking "why"? What is the point of keeping my yard looking good? The fact is that I want someone to impress, someone to tell me how proud they are of me for keeping a clean kitchen, building a deck or shelves in the garage, how good my homemade bread, beer and yogurt is. There are some who undoubtedly see this as a weakness, why can't I just want to do those things on my own? I don't know, but that is who I am, and who I think a lot of men are, probably most.

I want to be someone's domestic knight, hunting down money, slaying bugs and spiders, driving away snakes, rescuing my yard from ugliness, my lady from screaming kids, and gallantly sacrificing my weekends to build sheds and paint siding. I want my woman to look up to me for my bravery and valour, industriousness and tenacity, honour and courage.

Fairy tales are not stories so much as reference manuals on how to be a real man.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a load of dirty laundry to conquer.

Stairs and Laundry Baskets

And now, for your education and amusement, my two girls have graciously agreed to demonstrate for you the proper use of laundry baskets and carpeted stairs. No children have been harmed in the production of these photos... mostly.

Terminal velocity remained sub-sonic... just barely.

What Happens If My Sister Dies?

One of the things I am discovering of late is the importance of acknowledging and speaking the truth, particularly when it is uncomfortable.

When faced with a hard reality, adults so often hide the truth, soft-pedal it, pretend it isn't there, hope it will improve with time. Kids don't do that.

I have a wonderfully outspoken, inquisitive 6 year-old girl, a veritable fount of uncomfortable statements. Here are a few:

- "If my sister died, would we get another kid? I want someone to play with."

- "Is 'Debbie' (the woman I have been dating for 3 months) going to be my stepmother?"

- (laughing) "I forgot you and Mom were divorced, I thought she was still here in the house " (resumes playing)

- "Oh, man, I'm going to miss you when I go to Mom's, I wish you could come with me"

I adore the completely uninhibited openness and honesty of those phrases. There wasn't any hesitation, squeamishness, nothing. Just a question or statement. Take it or leave it, reality is what it is.

I was initially uncomfortable with those statements. She wasn't. She just put them out there and resumed whatever she was doing. Those statements may have made me uncomfortable, but they did not, in fact, kill me, because they were true, and I knew it.

When do we forget how to do that? When do we start couching everything in such carefully crafted sentences, worrying so much about how the truth will be received?

I am more guilty of that than most, I want to please people, make them happy. Like me... please? There is a place for being kind, sensitive, caring. Where that crosses over into an outright distortion of the truth, I don't know, but I cross that line more than I want to.

So here's to being more like my little girl, to seeing and saying things as they are, to not worrying (so much) what the impact of the truth is, to letting reality be what it is, because in the end, it always is anyway.

Words

I love words.

It may be obvious to those who know me, or perhaps merely by virtue of the fact that I write this blog, but I love words.

I love the way words sound, their texture, the way they feel coming off the tip of my tongue or fingertips. I relish the vibrancy of the image well-chosen words paint, how tangibly, almost palpably they can outline the speaker's soul.

Words are the pallet with which I paint my universe and the medium through which I experience it.

I love finding just the right word, the right expression to explain how I feel, what I see. I love feeling I understand exactly what someone is trying to say, getting them.

This realization about myself is a minor epiphany: I am a talker. Talking, listening, reading and writing is how I experience not only the world, but people; how I make contact and establish intimacy with them.

Not everyone is like that. I recently had a conversation with my ex, in which we noted how different we were. She mentioned how she and her current boyfriend can spend 30 or 45 minutes driving somewhere, or walking, or sitting, and never say a word, not one. They consider this good. I think my ex views words as assaults on her tranquility, things to deal with. Given a choice, she would much rather sit in silence, simply peacefully cohabitate, in parallel, never really interacting, just 'being there' for each other. That, to me, is death, but worse. I know, I lived that way for the last 7 years I was married. It killed me.

I do not understand how non-talkers establish intimacy if not with words. Perhaps they don't, or not as much. Perhaps they don't want, need, yearn for it as much as I. I don't know. Despite having been married to a non-talker for 22 years, I don't get them, and I can't because they won't talk about themselves.

Perhaps the 'strong silent' persona is an outward expression of inner strength, security, tranquility. Perhaps my wordiness is the demonstration of the opposite. It may be, but that's still me, I can't change it.

What is funny, almost hilarious, is how incredibly different my ex and I are, yet how we never noticed this most basic, fundamental difference.

Life Philosophies

When it rains, it pours. After not writing for over a month, this is my second post of the day. I was originally going to shoe-horn this into the last post, but then thought it would do better on it's own.

I have been given two wonderful life philosophies in the last year.

Life Philosophy #1:

Live your life by two rules:
1- Be happy
2- Don't hurt others

On the very rare occasion where there is a real conflict between the two, pick rule 1.


Life Philosophy #2:

This is a direct quote from the movie "Second Hand Lions", in which the character played by Robert Duvall says:

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in"




At first blush, the first life philosophy seems like an argument for Hedonism. It isn't. I am finding it more and more true that the more "selfish" we are, watching out for our own basic happiness, the better it is for everyone. Perhaps the converse is clearer: if we compromise our own basic happiness to protect others' feelings or a relationship, we hurt everyone. I find this hard because my first instinct is to 'protect' other people's feelings by suppressing my own basic needs and wants. The more open we are, especially on issues where there is hurt, conflict or disagreement, the closer, more real, intimate, true and meaningful our relationships are.

Even if true honesty exposes irreconcilable differences and terminates a relationship, it does so earlier, with less pain and loss than would occur after perpetuating an unsustainable and hurtful relationship. I should know, I did that for 15 years, even though, in hindsight, I knew better.

The second life philosophy is an eloquent argument for faith. It is the statement that life is only worth living if lived without compromising one's basic principles. It says that a life without ideals isn't worth living, it is tepid, insipid, meaningless. That quote says that life should be, must be, about more than eating, sleeping, working, copulating, reproducing, having fun. A life should mean something. One should be able to look back on their life and not regret having compromised who they are for the taudry business of survival.

It resonated with me as I have let the pain and disappointment of my failed marriage sour me on the idea of finding True Love. I need to believe in it, whether or not it is true, kind of like training for a race one has no chance of winning. I think my lack of belief in True Love has tainted my attitude in looking for it. I am too analytical, half-hearted, perfectly exemplified by my post of an hour ago. I need to believe in the (perhaps fallacious idea) that there exists at least one person out there who will take my breath away, lay my soul bare with their gaze and with whom I will be in love with 'forever' and they, me. I need to believe that even if my previous post's taxonomy of relationships is correct, it will become irrelevant when faced with the overwhelming power of the right relationship.

While the hopeless romanticism of that last paragraph, caveats notwithstanding, has me reaching for the 'delete' key, I think the faith it expresses is necessary to find someone with whom that is even a possibility.

I would love to hear other perspectives, please give me yours, anonymously if need be.

Hold or Fold

I've been dating a woman for over 2 months now, she's the one who inspired my last blog entry entitled 'Domestic Impulse'. Let me call her 'Debbie' from here on.

My musings over the nature and future of our relationship has led me to the following thought about relationships: all relationships (not just romantic ones, also friends, kids, family) may be comprised of the following components, as appropriate to the relationship.

The following are different aspects of one central idea: you and the other person 'want' each other, you hunger, thirst, wish for, and desire contact with each other.

The type of relationship determines the type of interaction desired: physical proximity, emotional, intellectual, sexual, long-term planning.

Forgetting everything else, the most basic barometer of the health of a relationship is how much you 'want' the other person.

These categories, along with their definitions/required components are:

I- Fun (Friendship)
- Wanting to have fun.
- Desire to share the other person's real-world life, activities.
- Enjoy (any) activities involving the other person (shopping, building decks, bathing kids, riding bike, watching movie, watching football game, volunteering, going to park, cleaning house, fishing, working on cars, going to church).

II- Intimacy/emotional connection (Love)
- 'Static' (historic) knowledge of personal things.
- Communication (free, open, frequent, effective)
- Desire to know/understand the other person fully, to fully share all aspects of their life, particularly the emotional/intellectual ones.
- Empathy (being able and *wanting* to see the world through their eyes)
- Having and wanting a deep, 'dynamic' knowledge and understanding of the other person, what makes them tick?

III- Compatibility
- Sense of humor (how much and which kind: are farts funny?)
- Stress response (how upset are you over a broken dish, window, spilled milk, unintentional hurt, job stress).
- Philosophical/political/religious outlook (eg: basic attitude toward gays, minorities, immigrants, prayer in school, Rush Limbaugh).
- Lifestyle (smoking, drinking, exercise, diet)

IV- Sex (Lover)
- Wanting to pleasure and be pleasured by the other other person.
- Being attracted to the other person.
- Listening to the other person, talking to the other person about what they/you want.
- Being enthusiastic about it, desiring the other person.

V- Partnership (Life Partner)
- Wanting to make a life together
- Wanting to plan for the long-term

Debbie and I have a few things right. Most important is that we do 'fun' really well, an important component of which is that of the domestic variety. I very much enjoy sharing my life with her: going shopping, playing with my youngest at the park, cooking supper. She helps me clean my house on Saturday, not because mopping floors is that much fun, but because we are together and working toward a (small) common goal. She will be moving into her new apartment soon (she was living with a relative), and I am downright giddy at the idea of helping her set up her place. I think I would describe it as a bond of close friendship. I care deeply for her and she for me. We wish to share each other's lives, provide each other companionship, comfort and friendship. It feels right, good, comfortable, warm. When I am with her, I am serene, calm, happy. It is said that men express and receive love through action. When I am with her, I feel loved and I love the bond knit of doing stuff together. To reiterate, I love sharing my life with her.

I nevertheless have doubts about the long-term viability of our relationship, as we seem to have some challenges the area of intimacy. I don't know how to distinguish that from what I described above except that I don't always feel like she 'gets' me, understands me to my core, and I don't feel I really get her.

Part of that may be cultural. Debbie comes from a very different background than I do. I do not consider this difference bad, but as a matter of practical reality, it makes deep communication more difficult. We lack some cultural and linguistic references upon which relies so much of communication and a deep understanding of others. The world Debbie comes from has different rules than mine: hers are more absolute, black/white, direct, whereas my world is one of tortured nuance, and seemingly interminable dithering over questions of propriety or right and wrong.

Part of our issue with intimacy certainly comes from personal differences: as this blog shows, I want to fully explore all issues surrounding a topic, decision or problem. She doesn't. Whereas I find that fleshing-out differences, uncertainties or even conflicts brings me closer to the other person, she finds it sad, depressing, confrontational or even threatening. She has been hurt and subsequently angry when I explain how I miss certain aspects of my old life, like knowing my place in the world, or that I regret my marriage didn't turn out to be what I hoped it could have been. I see delving into areas of disagreement or hearing things I don't want to hear as seeing into someone's soul, finding out who they really are, not just who they want me to see. I find those conversations more intimate and soul-barring than sex ever could be. I have subsequently found myself guarding what I say, for fear of hurting Debbie or starting a spat, a response I consider my own failure, though one I find hard to overcome. This concerns me more than anything else, as this was a characteristic of the relationship with my ex I have no desire to repeat. This could be me not giving Debbie enough credit for being able to deal with stuff, I don't know.

So the bottom line is that I while love many aspects of my relationship with Debbie, it is missing something as it stands today. As I see it, I have three options:

- Accept this as 'good enough' for now, because it genuinely is good, and build on it for the long-term, hoping that it can become enough of what I need it to be to make us both happy. Hope the intimacy and openness of communication can grow as our understanding and trust of each other grows. This option is premised on the notion that relationships are more about the mechanics of communication, compromise and co-habitation than raw emotions which are fleeting and temporary.

- Take it as a temporary relationship, in which we are both getting the love and support we need for now, understanding that at some point in the not too distant future it will end, lovingly.

- Hold out for someone with whom intimacy and openness comes more easily, and hope that intimacy and openness can be nurtured to last and grow for a long time, call it 'forever'. This is the romantic option, the option of faith and hope in True Love (tm). More on that in the next blog. This idea is not the opposite of the first, above, but places more importance on 'chemistry' than the first.

I don't know what to do, I really don't. At the moment I am taking it a day at a time. I will admit I have something of a deadline in mind by which to make up my mind. Debbie is good for me now, I really am happy and content. She is a wonderful, precious person, giving, kind and generous. One interesting thing: since I met her, I have little/no desire to drink in excess, I'm not trying to fill a void anymore. Funny that.

I'll let you know how it goes.

'night y'all.

Domestic Impulse

I am discovering something interesting about myself: I desperately want to be married.

I don't mean that literally, I still have serious doubts about the institution of marriage as usually understood, and certainly about seeing myself married again. What I mean is I feel this incredibly strong impulse to commit to someone, attach to them, to come home to them, go shopping with them, make evening plans with them, play house if you will.

A friend and colleague of mine, also recently divorced after 20+ years of marriage, put it this way: those of us who grew up married are used to it, it is what feels natural, normal, comfortable. While commitment and obligation are confining in some sense (one must accept limits on one's behavior) this is our 'natural' state, it's what we really want.

I recently began dating someone. I meant to keep it casual, but my desire for intimacy, love and acceptance, both received and given, changed that plan. I was irresistibly drawn and 'fell' into a relationship with her. I would be embarrassed, except it feels so 'right', so good, so genuine and like what I need. I love not looking around for anything else, I love making plans to shop for groceries, sit out on the patio with a cold drink or a cup of coffee. I have no desire to drink or smoke, I have no ache I am trying to dull. I love pouring my affection onto her, making her feel loved and cared for and getting the same from her. I love the physical intimacy we share and the pleasure we bring each other, whether from 30-minute kisses or anything else. I love feeling desired and wanted as well as desiring and wanting her. I love being 'married' to her. In my more sober moments I fear for both of us: do I love her, or do I love being 'married'? What am I more attracted to: who she is or the emotional solace and quietude she provides me, the role she fills and allows me to fill?

I feel I am breathing for the first time in months, and the taste of that air is every bit as sweet as I imagined.

I also recognize that even if she is the 'perfect' match for me, and we are destined to be together long-term, I eventually need to date other women. I need to make sure I really love her and not her role. It would be a mistake to 'marry' in any sense of that word, the first woman who comes along. So what do I do? Stop dating her because I really like her? Only date women I don't really care about? This may sound stupid, but I am in a quandry. I don't want to hurt her, nor myself, and we are presently meeting each other's needs, our relationship is healthy and nurturing. Do I cut it off because it is that?

I think I have decided to stop worrying about it. Too much examination and introspection may kill the beauty of this relationship. At some point I need to drop the 30-year outlook and enjoy things for what they are, now, today. Life is full of pain, trying to avoid it is futile and counter-productive. If this relationship ends, it will hurt. So what? Should I never love because the end of love hurts?

I know what I can do: be honest and truthful, be true and faithful. That is easy, I do that pretty well, I think. I can also resolve to care for her regardless of the nature of our relationship. As long as we remain honest and true and decent and kind to each other, I think we'll be ok. Beyond that all I can do is hope, and do my best.

Hope is free.

On the cusp

This is just kind of a journal entry, given that I haven't written in so long.

I am on the cusp of beginning of the second volume of my adult life.

Baring unforseen and improbable complications, tomorrow, September 24th, 2008 at around 14:00 CDT, I will not be married, for the first time in over 22 years. I don't know how I'll feel. I don't know if I'll be happy, sad, angry (well I can guarantee I'll be angry at my lawyer, but I meant more generally). I have no idea. I think I'll feel some of everything.

The last several days have been better, for at least a few reasons.

First, the end is near, and there is just less stress about how this divorce is going to finish.

Secondly my ex (gotta get used to that term) and I are getting along very well. I've recovered a sense of family and friendship with her, which I sorely missed. Despite everything, we were always friends the last 25 years. Not always close friends, though usually, not always happy friends, though sometimes, but friends. The loss of the friendship was worse than anything I think. It felt like losing an arm. It is strange, I don't even always like who my ex is, how she acts, but I still want her to be my friend. I still feel the need to look out for her interests, and she is still looking out for mine. I think 'family' is the best analogy. You don't always like your family, sometimes quite the opposite, you sometimes argue with them, dislike them, but when they need you, you are there, you can't just write them off. That is what it feels like at this time.

Finally, I began dating someone, someone nice, someone who meets my needs for intimacy, as defined below (definition provided by my counselor). I desperately want friendship and intimacy. I yearn and thirst for it. Here's what my counselor suggested intimacy is:
- Attention
- Acceptance
- Appreciation
- Support
- Encouragement
- Affection
- Respect
- Security
- Comfort
- Approval
- Compassion
- Devotion
- Kindness
- Understanding
I look at that list and think to myself, I could live without anything else (romance, sex) if I just had those things, not even all of them. My pet theory is that this is what everyone is looking for in all our relationships. This is the connection that humans crave.

This is not the first time I have had those needs met. I have friends who give me that, some even more completely really than this new person can, as they know me better, are closer to me, have a more complete view of who I am. Isabelle gave me that to a large degree, despite the impediment of distance. My children sometimes give me that, though only partially as their understanding of me is limited by their child's perspective.

Intimacy, the feeling of being loved, cared for, listened to, is the most powerful anti-depressant ever. Whatever the source, it makes me feel normal, focused.

I don't need romance, I don't need sex, I don't need fun. I need intimacy like I need oxygen.

I hope my current mood is more than just a fleeting moment, a temporary euphoria induced by a surge of hormones and neurotransmitters. I hope it is at least in part due to an adjustment to the new reality of my life. We'll see.

Before I go, let me just add that despite my current very 'zen' outlook, I will tell you that divorce sucks. Absolutely. There is huge loss involved in any divorce. You, your spouse, your kids lose immeasurably. You will all be scarred for life. It may be the only solution, as I think was the case for me, but if there is any chance of making what you have work, give it everything you have. Don't settle for a pissy, mediocre marriage, insist that your needs be met, that you and your spouse be happy, but work at it as if your life depends on it. If after that, it still doesn't work, get a divorce quickly, nicely, and try to continue caring for each other. Life is too short to be unhappy.

Be happy, don't hurt others.


Night y'all.

============================

This is an update....

So I was divorced yesterday. The courtroom appearance was altogether perfunctory: we were called up first and it took all of 1 minute, 2 tops. The only trauma was when my lawyer told me I owed her another $1000, bringing it to a total of $4000, for a *completely* uncontested divorce in which all the terms were already agreed upon and written down when I hired her. She had said it should cost less than $1500. All she had to do was translate our wishes into a legal document a judge would sign. I obviously picked the wrong career.

I didn't have most of the feelings I had anticipated: not happy, not sad, maybe relieved, definitely mad at my lawyer. The rest of the day I was very pensive and introspective. I had the feeling I was strangely detached from my own life, sort of looking at it as though it were someone else's, watching a movie perhaps. I guess I had a hard time believing it had actually happened. I was rather nostalgic, thinking back on my life, what it had been. Mostly just detached though. I don't know how my life got here, it isn't the way I planned it. It isn't bad, it just isn't what I expected.

I recall feeling this way at funerals: someone you are close to dies and it gives you pause, a chance to consider your life and where it is going, where it's been, what it is. The fact is that I have a good life: I have people who love me: a good friend, family, kids, even my ex cares for me in many ways. I have a girlfriend who makes me feel loved, appreciated, wanted. I have an ok job, a nice house, enough money.

I think the thing I miss the most of my old life is knowing who I am, what my function is, where I fit in. I'm used to being a married father, my wife's husband, my in-laws' something-in-law. I'm none of those anymore. I'm used to having to tell someone what I'm doing, where I'm going. Making plans with them, laying out the roadmap of our joint future together. Negotiating money issues, house chores, hanging out together. I lost all my old habits, but do not yet have new ones.

This weekend, ironically enough, I am going to one of my brother's (1st) wedding. It is the first family function at which I won't be accompanied by my now-ex wife. I can't dance in the couple's dance anymore. It's strange, it just feels weird. It's not that I have forgotten how unhappy I was being married, nor do I think the divorce was avoidable. Given who we were, what had happened, it was the least bad alternative. It's like graduating without a job: you walk out and everything is possible, but you have no idea where you are going or what to do.

I'll be ok, but I will tell you that I feel completely lost.

Here's to the great unknown of life.

Divorce club

Yesterday was one of the most interesting days I have had in a long time. I am still reeling from it.

I went to pick up my race packet for Nike's 'Human Race', a world-wide synchronized 10K race I am running today. On the way back I stopped by my favorite dive-bar and had a couple gin and tonics, the drink of the gods.

As I was about to leave a couple guys sat down at the other end of the bar. A couple minutes later another guy came and sat on the only seat left, next to me. The four of us began talking, and lo and behold, we had all been divorced, 3 of us recently or soon-to-be, one a couple years ago. All of us had our wives cheat on us. We talked for a while and then went elsewhere, where we met up with a 5th guy. Turns out he is also recently divorced, his wife having cheated on him too.

When I spoke to them, I didn't say much, I told them I was a couple weeks away from being divorced, that my wife had cheated on me and that it had been hard. Nothing more. I didn't need to. They knew me. They knew what I had felt, what I was feeling then, what I was thinking. The phase of emotions I was going through, what I needed, what I was looking for. They instantly knew everything I have been trying to express in this blog and to my friends for the last 6 months. They got me in ways no one had to date.

It turns out the insanity, depression and pain I felt over these last few months is completely normal. One guy didn't work for a year, and lived in his walk-in closet for 3 months. He spent an hour staring at a loaded gun, trying to figure out what to do with it. He drove his motorcycle at top speed, over 100 mph, for a long time, as I did, not caring what happened. Another guy had to take Xanax to cope with the (misplaced) guilt, depression and anger. All of them hit the bottle and other stuff hard. All of them are still not "over" their ex, they are still reeling from the loss, despite having had many relationships since.

It turns out none of their ex-spouses had any problems "moving on". As soon as they separated, their ex's picked up new serious relationships and never looked back, just like mine did. One guy's ex remarried 30 days after they divorced, 60 days after they filed for divorce. None of their ex's have any remorse, any regrets, any difficulty moving on, even the three who were married 15 years.

It was like discovering a posse of clones. We got each other. It was weird and magical and more comforting and validating than I know how to express.

I am not over it and it's alright, I'm normal. I'll be ok.

Breath

I feel I am swimming underwater.

I am occasionally stuck on the bottom, holding my breath and waiting for something to change, not knowing where to go, what to do.

Sometimes I am swimming along, enjoying the scenery, feeling no need for air, seeing the beauty and grace all around me, even in this confined, restrictive environment. In those moments, I am o.k., I can do this forever, my needs are met, I am content.

And occasionally I am frantically swimming for the surface, lungs screaming for air, barely able to hold my breath, waiting for the first sweet taste of life in all its glory. I know what it will feel like to burst through the surface, explosively exhale, then inhale... deeply. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm swimming for the top, I can see the surface, it is there, shimmering, glistening, tantalizing. It isn't far away, I can taste it already.

Divorce sucks

Ok,

So now lawyers are officially involved. I have mine, she has hers. We are still trying to do it "collaboratively" where my wife and I negotiate the terms and I dictate them to my lawyer. My lawyer will write up a decree, have it reviewed by her lawyer, and hopefully, since we agreed to everything beforehand, just sign it.

That's the plan.

What could possibly go wrong? (LOL)

The problem is that we both have this sense of being wronged: she rather extensively lied to me and betrayed my trust, even tangentially involved my kids in her cheating, making my oldest see things no 10 year-old should ever have to see. I am screwing her out of about $65K, which she would be entitled to in a 50/50 split.

The things is that she would lose, badly, if it went to court, and with it the rather generous visitation arrangement I am offering her. She would also probably owe me child support. I think she knows this. Additionally, neither of us really want this to turn into the horror freak-show that it would be. The balance of terror keeps the situation tensely stable.

These feelings lie very near the surface and this process of legalizing everything brings them out.

The level of conflict is unsustainably painful. We have another month to go, it feels like a year. I will be so happy when we are done, assuming it doesn't turn into WWIII between now and then.

Here's the funny part: this is an easy divorce. I can't fathom a hard one.

So here's tidbit of wisdom for anyone contemplating or starting a divorce: it hurts, it sucks. It starts out easy and gets very ugly very quickly.

God help us all.

The myth of the easy divorce

Ok, so I'm an idiot.

My friends, who all have been divorced, would look at me and gently smile, all but pat me on the head and say "of course you'll have an easy divorce", when I suggested as much.

There is no such thing as an easy divorce. It started out easy enough and almost could have continued that way, both of us being kind and gentle and supportive of each other, going to great lengths to make everything fair and easy. But something happened. I think something always does.

We had planned to watch some family videos and do some fun reminiscing on our 22nd and last anniversary. The night before our anniversary I had volunteered to watch our youngest so my future-ex could ask a co-worker out for drinks after work. I called later that night to let her know I would be by in the morning with my youngest to drop her off so I could go run an errand. She says she heard the phone but didn't want to answer. I stopped by in the morning, my daughter in her pull-up in my arms, my wife's brand-new boyfriend's car was in the driveway, they were still in bed.

I sort of went nuts.

I don't really know the exact reason, it could have been the spite this gesture would seem to require, it could be envy that she was able to so quickly move on and find someone withing a few days of deciding she wanted to, it could be that she seems to always get exactly was she wants, the injustice of the Universe rewarding her for her deceit and selfishness, or it could have been simple jealousy, even now.

She said she had forgotten it was our anniversary, she didn't know I would be upset, she forgot to listen to her messages. She may be telling the truth, I have no way of knowing. I didn't care, I still don't. Whether she did that out of spite or stupidity, it hurt. A lot. I recognize her moral right to sleep with whomever she feels like, even though we are technically still married. I get that. What I don't recognize is her moral right to go around ignoring the consequences her actions have on people.

Her callous disregard for my feelings (whether rational or not) destroyed in one instant any remaining sense of obligation to her. I no longer cared for anything being fair or for how she felt. I renegotiated the terms of our divorce. Since I hold all the cards, the negotiation was short. I recognize the somewhat vindictive nature of my actions, but I really just don't care anymore. Why is it my job to protect her interests and feelings when she doesn't do that for me? Am I stupid? Yes, I was, but I'm done.

This was on July 19th. I am no longer angry, but I no longer love her or even really like her, which I still did on July 18th. I should thank her, for in one fell swoop, I got over her. Completely. I no longer really care what happens to her, she is just some woman I have kids with, and am trying to remain polite with.

And that is sad. We used to love each other, she was my best friend. The death of love and friendship should always be mourned.

Welcome back to the world of the living

It's been a while since I last wrote.

There is a reason for that, her name is "Isabelle" (a pseudonym), and I love her. "O.k.", you might say, but here's the deal, I've never met her. I "met" her online. We've had very personal IM chats. A lot of them actually, but I've never seen her, held her, looked in her face, caressed her cheek. Lately, we've added webcam feeds to our chats, which adds a level of interactiveness to the experience. Nothing taudry, just to see each other's face and reactions to the chat. We also talk over the phone. I love the sound of her voice. How can a voice be sexy? I don't know, but I get aroused hearing her describe what she's making for supper (huh?)

I feel connected to her at the deepest level. I feel like I can't live another day without her, holding her, hugging her, kissing her.

I love her. I say that soberly, an accurate description and reflection of what I feel in the deepest recesses of my soul.

I love her strength, her resilience, her character, her determination. I love that she knows what she wants, particularly since it seems to include me at the moment. I selfishly love that she loves me, that she thinks I am wonderfully attractive, handsome and glorious. She seems to care about me and would like to be with me in every sense of that word. It doesn't hurt that she is beautiful.

I love being able to tell someone that I love them, that I yearn for them, that I went to bed thinking of them and woke up still doing so. I love being able to use the most romantic love-filled language I can imagine on someone and really mean it in more than a perfunctory way. I love being able to love someone. What a gift, a pleasure it is to be able to love, wholeheartedly, unabashedly, without reserve, without needing to pretend anything or guard my words.

I know it isn't practical.

She doesn't know my flaws, my weaknesses, the things she would hate about me (I could venture a few guesses, but it'll be more fun to let her discover them on her own). She has never had to balance a checkbook with me, pay a mortgage or deal with a moody pre-teen. I am not the perfect person she imagines me to be, any more than she is. I struggle to accept the reality of her imperfection. Screw it, I can't. I'll have to discover that the hard way, should I be so lucky.

Our relationship is also geographically challenged, she lives more than 1000 miles from me. Would either of us really be willing to leave their families, jobs, lives to be with the other? If we did a long-distance relationship, would we be happy to just see each other a couple times a month at most?

I don't know.

I don't care.

Right now I know two things: she loves me, I love her. As practically absurd and ridiculous as that statement is, it is a reflection of what is in my heart and what I think is in hers. It may not last, it may be doomed, but that is the current reality. I may look back on this and gently laugh at my romantic optimism; or we may make it work and this will become a seminal moment in my life.

This is real, I am feeling it, and would give *anything* to have five minutes with her in a crowded room. It is beautiful and wonderful, I wish to savor every moment of it.

Did I mention she makes me sane? When I talk to her, I live in the present and future, I don't care about the past. I am able to accept what happened as unfortunate reality. I can care for, even love my ex-wife. and yet look forward to a new future. Isabelle makes me the person I want to be, hope to be. I want to exercise, eat well, live to 100 and die making passionate love to her.

So Isabelle, whatever happens to us: everything, nothing, something in between, please remember what I am telling you now: I love you, I thank God every day for sending you into my life.

Goodnight, my sweet love.

Advice for the recently divorced

This will be an ongoing entry I think. I'll just add things as they come to me. This is also just my own experience, you may well disagree, feel free to do so. I'm still working on following my own advice, I'll let you know when I succeed.

Please do leave comments, anonymously if you wish. I'm open to suggestions, corrections.

Emotions:
- Expect anger, sadness, loneliness and a sense of deep loss. They will come, and hopefully in time they will go. Anger and bitterness are persistent houses guests. Try to find the beauty and happiness that is still in the world.
- Expect to nearly lose your mind at times, to feel obsessed, angry, sad, distracted.
- Avoid thinking about how you have been wronged. It may be true, but dwelling on it serves little purpose. I have a hard time with this.
- Avoid over-generalizing the wrong done to you. I have a really hard time with this. ALL my memories are tainted, they are all "gone" in a way.
- Acknowledge the reality of what happened: the wrongs both you and your spouses committed. Own you own failures absolutely, don't make excuses for them. No, it was not ok to screw the babysitter, no matter how lonely you were and how hot she was. I didn't do that, but I did have an affair.
- Be patient. I'm really tired of being a head-case, I want it to be done. This makes me feel "stuck", like it will never change, that makes me feel hopeless, depressed. I need to relax and give myself time. I'm told a year is a good minimum to expect. God, 9 more months to go!


Actions:
- Make new friends, and or start hanging out with old ones. Try not to talk too much about your problems, you'll burn them out. That's tough. My friends are understanding and ask to hear... mostly.
- I would say fall in love, but it wouldn't be fair to the poor person you fall in love with. You are probably a bad bet for a long-term anything. You are probably emotionally unstable. I am having an online flirtatious friendship with a wonderful woman who makes me feel loved and appreciated, handsome and desirable. She also gives me the opportunity to pour my affection onto another person, even if it is "virtual".
- Write about your problems, even if just to yourself. Anonymous blogs are great.
- Stay busy: take classes, work on your house, do your hobbies, work a lot. An idle mind is dangerous.
- Get enough sleep, but not too much.
- Eat right.
- Exercise.
- Don't drink excessively. I find that when I do, I am always sad and angry the next day. These last 4 items are important (sleep, food, exercise and not drinking too much).
- Get out, even if it is by yourself, and do stuff. I am so used to just going home after work that it doesn't naturally occur to me.
- Get counseling. I haven't done that, but will soon. That gives you an outlet to talk to people.
- Join a divorce support group. I haven't done that either.
- Get in touch with some kind of "spirituality": start going to church, meditate, pray. Shave your head and sell flowers at the airport (joke).


Your Ex:
- Try to not hate them. Despite their failures, they are human, like you. At one point they loved you, and you them. They allowed you to get to this point in your life, perhaps gave you children, helped you through school, whatever.

- If you can, talk to your ex about stuff, but only as much as they want and as long as it is useful.

I had a small epiphany about this yesterday: My ex deals with stuff by pretending nothing happened and minimizing the importance of what did, in our case justifying her choices. That is her coping mechanism, and whether right or wrong it works for her, it seems to allow her to "move on". I want to talk about it, examine what happened in close detail and wish her to fully own up to the deep moral failure that her actions were, even as I admit mine. That is my way of coping. The two are not compatible. I can't really talk to my ex about stuff: there is no way she will ever really be able to accept the full wrongness of what she did did, it would be too destructive to her self-image. She needs to "bury" her past. I need to unearth it and roll in the putrescence. I need to stop getting her to do that, she just won't go there.


Update:

So it is now about 3 months after the initial post above. I was officially divorced last week. The divorce itself helped me gain some closure. I also started seeing a counselor, that is helping a bit. Time heals things too, as things receded into the past, the pain is less intense, the anger less immediate.

The thing that helped the most though is beginning to date someone. I hope I am not just 'using' her as human prozac, but the feeling of being loved, cared for, hugged, kissed is therapeutic beyond words. Everyone t me I should avoid getting emotionally 'involved' with anyone, just date, they all said. The problem is that I appear to be incapable of not falling for someone I date. Honestly, I need some emotional involvement at this point.

I don't have any really close friends I can spend a lot of time with, and I need emotional intimacy and connection like I need oxygen.

So my advice, for what it's worth, is to get that intimacy however you can: friends, family, dating. Find people who make you feel loved and appreciated, who remind you that you are a wonderful, beautiful, precious human being, who can't wait to talk to you and make you want to get out of bed in the morning.

I am aware enough to realize this may just be a 'rebound' relationship, that she may primarily be a person filling a role I need filled now. I hope not, but even if she is, I think I am meeting her needs too, making her feel precious, beautiful and wanted. Humans are meant to love, life is too short to live without love.

Open Letter to My Wife's Lovers

(This is not a happy piece. I am in fact very depressed today, but it felt good to write this)

"Pat" is a pseudonym I am using for my wife.

Bruce, Gabriel, Son, Frank, Stephan and possibly others:

I am writing you as part of my attempt to heal from the pain of the end of Pat's and my marriage. The point of this letter is merely to inform you of the damage and pain your actions had and will continue to have on Pat, me and our children as long as we live.

You all have children, you are all married or have been. Please think about your own wives and children as you read this and imagine what it would feel like if this had happened to you, your little kids. Think about this as you kiss your wife or make love to her, think of this as you hug your children.

Try to imagine what it is like to have to reinterpret 18 years of memories, those of nearly my entire adulthood. In part because of you, my children will grow up without a normal family. My life, as I knew it, is not only over, but never existed. I was living in a lie you helped perpetuate, a fantasy existing only in my mind.

Pat's violation of the trust I deliberately extended to her is of course the main problem. I knew she had "crushes" on you, but took her lies at face value when she assured me there was nothing going on. I was happy to give her the freedom to "flirt" with you and feel beautiful and wanted. The main guilt is hers.

You are nonetheless complicit in her deception and also responsible for the end of our marriage. You enabled Pat's bad choices and encouraged her to do things which destroyed her life along with her children's.

You helped destroy any trust which might ever exist between us, Pat and you tainted the happy memories of my youth, exposed them for the screenplays they were. You knew when you were dating her that she was married, most of you had at least met me. Son, you knew my children well. Many of you shook my hand, smiled at me and said it was nice to meet me, and then proceeded to sleep with Pat. Despite knowing me you chose to sleep with my wife, in later years the mother of my children. You understood the risk you were putting her at, in case I found out, but you didn't care enough about her or me or my children to refrain from doing so. One of you gave her genital herpes, since you didn't even care enough about her to use a condom all the time.

Collectively, you took from me something that did not belong to you. You stole my wife's time, libido, affection, passion and energy. You introduced The Big Lie into our marriage which set up a barrier to emotional intimacy between us. You helped establish a pattern of behavior in Pat where she went looking outside our marriage every time there was a problem or she was unhappy. When Pat began sleeping with you, she largely stopped having sex with me, actively denying it to me for months at a time. You were more fun, more exciting. She never had to balance a checkbook, pay the mortgage or raise children with you. I could not compete. She never had any real sexual interest in me after that.

You went on vacations with her, had secret romantic getaways with her, went out to eat with her, had nice relaxing times, afternoon naps with her. All this as I watched the kids and dogs so she could date you without having to deal with the trouble of domestic life. I helped pay for airfare so she could see you.

You could say "well if it hadn't been us, it would have been others". You would be right right, but it was you.


Bruce: You cost our marriage the most. You were the first, you were with her the longest, at a very critical stage on our marriage, 4 years into it. All that time she spent with you she was not with me. You enabled her first to set up a life-time habit of lying, deceit and betrayal. You took the most passion, time, and energy from our marriage. Pat was desperately in love with you and spent two years vainly pursuing your affection. Her first "kinky" sex was with you. You probably gave her herpes. You are the reason I recently had to reinterpret one of my most cherished memories: A rare moment of physical passion while on spring break in Florida. It is no longer a brief reconnection between us, made possibly by a respite in the living hell my life was, it was because you weren't available and I guess she needed to have sex with someone. I miss my old memory, I hate you for playing a part in stealing that from me. You were young, but that does not excuse your selfishness. It cost Pat, me and my kids tremendously.

Gabriel: You are perhaps the most culpable. You were an adult when you slept with Pat in grad school and again recently. You are the reason I found out about Pat's cheating: she checked her email on my computer and left it up. At the top was an email from you with the subject line "I've got tickets!!!!". You have been divorced before, you knew exactly the pain you were putting Pat and our family at risk for. You knew better. You nevertheless chose to meet her in Spain, then when you were done satisfying your curiosity, told her you weren't interested in any kind of a relationship with her. Your use of Pat cost us our marriage and all of us our happiness. My favorite picture used to be from 1994(?) of Pat returning from a conference in Florida. I had met her at the airport with flowers. She was holding those flowers and petting our little dog, smiling, happy to be home. In actuality, she was happy because she was madly in love with you, and had just spent several days hanging out and having sex with you in a fun, relaxed environment. I miss that old memory too. That was supposed to be me having fun and relaxing with my wife, not you.

Son: I don't know exactly what to say to you. You knew my kids well, they trusted you. Yet, you began an affair with a woman in Vietnam to adopt a child. Have you no sense of decency? You pulled yourself out of Pat to answer the door when Tina knocked on your room door and stood there with your erect penis exposed as you spoke to my 11 year-old girl. You were perhaps too high and drunk to know what you were doing and this may have thus been unintentional, but you did it nonetheless. The first image Tina will ever have of a man's erect penis will be yours, not her boyfriend's or husband's. She had to listen to you and Pat fucking in the room next door for a long time, both before and after you exposed yourself to her. That is how she found out her mother was cheating on her dad. She held that secret for over 6 months, racked by misplaced guilt and shame at what she *thought* was going on, but didn't want to believe, much less say. She said she thought it was her fault, somehow. I hate you for damaging my child. Think about someone doing that to your child as you hold your baby. You now act as though nothing happened. What are you going to do when your wife finds out? Do you think she will understand what you did with Pat and to Christina? Do you know what it is like to have to try to defend your cheating wife from an 11 year-old girl's accusation of being "a whore"? Since last summer Tina never wants to return to Vietnam. How does one do what you did? What kind of person is even capable of thinking of doing something like that? I am at a loss for words to express the anger I feel for what you did to my girl.

All actions, even those borne of a desire for happiness are not equally moral. Taking something from someone (my wife's time, libido, passion) or exposing them to a risk (STDs, divorce) to make yourself happy is a profoundly immoral act. I don't know what religious or morals beliefs you claim to have, but there is no moral code I can imagine which makes it ok to steal, cheat, lie, and hurt. You have dishonored yourselves and hurt at least one person you perhaps claimed to care for at some time, or maybe you didn't. Perhaps you are all just users of people. I don't know you well enough to assess that.

You will now need to live with the consequences of your actions, as do we all. Perhaps you don't care. You will never meet me (again), never see my kids (again), perhaps not even Pat. You can live the rest of your lives and forget what impact your choices had on our lives. I hope you are unable to do so.

I understand your culpability because I too had an affair with a married woman: a sexual encounter with someone I was very much in love with. I understand how it happens. I also understand how guilty we "other men" are. I knew precisely what I was doing and the risk I was exposing my lover to. I knew I was taking something not mine, that I was acting selfishly to fulfill some perceived need I spent quite a while justifying (she really wasn't happy, her husband was not meeting her needs). I had a right to be happy, and if it meant ruining someone's marriage to be happy, hey that's life. I deserved happiness. I was lucky, as was my lover, because we weren't found out. You were not.

I'm guilty as hell.

So are you.

My baby is six

Today, we had a birthday party for my little girl. Her actual birthday is tomorrow, which also happens to be Fathers' Day, nice coincidence don't you think? We held the birthday party at "Kiddie Acres" in Austin. If you haven't never been there, and you have small kids, you must. It is a wonderful place, so authentic, so authentically run-down as a friend put it. They have these tiny little carnaval-like rides, pony rides, a miniature train. It is certainly commercial, but somehow has a completely different, and much more pleasant feel than Chuck E. Cheese. For one it is outside, and we got to authentically bake in the authentically hot summer sun. Summer should be hot, and it was that today. Did I mention I love summer?

So my baby is six, which means she isn't a baby. I have maybe another year, two at the most where she will be all mine, then she starts becoming other people's: her friends', her teachers', mostly her friends'. Right now she is still mine, my little girl.

This was the first birthday party my ex and I had as exes. I imagine the there will be other firsts: the first 4th of July, the first anniversary (what's the protocol for that? one wonders), more first birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. It is a strange new world. But we'll be ok. I have people who love me and who I love. I have a good life. As long as I can keep the beast of anger and bitterness at bay, all will be well.

I wish you all a happy Father's day. Hug your kids would you? For me?

I am a biker

I woke up early for a weekend, 8 or so. I still had the kids overnight and my ex was coming to pick them up around 11. I stumbled around, took a shower, gave instructions to my 11 y.o. on how to care for and feed the 5 y.o and off I went to my first ever group motorcycle ride with the Austin Motorcycle Riders Group, a meetup.com group.

I'm sure you've seen them: long staggered lines of bikers on the highway, conveys undoubtedly setting off Richter scale sensors in nearby states. Contemporary knights going off to battle on their trusty steeds, visors glinting in the sun. That was me today. I was one of them.

It was an interesting group, from the plush Goldwings and low-slung Harleys, both worth more than many cars, to the more modest bikes: the newbie riders' relatively cheap Japanese bikes, me and my "little" 800 cc Triumph. There was a lot of leather, a lot of tattooed skin. a lot of exposed middle-aged fat. There were the old wizened riders whose riding experience went back to the first Nixon Administration, the aforementioned newbie riders, primarily identifiable by their shy demeanor rather than any lack of skill, and many people in the middle in which I will generously include myself. There was one really eccentric guy in a leather vest festooned with patches declaring himself to be a "Christian Infidel", "Biker for Jesus" and other other unusual things, he rode a heavily modified old pan-head Harley with a kick-starter (only) and straight pipes. The people who rode next to him will never hear again.

It was a beautiful cross section of humanity, well at least in the 40-65 year-old age bracket. We were out in the wind, the sun, enjoying yet another beautiful day, our work and worries eclipsed by the sheer gloriousness of being alive, sweating in the hot Texas sun under our layers of black leather and stifling helmets.

It goes without saying that I had the most resplendently beautiful bike, the coolest jacket and definitely the prettiest brightly-colored plastic-bead key chain (made by my oldest when she was 10) of anyone in the group.

We were all cool and powerful, tough and independent, real badasses. That illusion could continue as long as we kept our middle-class jobs to pay for the gas that our beasts drank, and could get home in time to mow the lawn and do the laundry.

Nothing mattered though, because today no one felt more like Steve than me.

It's good to be alive.

Elevator

(This is a fictional piece, a homework assignment for the writing class I'm taking. And no, this is not about me... mostly)

I knew already it was going to be a long day: I had woken up late, very late. I had had to skip breakfast, running, the morning paper. A silent curse crossed my lips as I remembered I was supposed to have finished that stupid work project the previous night! Son-of-a-bitch, I knew I'd forget. It occurred to me that the four beers which had started out as just one hadn't helped. That also explained the skull cramp. I looked out the window, it was early April and there was still snow on the ground. Wait, what was that? Snow flakes? "You must be joking", I thought, it was almost Tax Day, and still snowing? The fucking April snow was coming down heavy and wet, the kind that nearly breaks your back when you shovel it. Taxes! I remembered I needed to finish my return by the following Tuesday. How, I wondered, was I going to figure out the cost basis for those stocks, and where was the HUD settlement sheet for the new house? That thought was interrupted by another as I tried to recall when the movers were scheduled for, my release date from that hellhole of an apartment... memories of the fist-shaped holes in the walls, needing to be fixed before I moved out elbowed their way into my already overcrowded mind. "God" I muttered. I really needed to get going I thought, it would take even longer to get to work now, as everyone would be driving so absurdly slowly. Ok, jacket on, boots on, I hoped they'd salted Limekiln Road, or some idiot would inevitably have found a way to take that one turn too fast, run off the road and cause a backup. I shut the door behind me, walked over to the elevator and hit the button. The door opened, I stepped in, hit the button for the ground floor and leaned back against the wall, shutting my eyes, trying to catch a moment of respite from the already rotten day. The day couldn't possibly get worse, I thought, hoped, prayed. Just as the door was closing a hand shot through. No, it wasn't, it couldn't be, God couldn't be that unjust, could he? But it was. It was The Asshole from down the hall. That one. The one who always played music too loud, too late, who had drunken parties during which his friends would park in my spot, puke in the hallway. And no, he wouldn't clean it up until I threatened to call the landlord on him... again. That one. Things were very "polite" between us though, as we both understood the unfortunate consequences of what would happen if either of us really lost our temper: you know, police, district attorneys, bad stuff. The Asshole stepped in, looked at me, his eyes barely concealing the contempt in which he held me. I returned the stare. I begged for a pretext, any pretext really. I'd always wondered how useful my years of karate would be in real life. The Asshole, ok, "Bob" if you must know, looked at the illuminated ground floor button and faced the front, graciously assuming a position as far from me as possible. All I had to do was not kill him for 3 floors, that was all. Simple, right? I stared at the wall in front of me. All would be well, I told myself, 20 seconds to go. Then Bob spoke. "Pretty late for snow, eh?". Wishing to maintain the facade of politeness, I responded "Yeah, now I'll probably be late for work, too". Bob stared at me, the hint of a smile crossed his lips. He hit the button for the second floor and said "I guess you will be". Something inside me snapped with an almost audible "pop". I was going to have to slay him, right then and there. There would be an investigation, they would certainly find out who had done it, I would go to jail, be executed, my life was over. I didn't care one whit. My fist clenched, I took a step to the side, winding up for that first blow. Just as I was about to launch my murderous attack, the bell sounded and the elevator stopped. The doors opened and the cute girl from the second floor looked up, my violent plans foiled. The Universe had yet again taken the side of those who already had everything, now denying me the simple pleasure of killing Bob. The hopelessness of my life hit me like a sledgehammer: trapped in a shitty job, doomed to loneliness, crawling further into the bottle every day, predestined to step aside as the imprudent and carefree passed me by, obtaining everything they'd ever desired. Bob-The-Asshole had everything it seemed, including the ability to elicit in me the kind of rage I had spent 20 years trying to suppress through psychotherapy, booze, hours and hours of thinking of.... nothing and the oneness of all of humanity at the local Bhuddist temple. The cute girl, whose name I didn't know said "Hi". The shock of her voice gave me a second's pause, my homicidal fist still clenched and ready for action. Without a clear plan, I fled out of the elevator and onto the second floor, pushing past my nameless neighbor. She looked at me, quite rightly, as though I had lost my mind, and stepped into the elevator. The doors closed. As the elevator resumed its descent, I thought I heard Bob and the girl laugh. I headed for the stairs, and resumed my journey out into the world.

Henri woke up late that day, quite late. He hadn't really meant to drink an entire 6-pack the night before, it was supposed to just be one or maybe two beers. His lateness caused him to miss breakfast, running and the morning paper. His growing alcoholic tendencies had recently led to other problems: forgetting work assignments, what his therapist would probably have diagnosed as depression, anxiety, a loss of control over his own life, his temper. While he drank to cover up and forget his shyness and sense of inadequacy, it really just aggravated the problems. These were lessons he had yet to learn. Henri had spent years in therapy trying to master his inner demons. He had recently taken up meditation at a local Bhuddist temple, tantalized by the possibility of discovering the inner peace and happiness which eluded him. He was aware of the self-defeating aspects of some of his behavior, but was seemingly unable to really do anything about them, to escape the seemingly inevitable path his life was on. The escape he found in alcohol had led him to procrastinate starting on his tax return which was due the next Tuesday. Having just bought a house, he had scheduled the movers during an early "cocktail hour" but was now unable to recall when that was. In a drunken rage, he had put his fist through the sheetrock a few times, requiring him to fix it sometime before he moved, whenever that was. All of this added to a sense of overwhelmed hopelessness which hung over him like Damocles’ sword. Had Henri not overslept, he would have read the paper and known it was supposed to snow and would not have been surprised to see it doing so when he looked out the window. He may have left a little earlier for work, leaving time for the reduced speed of traffic or the possible accident on Limekiln road, locally known for a particularly treacherous curve, luring many into the ditch on such a day as this. But he didn't. Instead, Henri looked out the window, saw the snow, and in what was now a common occurrence, freaked out. Hurriedly putting on his boots and jacket, he walked out into the hallway of his cheap apartment and hit the button calling the elevator. Stepping into the elevator, Henri leaned against the back wall, closed his eyes and tried to remember how to meditate, something about thinking of nothing except the oneness of humanity. Just as the doors closed, his neighbor, Bob, stuck his hand in and forced the doors open. Startled, Henri looked up with surprise and dread at the sight of Bob, who he despised. The feeling was mutual. Henri hated Bob for having the life he wanted: he had an easy, good-paying job, which he liked, a lot of friends, particularly girlfriends, a life full of fun and parties in which the laws of causality were seemingly suspended. Bob had parties at least twice a month which he invited the whole building to attend. Whether out of shyness or self-pity and resentment, Henri never went. Had he gone, he might have met Lucy who lived one floor below and who was secretly rather taken with him for reasons she only partly understood. But he didn't. Instead he sat in his apartment listening to the loud music, cursing all these people who managed to live carefree and in the moment. How would the world function if everyone lived like that? He would ask himself, echoing the voice of his parents. Bob saw Henri as an angry bitter man with no sense of humor, someone just like his Dad who had always tried, unsuccessfully, to make him "buckle down" and "be responsible". Bob had never been willing to give up the joy he found in living an unscripted life for some nebulous promise of future happiness. He was not yet old enough, mature enough to understand that there are indeed usually, eventually, unpleasant consequences to a recklessly lived life. It isn't clear he would have cared if he did. Bob wasn't an evil person, just somewhat full of himself and very impulsive, rarely thinking much before doing things. As Bob walked onto the elevator, he saw Henri. Wishing to lighten the tension instantly filling the air, Bob said something about the weather. Henri responded by mentioning how the snow would probably make him late for work, but the tension remained palpable. Wishing to make a joke, Bob hit the button for the second floor and said something to the effect that Henri would now certainly be late. In Henri's mind, years of suppressed rage at the injustice of the universe and his own self-loathing boiled over, erupting in a black wall of hatred directed at Bob. It is unfortunate that karate students are not psychologically screened before being allowed to train, as Henri planned in that moment to misuse every bit of his decade of training to kill Henri. Henri clenched his fist and was about to launch his assault when the elevator stopped on the second floor. The doors opened to show Lucy staring idly at the floor. Lucy looked up and saw Henri, her heart briefly inflating with joy. She looked at Henri and said "Hi". Startled, Henri paused, his murderous plans interrupted by the sound of Lucy's voice. Henri, desperately seeking to escape his situation, leapt past Lucy and out onto the second floor. As the elevator doors closed and Lucy and Bob continued their journey, Bob made some comment about Henri being even more uptight than usual, and laughed. Lucy, not knowing what else to do, gave a nervous little laugh which she instantly regretted, having seen both the anguish on Henri's face and the self-assured arrogance on Bob's. Henri, after a moment's pause, found his way to the stairwell, to work and to a new day.

Call me Steve

(Yeah, ok, this happened 30 years ago, I don't actually recall all the details in this story. Consider it semi-fictional. Most of it is true, kinda)

I knew in an instant I could no longer live without it: metal-flecked dark blue paint and a very tall sissy bar. It had a sports car-like gear-shift lever mounted on the bar going between the banana seat and the ape-hanger handle bars. It had 6 gears, at least one more than any of my friends' bicycles. The front fork, complete with fake suspension springs, was raked just like Peter Fonda's "Captain America" chopper. Well, not really, but enough to make it clear that it wasn’t just a bicycle, it was a bike. The twin mirrors and huge headlight added to the chopper look. The heavily chromed wheels and bobbed fenders were hypnotically resplendent in the sunlight. My God, how was it possible to make something so beautiful, so utterly, completely, absolutely cool? There are moments in a person’s life when the path of their life lies before them, clear, obvious, unambiguous. My destiny laid in owning that bike.

I clearly foresaw the lustful, jealous looks in my friends' eyes, the ease with which those gears would propel me around the neighborhood, through the woods, to and from school, or to the pool. No one would ever be able to catch me in races. When my mom sent me to the store for milk, I would easily set some kind of land-speed record in my age division. My Dad would certainly get it for me, I saw in his eyes how he missed his '55 Triumph Bonneville and the coolness it automatically bestowed upon him, how we bonded over the uniquely male fascination with two-wheeled things, how even he was seduced by the nearly sexual appeal of this bike. Parents are so easy.

I imagined myself in a white tucked-in T-shirt, cuffed jeans and boots, a leather jacket. Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen, eat your hearts out. Certainly then the girls in their skin-tight jeans, about whom I was still somewhat ambivalent, less so by the day, would swoon and fawn over me. I wasn't yet quite old enough for a moped license, but who cares, every 15 year old had a moped, no one had a bike like this.

Some things change. Others don't.
Just call me "Steve".

I am a writer

My 11 y.o. daughter has played in a couple movies ("The Two Bobs" and "Shorts"). I asked her if she would buy me car when she became an actor. She looked at me and stated with confidence "I am an actor". She has acted, therefore she is an actress.

In the same spirit, I will publicly state: "I am a writer". I did not say I was a good writer, but I write, therefore I am a writer. I am taking a creative writing class at the Austin Community College in the hopes that I can improve my skills, or at least have fun. I am right now procrastinating from doing homework I need to do by tomorrow. Given the volume of homework I have, I may not have as much time as I did before to blog. I may let you know how the class is going. After one class, all I have to say is that anyone who is capable of writing fiction, or even better fiction with dialogue is a genius. I'm talking to you, you know who you are, you!

Ok, I should go, I have homework to do and I don't want to disappoint.

Take care everyone.

Dawn

I have a love-hate relationship with dawn.

On the one hand I hate waking up. I hate leaving my dreams, the warm cozy comfort of my bed, the freedom from responsibility. When I am tired I hate it even more, it hurts. I have a thousand memories of waking up tired, sleep deprived, painfully thirsting for just a few more moments of that precious, delicious sleep. No drug could be better, no love sweeter than sleeping. I thus associate early morning with pain, deprivation, a half-dead stupor that hangs on you like a wet blanket.

Yet I also love it: the birds just beginning to chirp, while the dark of night is no longer complete, neither has the sun declared the day begun.

Dawn is an intimate stolen moment I share with the world: just me and it, no one else is around to notice. Quick! enjoy it before someone sees us. The quiet and tranquility is not yet broken by the business of the day, I'm still free of the day's worries, blissfully unaware of its problems and stresses.

Dawn is the naive promise of a new start, a fresh beginning, yet unsullied by the grit of reality: work, bills, traffic. Dawn is a young person's innocent belief in true love, untempered by the reality of the difficulty and strain of living together, raising kids, noticing your lover's flaws. Dawn is the hope that it isn't too late for any of us, that as long as we breathe we can do whatever we want. Dawn is the wonderful illusion of free-will, before we discover our freedom to be that we have at the wheel of a car in heavy traffic. Dawn is the promise of immortality before we discover life to be terminal.

Dawn is the end of one beautiful thing and the beginning of another, still pure, beautiful, hopeful.

I love dawn.

Transitions

There are several things that have surprised me about the process of suddenly becoming single or at least not-fully-married.

The first is how fast everything went. From the time we decided to separate until we selected and bought my ex-wife's house and moved her, only 3 weeks elapsed. Although we were planning things, it seemed like events took on a life of their own.

Then there was the almost complete lack of any real negative emotions: we were just getting stuff done, executing the plan. There were a few sad moments, but very little acrimony or anger. This is a good thing. I could sense the ease with which things could have gotten bad quickly, but we both worked to avoid that, and succeeded.

I was surprised at how differently my wife and I have reacted to the end of our marriage. While I "dove into" my new life, accepting the permanence and reality of the end of my marriage and trying use this as a chance to become a better me, my ex has somewhat belatedly decided she really cares about our marriage and seems to want it to continue. She seems to be having a hard time dealing with the consequences of her completely deliberate and intentional choices, a contradiction I find more than a little perplexing.

I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I was able to "let go" of my hurt (for the most part) and in many ways forgive my wife, even as I recognized the wrongness of what she did and the pain it caused me. I didn't really forget, but the immediacy and unrelenting nature of the pain receded very quickly. I went from being nearly insanely obsessed with the situation to being able to at least function in society within a week. Through no effort of my own, I could suddenly walk away from the pain, as least for a while, just let it go.

Nothing surprises me more though than the absolute abruptness of our transition from "spouse" to "just friend". I fully expected that transition to take weeks, months. Given the freakishly amicable nature of our separation, I honestly even expected there to continue being a sexual aspect to our relationship or hint of such. Even though our sex life was nearly non-existent while we were married, it always existed at least in theory. I could not have been more wrong. Within 48 hours of her moving out, any feelings of being "married" disappeared (for me). She also instantly became a really good friend: someone close, but not so close that you take them for granted. It suddenly became natural to hold doors open for her, thank her for getting back to me, or taking my phone call. I stopped calling her several times a day. We started making lunch appointments where one person invites the other and pays for the meal. Our interactions became much more formal and distant. We stopped telling each other how or what we should do. All of this happened in a few days. In some ways, it is as thought the last 20 years never happened. It is as though we were never married nor romantically involved. Even as this change was happening, it seemed strange, surreal. I don't really have an explanation for this, except that the physical intimacy of living together, sharing the same roof fundamentally changes the nature of how people interact, it drives an emotional intimacy and interdependence (which can be good or bad). Take away that physical proximity, the forced intimacy, and the relationship snaps back to what it naturally would be.

As I said in my last post, I hope our friendship can continue. Friends are good, I don't have too many of them, fewer yet who have known me for 25 years.

So here's to friends... making new ones, but even more so keeping the ones you have.

My significant ex

There was recently a news story of a man who won the lottery. He had been divorced for a long time. The first person he called was his ex. When interviewed, he referred to his former wife as his "significant ex". I love that expression. It resonates deeply with me.

Despite the pain my wife caused me, I find my self unable to hate her. To the contrary, I find myself seeking out her company, yearning for someone to talk to who understands me. I have been attached at the hip to my wife for 25 years. She is part of me, we grew up together. She understands me like no one else. A 25-year relationship cannot be explained any more than childbirth or parenting can be. While I do not wish to live with her, sleep with her (in any sense of that phrase), I also do not wish to "get over" the deepest friendship and most important relationship of my life. I have not forgotten the reasons we split up, not at all. Yet there remains a soft place in my heart for the person who helped me through some terribly difficult times. I am not able to envision a time when we will be able to be together again, but I am equally unable and unwilling to envision my life completely without her. She is part of me, I am part of her. We wish the best for each other: I sincerely hope she finds happiness and joy in life, that she finds someone to love her, live with her, be her lover. My wife gave me my beautiful children. For that, and for all the good times we had together, I thank her. I love my friendship with my wife, I hope it continues for as long as we live.

The astute reader of this blog will note the striking dichotomy between this entry and the one a couple back. Both are true, both reflections of what's going on in my head.

I would like to take a moment to note that the friendship described above is universally viewed with suspicion by all my friends, counselors, and observers of my situation. With the solitary exception of one person (out of perhaps 15), everyone is telling me that I need to cut the tie, sever the bond between my wife and me. Everyone tells me that my friendship with my wife is unhealthy, unwise, unsustainable, that I need to "move on". I don't know if I should believe them or not. It seems unreasonable that I should sever our friendship "on principle", yet I wish to be open to what people have to say.

Interestingly, the one person who is sympathetic to my continued friendship with my wife also had an amicable divorce, and also had people telling them the same thing. Perhaps we are all so trapped by the immediacy of our own experience that we are unable to see outside of it.

To the wonderful complexity of human interaction, may our relationships always be "complicated" and confusing.

Regulation

One of the more difficult aspects of the end of my marriage is the extreme volatility of my emotions. They oscillate rapidly, sometimes in the same day, but usually from one day to the next. I never know going to bed what I will feel like waking up: happy, sad, euphoric, depressed, serene, lonely. The previous post was incredibly angry, today I feel o.k. again, like things will work out. I sometimes feel insane just from the speed at which my emotions change.

There are three things I have found that regulate my emotions: sleep, exercise and human interaction. The first two are mostly within my control, the last one somewhat less so. It's hard to meet people. My status of "separated" doesn't help, as that appears to be some kind of scarlet letter in the social world: neither married nor single, and likely to be mired in complicated and ugly problems with the ex.

It's o.k. Much of what I need to do is figure myself out, by myself: let those roller-coaster emotions settle out a bit, live my life as I want it lived. No one else can do that for me. I do need to exercise and sleep though... so do it, moron!

O.k., well today is Sunday. I'm hoping to go to Church and get me some God, as a friend says, along with a little human contact.

Have a nice day y'all.

Rage

[Warning: This is not a well-composed or written piece. It also an angry piece, very angry, and has a lot of swearing in it. It was written at 3 am, in a hurry, the only thing I could think to do with my emotions.]


Remember that anger I couldn't seem to find?

I think I found it, it was stuck in the couch cushions, next to the remote, three pennies and a piece of old gum.

Rage erupted in me today, a storm front's black wall: violent, overpowering, flashing, blinding, howling, raging. I don't know what to do with it, it is there, pounding at my head, barbarians at the gates. I can't let it in, I don't want it in. Not for my ex-wife, not even for my kids. For me. I don't want that dark beast to eat me up like some poor tormented devil, spitting out dessicated bones and the shell of a man. Yet it is there, howling, clanging.

People, meet rage, rage... people:

I HATE my ex-wife's infidelity.

I HATE the betrayal, the 18 years of lies, the utter and complete abuse of my trust, my unconditional and absurdly dedicated obligation to her. I didn't speak to other women for 22 years because she might be jealous, it might hurt her, wouldn't want that, would we? It wouldn't be fucking PROPER! Should I laugh or cry at that? I don't know.

I HATE that even now, she doesn't understand how her actions have eviscerated our marriage, destroyed everything it was supposed to be. She gutted it like a fish, leaving it gasping, dying, a putrid shell of the living thing it once was. How she can even entertain the notion that I would want to get back with her, after I "get over" what she did. As recently as today she pointed out what a small part of her life it was: only 5 of the last 18 years. She was actually faithful for an entire 4 years before she took her first lover. She had the decency to take of her wedding ring when she fucked him though, out of consideration for me I guess. She generously refrained from taking lovers for 8 years when we lived in the woods in NY. That ended though, the first time she had an opportunity and thought she could get away with it, when she was adopting our second child overseas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But it's because we weren't getting along, making it both our faults.

I HATE how she continues to downplay how important it was, how she says it was "such a small part of (her) life": after all only 25% of all the sex she had during our marriage was with other people, that wasn't really that much. During the time that 90% of all the sex she was having was with her lovers, it was because she was immature and we weren't getting along. That makes it ok I guess.

I HATE how she considered it normal that a continued friendship with her last lover was simply a non-negotiable item, something she was going to do, because she could and I wouldn't leave. Moreover it was non-negotiable that she continue a private email relationship with that last thieving adulterous prick, because it would be a violation of her independence for me to be able to see what they say to each other.

I HATE that she exposed my little girl to this shit, negligently allowing my little (11 y.o.) baby to see lover #5's erect penis, the first one she will ever have seen, and listen to them screw like rutting pigs for hours, then making her hold the secret for 6 months. Now there's some good motherin'.

I HATE that she has made me feel like this separation is my fault for not being able to "deal" with her years of infidelity, her 100+ dirty little fuck sessions, her 5-day romantic Barcelona honeymoon with the last asshole who fucked her, her trips to Vietnam with our kids to visit another fucker.

I HATE that she stole my memories, sullied them. All those times she "went on vacation", "studied late", "worked", "went on a business trip", "went to a party with some friends". Lies, all fucking lies, every last one of my best memories now a morbid testament to her treacherous deceit.

I HATE how she took this marriage, and turned it into a farce, "a safe base" (her words) from which she could freely explore her sexual independence.

I HATE how she used me, simply squeezed everything she could out of me and my, MY marriage for her own personal gain. Fuck her kids, fuck her husband (not literally, she had people for that), what really matters is her happiness and recovering the sense of autonomy and independence she missed.

I HATE how she refuses to understand that marriage is about obligation and commitment, how a refusal to accept those is simply incompatible with any kind of committed relationship, how marriage cannot be about trying to assert your own personhood and independence.

I HATE that I have felt so ridiculously obligated to protect her from the shame and humiliation of the world knowing what she did. Let them know. Let the whole goddamn world know! Her parents, her family, her cousins, why not? This is the life she chose, why not expose it?

I HATE that she doesn't understand that promises mean something, that openness and trust should be inviolable, that abusing someone's inability to believe you would lie to them is a terrible, horrible thing.

I HATE that my wife killed the innocent, idealistic, well-intentioned girl I married and replaced her with a lying, cheating, amoral, honorless, narcissistic slut, willing to sell everything that matters in life for a few dozen fucks and a sense of independence.

I HATE, most of all, that she brought to life this angry beast, now speaking, this beast of mine, who is so hard to keep in check, but for whom I am wholly, totally responsible. I own my emotions, they are mine, no one else's, God damn it!

I had an illicit sexual encounter too, tell everyone. It was wrong. It felt good: I was genuinely, hopelessly, madly in love with my lover, it did wonderful things to me, but it was completely wrong. I took things that did not belong to me: my lover's passion, my wife's trust. For that I apologize to my lover, her husband, God how I apologize to him, her kids, her family, the Universe. I am abjectly sorry for my thievery, for contributing to the death of someone else's dreams.

Let everything out! No more secrets! I was overly cautious, conservative, boring, controlling. I was emotionally unavailable for my wife when she needed me. Tell everyone everything... NOW. Let the chips fall where they may. You want my parents' phone number, here, I'll dial it for you.

My wife sold our spiritual love, her soul and integrity, my trust, this absurd and beautiful ideal of marriage for a couple hundred hours of passion. I hope for her it was worth the price.

Actions have consequences, fucking deal with them.


Now where did my happy place go? I thought I saw it next to the remote.