BOLO

I wonder where my creative spark has gone.  I can't seem to find it these days.  And I miss it.

Transition

The pressure is building.  I have to take a step and I have decided what to do.  It is a tough step to take, but it will allow me to regain control of my life financially.  I think that is the first step to reclaiming my life in general.  Once I am at the point where I have a budget and no more people calling and calling, caring nothing about what works for me or for everybody I owe money to, I can start focusing on other parts of my life.

I have started to make headway in other areas. Emotionally, professionally, and personally.  I am thinking through what changes I need to make.  I am letting people know what I need and making sure they know what I am bringing to the table.

I have a long way to go.  Professionally, I need to regain my edge.  I have to focus on the techincal aspects of the advice I give.  I need to learn new ways to network more effectively.  It is not enough to let people know what I do.  I am starting to make sure I let people know what I can do for them.  I've never been big on the rainmaking aspect of my profession.  In these times, and with my employer, the ability to generate business, or at least to generate opportunities to ask for business, is more relevant.  I am learning how to be part of that process.

I have a long way to go.  At home, I am not choking back my emotions and thoughts.  If something bothers me, I don't seethe.  I say so.  Things don't always change.  But I have put myself on record.  I don't have to swallow it any more.

I have a long way to go.

Dating Advice for the Single Gal

I think most women out there, at least those looking to land themselves a good father and provider, will find these tips invaluable.

Why So Angsty?

This was the question put to me by a friend a couple weeks ago.  It's a valid question. 

I have a job that pays fairly well.  It would involve some measure of sacrifice, but I could pay alimony and child support and still put a roof over my head  and food on the table.  We don't have a lot of assets to fight over.  Sure, we'd lose the house; neither she nor I would have the money to hold on to it if we split up.  But neither one of us would be at risk of going homeless.

Princess may miss a semester of school, but she would probably not end up having to change schools.  In fact, if Wife and I split up, the cost of maintaining two households would probably result ultimately in Princess being eligible for more grants to finish school.

It's been long enough that it is becoming pretty clear that Wife is not interested in forgiving me and moving on.  We fight all the time.  Instead of living in stress and conflict, maybe it would be easier to split now and just get it over with.

But simply because it would be easier to walk away, does that mean it would be the right thing?  I will have to accept the fact that my marriage was a failure and I bear a hefty amount of responsibility for that, if not the lion's share.  I don't want to have the breakup be a failure, too.

I want her to keep the house.  I want Princess to finish college without interruption.  I need to have the kids understand that it is in no way their fault that we broke up.  I also need to be on good enough terms with them that they won't just block me out for tearing up their lives.

I spent a long time fucking this up.  I will need to take a long time to fix it.

I Am Totally Alright

Whatever is fucked up in my life, it can't be half as unfortunate as this schmuck.

I have something I want to get off my chest, but I'm not quite sure what it is.  For the last 25 years, I have felt like my life was more or less spinning out of control.  I have never really had a sense that I controlled anything. 

I have stumbled into jobs, made just slightly less than I spent, and always seemed to find myself about a month's income away from where I needed to be.  I married a woman because she loved me; I don't really know how much I ever loved her. 

I had chances to do things differently.  Yet I always took the path of least resistance.  I tend to prioritize based upon who is screaming the loudest.  I avoid confrontation, even if it costs me time money, or, all too often, dignity or self-respect.

I am now working on understanding this.  Not just understanding, really.  I am changing.  It is not a quick process. 

It isn't easy taking responsibility for your actions.  But at the age of 48, it's time I learned.

We Won't Be Remodeling the Kitchen

Wife sort of threw down the gauntlet today.  I sort of picked it up.  Nobody's relocating just yet.  But I think we've started down the path.

She seems to have this idea in her head of what I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to do.  She doesn't choose to share it, though.  Whatever it is, I ain't making it.  And at this point, I am sick of trying.  It's been over two years we've been playing this game,  (I think it's closer to three but I'll let her have the last word on this, too.)

All I know is that things are getting more toxic every month and at some point you just have to cut bait.

Counting Backwards

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I find myself not thinking ahead though.  Rather, this past year has been one of backfilling.

I started this blog just as a way of venting my spleen, secure in the knowledge that it would remain anonymous (and thus, completely unread). 

Somewhere along the line, I let a couple of friends know about it.  Fearing that they might actually, in a moment of complete and utter boredom and helplessness, read it sometime, I thereby obligated myself to give it some substance.

Well, I obligated myself to try, at least.  I bounced around a bit.  First I went for a straight-up journal type thing.  Unfortunately, my life isn't interesting enough to generate a regular stream of posts.  Next, I decided I was going to make it a record of biting social commentary.  Ha.

Around that time, I started reading Karen Armstrong's History of God .  I was interested in looking at God, religion, and culture, and my lifetime of rejecting them.  I did believe in God, but I rejected the ritual and dogma of most traditional religion.  I thought it was an interesting topic and I will probably get back to it someday.  I think that I need to explore my relationship with God and my relationship with religion, which ultmiately traces back to my relationship with my parents.  This last part is important.

I moved away from religion.  This is largely because I finished the Armstrong book, and for the time being satisfied my curiosity with God.  But I stayed within the world of belief systems.  I moved on to Bertrand Russell's The History of Western Philosophy.  Russell was a great historian and philosopher, but I just couldn't keep my attention focused on him.  Like God, I will one day have to return to philosophy; there is too much there that has shaped the way the whole world thinks and it cannot be ignored forever.

But ultimately, I found that I returned to the confessional.  I was miserable.  I was depressed.  I was grossly unhappy and I needed to find a way to deal with that.  I started working with a counselor.  I found myself adding the insights I got from thereapy with the general confession theme.

This pattern may not be particularly apparent.  In part, it may not be apparent because of the wide gaps in time between posts.  I go for days, weeks, months sometimes without a single post.  Then I may post a few days and disappear again.  That's because there isn't always anything to say. 

My work with the therapist has been slow and difficult.  We are making headway, but it's tough slogging.  It's also because I don't always have the words to write about what I discover in therapy.  But the work continues and the posting will continue.

You're wondering by now what the fuck this all has to do with my birthday.  Well, in a sense , nothing.  And that's my point.  The things I need to fix, the things I need to recover and and face, are not in my future.  They are in my past.

I'm not crying because my Mommy and Daddy didn't love me.  They didn't, but that isn't an excuse, it's just a factor.  I still, if I am going to improve the quality of my life and the quality of life of the people around me, need to find a way to get past that. 

So that is why my birthday isn't at the top of my mind right now.  I need to go back more before I can go forward.

Falling Into it

We've had two cool, sunny mornings in a row now.  Some of the trees are turning and the air has, in addition to a crispness, a kind of clarity that speaks of transition.

That's why Fall is my favorite season.  It is a time to slough off the old and the tired.  They say that Spring is the season of rebirth, the time for what is new.  But Autumn is the season of release.  It's the time when what is no longer vital withers away.  When the world goes into the dormancy of Winter.  When we rest up to burst forth anew, having left behind all that needed to be shed.

My Love

You don't realize how much I need you.

You don't fear me.
You don't frighten me.
We fit together.
I find strength in your love
I find my voice in your love.
I am becoming whole.