Just like a bandaid..
There are a few mile markers in a child's life.. OK thousands, some happy some sad, many that evoke memories of your own life, and still more that just stand alone. My baby girl, otherwise known as the center of my universe, moved out yesterday. Much like her Daddy, she had been carefully plotting this for months, keeping her plan to escape the bounds of childhood a secret. Then she sprung it on me one day last month..
I of course said all the natural Dad things. "No, you are not an adult until I say so." and "You have never even paid for your own manicure, how the hell will you pay rent?" and "How will you be able to work and go on to school." Like her Dad she had all the answers.. *sigh*.
For days I was secretly freaking out inside, this world is a dangerous place - she is the person I have sworn to protect for life - how will I ever keep her safe from 10 miles away?! What if her neighbors are freaks?! What if she gets lonesome?! Who will bring her S'more Pop Tarts when she is binge eating her "visitor" away?? What will I do when I need a hug? Who will I watch scary movies with?! She is SO taking that damned cat! I of course relented that most of those worries are contained by the fact I raised a fierce, smart, savvy, independent young woman, who knows that I will never be but a phone call away. Yes, that makes it all better.
At the same time I looked at the fearlessness of youth, and the plans I had at her age. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to move somewhere warm, this state is among the most beautiful places in the world for the 3 brief months of summer. The rest of the time - shades of grey, and just plain dismal. My plan was always to find that place where the weather was near perfect year round, and get there through whatever means necessary. I was like her once.
So.. while she was tidying up her list of things to do I jumped on the net and started looking, bouncing back and forth between Texas, Arizona and California. Well there really only is one place. San Diego. I did a little more searching, spoke to a few dealers, and some time over the next few weeks I will be on a plane to check it out.
Tif hates it here too - and really wants to come with me - but wants to try this living on her own thing first. I think she will be fine, and this move has been a lifetime in the making. More on all that later.
Back to baby girl.. Yesterday was the big day, and much like tearing off a band aid - we made the move at break neck speed, not stopping to reminisce over every little artifact.. well that's how it looked on the surface. Beneath, I relived every second, from the first time I held her to her first day of school, her first time on roller skates, cuddled up watching movies - this one was attached to me from the moment she arrived. We have shared some of the biggest heartaches and greatest triumphs life can put on your plate, always together. In my heart I know that no matter the distance, this will never change.
This is what it is all about, This is the natural progression.. I keep telling myself this, but the truth is it smarts like hell, and I am scared to death.. just like her. Much like the first time she went away to my Fathers while the divorce was raging on, we both put up this front of bravery face to face, and saved the tears for when the other wasn't looking. She offered to come over today and help me move my office into her old room - she desperately wants me to be OK with this, and no matter how I feel I will convince her I am. It's what Dads do. I am so proud of her.
My X is beside herself.. blowing up my phone all afternoon and well into the night. She is furious that Tif didn't ask her to help, truth is my X would only have rained a shitstorm of negativity over everything and my daughter didn't want it. As for the X, she is also freaking out because she knows this will end a lot of reason for her and I to talk. It's all out of her control and that is what really makes her crazy.. life is moving on and I think she suspects what is coming next.
So - after leaving my baby with her mounds of stuff to sort and put away. I went home to my apartment.. this is the first time in my life I will ever actually live alone, - like my daughter I am excited and scared, hopeful and somber. I opened the door to my place.. and cut a straight line to sit on the floor in her empty room and blubber like the big baby that I am. I earned this I thought... and if a fathers intuition is accurate, on the other end of town she was doing the same. God I love her.
I picked myself up, took a really long hot shower, kicked up my hair, slipped into something tight, and in a blaze of Dolce & Gabbana threw caution to the wind as I ran off to meet a guy I have been talking with and keeping at a distance for quite a while now.
WAY hot. - That's a post for another time.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
These small hours..
This past 14 months has flown.. and yet so much of the time went so slowly. I learned just how much of my so called life was centered around this thing called the Internet.. friends, lovers this blog, all gone with the flash of the internal error message. I learned it sucks being broke, and out of necessity I learned that when my back is against the wall I do what I have to.
This blog - what to most casual observers would probably seem frivolous.. this is where I turned with the proceeds of my life, good bad or indifferent. It was where I let it all out. Without it - I was lost at first. I had come to depend so much on my friends here in this virtual world, I missed you guys like you can't imagine. I have been trying to put this together.. the events of this past year, this may take a while.
That job.. lets see - when we left off things were just getting off the ground, - I did well, worked hard and eventually I actually even broke a sales record that hadn't been touched since 1985.. that was cool. I pretty much put my personal life on hold.. all gym and work, life was solitary, and so lonely I thought I would go utterly mad at times. Maybe I needed that, maybe it was just an easy place to hide. Lets face it I hadn't been lucky in love anyway, and my conquests while memorable were not paying my bills. Success or failure rested solely in me, and I was determined not to fail.
Success breads jealousy and contempt. That always sounded overly dramatic to me.. then I experienced it first hand. During the weekly Monday meetings my numbers were flown in the face of a lot of guys who had decades of experience, that had to be hard for them I am sure, but the stuff that got pulled on me was a tad over the top - to include being outed at work. None of which mattered in the end. I got where I got on my own, and when I interviewed and landed another position it was sort of cool to have the owner tell me I wasn't leaving and match the offer I was given.. even cooler when he exceeded it. More about all that later.
On the heals of this, in May of last year my Father returned from his winter away. Something was markedly different. The wall of ice that had existed between us was gone. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I had accidentally bumped into him running an errand for my Mother - I had no idea he was back.. the man actually hugged me for the first time since I was.. gah I don't even remember. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop - carefully watching for signs he had been drinking, I was floored. He actually gushed about having heard about my conquests at work via "friends" I left there that day utterly stupefied, but in a good way. He called the following Monday to invite myself and the kids to dinner for Mothers Day, still somewhat stunned from the last encounter I of course said yes. (If you skip back a few posts you'll understand why all this was so left field.)
At work, I was at the end of a month that was nothing less than stellar. My love life was a zero, but for the first time in a long time that didn't matter. My kids were on course, my ex and I had finally rounded the bend to an understanding, I was in a very good place. The dinner was remarkable. One of those storybook events, for that afternoon - all the tribulations of the past had evaporated leaving only a group of people who really just enjoyed each others company. I left there that day feeling that while everything wasn't what I wanted it to be, I was content.
That following week I got a call from my youngest brother. I was in the middle of a closing and let my voicemail pick it up. The message was as follows: "There has been a serious loss, you need to come to Mom and Dad's now." I called immediately, he said he didn't want to go into it on the phone, but that I needed to get there now. All kinds of things rushed through my head. Immediately I thought it was my younger brother, I was convinced it had to be him. He had been drinking heavily since my oldest brother died and last time I saw him he was a mess... then I thought perhaps my mother, her health has been pretty bad. Well you get the picture, 20 minutes of worse case scenario's on the drive, and none of them correct.
When I hit the door at my Mother's My brother greeted me at the door, I didn't even hear the door shut when he just blurted it out. "Dad passed away last night." He had left on a trip the day before, and passed away after having stopped with his Motorhome somewhere in Indiana. They found the Motorhome door ajar, keys in the ignition, and he was slumped on the floor between the seats. The tears just swept over me.. I had carried all these things with me for so long, only to have him defuse me when I had finally accepted that he would never accept me, and all these things, all this emotion, and anger and hurt just flooded out. Then as I was leaving, I got this strange calm. It struck me that for the first time ever, wherever he was, he knew what was in my heart. All the things I could never say - he knew it all. The calm I felt was almost other worldly.
We truly were ok for the first time in memory.
It will be a year on the 23rd. I think about him all the time, and pray that what I felt that day was real, and he really does know what is in my heart.. it's all just love now.
This blog - what to most casual observers would probably seem frivolous.. this is where I turned with the proceeds of my life, good bad or indifferent. It was where I let it all out. Without it - I was lost at first. I had come to depend so much on my friends here in this virtual world, I missed you guys like you can't imagine. I have been trying to put this together.. the events of this past year, this may take a while.
That job.. lets see - when we left off things were just getting off the ground, - I did well, worked hard and eventually I actually even broke a sales record that hadn't been touched since 1985.. that was cool. I pretty much put my personal life on hold.. all gym and work, life was solitary, and so lonely I thought I would go utterly mad at times. Maybe I needed that, maybe it was just an easy place to hide. Lets face it I hadn't been lucky in love anyway, and my conquests while memorable were not paying my bills. Success or failure rested solely in me, and I was determined not to fail.
Success breads jealousy and contempt. That always sounded overly dramatic to me.. then I experienced it first hand. During the weekly Monday meetings my numbers were flown in the face of a lot of guys who had decades of experience, that had to be hard for them I am sure, but the stuff that got pulled on me was a tad over the top - to include being outed at work. None of which mattered in the end. I got where I got on my own, and when I interviewed and landed another position it was sort of cool to have the owner tell me I wasn't leaving and match the offer I was given.. even cooler when he exceeded it. More about all that later.
On the heals of this, in May of last year my Father returned from his winter away. Something was markedly different. The wall of ice that had existed between us was gone. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I had accidentally bumped into him running an errand for my Mother - I had no idea he was back.. the man actually hugged me for the first time since I was.. gah I don't even remember. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop - carefully watching for signs he had been drinking, I was floored. He actually gushed about having heard about my conquests at work via "friends" I left there that day utterly stupefied, but in a good way. He called the following Monday to invite myself and the kids to dinner for Mothers Day, still somewhat stunned from the last encounter I of course said yes. (If you skip back a few posts you'll understand why all this was so left field.)
At work, I was at the end of a month that was nothing less than stellar. My love life was a zero, but for the first time in a long time that didn't matter. My kids were on course, my ex and I had finally rounded the bend to an understanding, I was in a very good place. The dinner was remarkable. One of those storybook events, for that afternoon - all the tribulations of the past had evaporated leaving only a group of people who really just enjoyed each others company. I left there that day feeling that while everything wasn't what I wanted it to be, I was content.
That following week I got a call from my youngest brother. I was in the middle of a closing and let my voicemail pick it up. The message was as follows: "There has been a serious loss, you need to come to Mom and Dad's now." I called immediately, he said he didn't want to go into it on the phone, but that I needed to get there now. All kinds of things rushed through my head. Immediately I thought it was my younger brother, I was convinced it had to be him. He had been drinking heavily since my oldest brother died and last time I saw him he was a mess... then I thought perhaps my mother, her health has been pretty bad. Well you get the picture, 20 minutes of worse case scenario's on the drive, and none of them correct.
When I hit the door at my Mother's My brother greeted me at the door, I didn't even hear the door shut when he just blurted it out. "Dad passed away last night." He had left on a trip the day before, and passed away after having stopped with his Motorhome somewhere in Indiana. They found the Motorhome door ajar, keys in the ignition, and he was slumped on the floor between the seats. The tears just swept over me.. I had carried all these things with me for so long, only to have him defuse me when I had finally accepted that he would never accept me, and all these things, all this emotion, and anger and hurt just flooded out. Then as I was leaving, I got this strange calm. It struck me that for the first time ever, wherever he was, he knew what was in my heart. All the things I could never say - he knew it all. The calm I felt was almost other worldly.
We truly were ok for the first time in memory.
It will be a year on the 23rd. I think about him all the time, and pray that what I felt that day was real, and he really does know what is in my heart.. it's all just love now.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
I'm BACK!!
HAHAHAHA OMFG!
Well DANG that was SCARY!! After all this time away I had to sit here probing the innermost recesses of my terribly befuddled mind to TRY and remember what the bloody hell my screename and password were!! I am exhausted. Here I was all ready to regail ya'll with this adventure I have had over the past - gah, how long has it been?! OMG I have so much to write!
STAY TUNED...
I'll try and fix the pictures tomorrow.. damn, this got all run down while I was away!
Well DANG that was SCARY!! After all this time away I had to sit here probing the innermost recesses of my terribly befuddled mind to TRY and remember what the bloody hell my screename and password were!! I am exhausted. Here I was all ready to regail ya'll with this adventure I have had over the past - gah, how long has it been?! OMG I have so much to write!
STAY TUNED...
I'll try and fix the pictures tomorrow.. damn, this got all run down while I was away!
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