Hesitation

Tags

divorce, life, personal, relationships

I tried not to hesitate, but that’s the point.

Last Friday, I ventured a few hours south to Brown County State Park, Indiana.  My goal for the past few summers has been to soothe my soul with sweet single track trails, a goal I haven’t really been able to attain yet.. but I am getting there.  Life keeps getting in the way, not always a bad thing.  So I decided that I was going to make a solo trek, a semi spontaneous trip with little planning except to load my bike on the back of my car, with a change of clothes and nutrition for the ride.

It feels a bit unnatural to be doing things on my own right now, even though that has been the case for some time now.  Now I have that separated, living in divorce limbo cloud hanging constantly over me, so that gives me that disjointed feel.  It doesn’t help when people look at me like a broken toy when they find out that status.  I hate it.  I hate the waiting, the real desire to move on with my life.  That even includes wanting a companion, something that really isn’t right for me to do until I am a divorced, recovered from said divorce, man.

All of the above necessitates keeping active, not sitting around and letting depression take over.  Thus the bike trip.  As much as I like to ride Brown County, I almost had to force myself out the door.

The previous Wednesday pretty much forced me out the door.  In one afternoon, I found out that my company may not be able to pay me at the end of the month, I need a root canal, I owe an additional $6813 federal tax from 2016, and my homeowners association is requiring me to buy a $855 window for my condo.  All of that hit in about a two hour time period.  I looked at what I have socked away from the sale of the house, carefully planned in preparation of the coming divorce storm, and realized that there likely will be nothing left of that money come the end of August.

I will make it, I know.  I keep telling myself that God will provide.  The storm may be heavy for a while, but I won’t sink.

Geez… what a depressing blog!  The ride was great.  Just what the doctor ordered, even though it kicked my butt.  The time alone was therapeutic.  The quiet and change of scenery, heck the scenery alone was calming.  At one point in the ride, a mountain bike skills instructor told her three students to watch me as I cleared a large log obstacle on the trail, clapping for me as I passed by them, beaming with pride.

July 13th is a status hearing.  Ummmm… I wonder how much the lawyer is going to charge for that…… lol

One Week Out

Tags

divorce, personal

My friends who have gone through separation and divorce all have tried to describe to me what the experience was going to be like.  Each really was different, each had their own spin, their relationship with their ex unique.  I am grateful to have friends who are able to share with me, friends who actually follow up to make sure that I am OK and doing all right.  After a week, the reality is starting to sink in, the challenges starting to show themselves.  For that matter, so are the gains.

I like living on my own.  I like the sudden solitude, softened by the fact that an old friend still lives in the condo that I am buying from her.  We should close on the condo soon, as soon as my mortgage goes through, and she should be closing on the house she bought by May 5th.  That’s almost unbelievable and I often feel like this whole thing is just a strange dream.  It’s not.  It’s real.

One realization struck me yesterday morning — I sleep completely through the night now.  No longer do I have two night owls disturbing my sleep.  Nate takes midnight showers, complete with music to accompany the shower.  No longer do I have to experience that.

I do miss my son.  However, I think the time away from each other has already been good for the both of us.  We communicate now and with a purpose.  He treats me with more respect, maybe because he knows that his time with me will be short.  This week we searched for cars together, his windfall from the separation and his high school graduation present.  Last night we settled on a very practical car for him, a 2009 Ford Focus SEL station wagon, sold to us by the father of one of his friends at wholesale price.  The guy is selling it to us at a very, very good price and is making sure it is in prime shape, going as far as to deliver it to Nate this Monday evening.

Nate also high fived me after he and his doubles partner, Joe, won their third match at a tennis tournament this morning.  They are 5-0 so far in the early part of the high school tennis season.  He and Joe were even interviewed by the local newspaper after their first meet last Tuesday.  The high five might not mean much to some, but it’s something for me.  Nate rarely acknowledges me after he plays.

Miriam and Nate are living with her sister.  She decided not to buy her condo, will instead be renting.  I don’t know how to feel about that.  Rent is a great deal more than buying around here.

I gave the divorce petition to Miriam on Tuesday night.  That was one of those moments where I just did what needed to be done.  It wasn’t pleasant.  Talk about real.  It was very real.  She tossed the envelope back at me, said she wouldn’t sign it unless I gave her $5000 for a lawyer.  Even though she knew it was coming, knew that money is going to be tight for her, it obviously was a shock.  I feel pity for her, but it’s mixed with a strong I-told-you-so.  A lot of what is happening to her, she helped create, even if you only consider the relational side.  She also created debt for herself that needs to be resolved, contrary to advice that I gave to her when I found out that she was maxing out a credit card that she had taken in her own name.

I am writing this blog outside, on the deck of the condo that will soon enough be mine, a very pleasant place, a blessing.  Much more will be shared from this place.

 

April Fool?

Tags

divorce, life, personal, relationships

The thought just struck me, a miniature epiphany brought on when I realized that today is usually one of my favorite days of the year.  It’s April Fool’s day, after all, and coincidentally my first full day of “freedom”.  From now on, the meaning of April 1 will no longer be associated with a prank, unless this whole thing happening in my life really is some cruel and massive joke.  Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and discover that it really has been that.

One problem — I will wake up tomorrow in my own bed, but that bed is not in my house.  It’s in someone else’s house, a house that will be mine in a few weeks, nonetheless it’s not the room I have known for some 23 years.  What a strange, almost other worldly feeling this is.

Yesterday, after 23 years, I said good bye to my cozy little two story house.  The past few days, weeks really, have been a whirlwind of seemingly constant work getting the house ready for someone else to live in, fretting over their requests to have this or that fixed/remedied/improved.  Wednesday night, while I was beginning the last stages of packing my things for the move, I received a text from my lawyer, relaying a request from the buyers to verify that the breaker box had been relabeled and a dedicated circuit had been added for the microwave range.  I wasn’t happy, not quite steaming mad, but upset enough that I could taste the sour mood the text had helped create.  I chewed on it, almost decided to tell the buyers to suck pond water, then realized that it really was an easy thing to dispute.  I sent the list for the breaker box that had been created when an electrician inspected the box, pointing out that breaker two was dedicated to the microwave range and stove.  Done.  Finished.  Resolved.

I rented a UHaul truck Thursday evening, greeted my friends Jeremy and Steve as they arrived to help with the move, started in on getting the furniture out of the house.  My dad and youngest brother arrived after a while, dug in and helped.  Never have I been so encouraged to have good friends, thankful more than I could express for their kindness.  It wasn’t just the work they offered, it was their support and understanding, empathy as we worked.  Over the years, I have helped countless people move, never once thinking of what that service meant to those receiving it.  Now I know.  Had they not been there, not only would the huge task been next to impossible to finish, I think the weight of the day may have been enormous to bear.  Instead, while I carried a lot of physical weight that night, the burden was a whole lot lighter.

Miriam left the house shortly after my friends arrived and before my dad arrived.  I am pretty sure that she didn’t want to face him.  If there was any doubt, she called me later on in the evening and asked me to tell her when everyone was gone, then texted me an hour later to confirm.  Sad.  I wished she would have wanted to try to reconcile.  I realize that it was an emotional time any way, but it may have been a good time to try.  Instead, she stayed away, giving up four hours that she should have been using to pack and clean, something she also was woefully behind on.  I stayed up until one in the morning, as much I could take, helped Miriam and her sister as they packed her stuff.  Cleaned as rooms were vacated.

I slept on an air mattress in the near empty house Thursday night.  Miriam worked until four in the morning, then went and slept at her sister’s house.   I didn’t see Nate.  He went to the Bulls game with friends, went straight to his aunt’s house.  I haven’t seen him since Wednesday night, have only talked to him for a few seconds on the phone since then.  That too is sad.  He called while the soon to be owners of our house were doing their final walk through of our house at 2 PM Friday, asked if he could come over and say goodbye to the house.. but Miriam had to tell him that it was too late.

We worked feverishly Friday morning getting everything out of the house, cleaning, throwing out the garbage.  I had put our old couch, overstuffed chair, and ottoman out at the curb for the garbage men to pick up next week.  Of course, when I was out to get garbage pickup stickers to put on the furniture for pickup, as well as the ten bags of garbage also out at the curb, a city code officer stopped by and left a warning ticket about the stuff being out at the curb.  If the garbage and furniture didn’t have stickers and wasn’t picked up by Monday, a $75 ticket would be issued!  I called the city, explained that we were moving and that stickers had been purchased ($75 worth, ironically).  They were kind, told me that everything was OK.

We were finishing the packing as the buyers pulled up for their walk through inspection.  Their realtor asked us if we were finished.  I said that we had everything out and the house was ready.  As Miriam drove off and her sister and I finished putting the last few things in her car, the buyers walked into the house with their realtor.

I paused in the driveway, stood next to my car, willed myself to take one last look at my house.  MY house.  MY FREAKING HOUSE.  I turned looked at my house, unprepared for the emotion that slammed me in the face.

This was no longer my house.  Someone else would be making new memories there.  I hoped there were still some left.  This was the place where my children were born and raised.  Heck, it was where they were made.  A lot of me was in that little structure.  With all the change, it felt like I was leaving a lot of me there.  I stood there, unable to move, no longer able to fight the tears that began streaming down in my face, sobbing as my sister in law came over and held me in a tight hug, told me that it would be all right, that I would always be welcome in her home and that she still loved me like a brother.

For weeks, I let the tasks keep me from realizing the full impact of what was about to happen.  In one quick instance, with one quick glance at the house that represented so much of what my life had been, my life changed.

Now I live somewhere else.  With someone that I knew very well some 26 years ago.  She already has proved that our friendship has been remembered, a great comfort to me these past 24 hours.  We shared coffee and breakfast this morning, talked a lot, went about the tasks of the day, then enjoyed a quiet time together out on the deck of what will be my condo soon.  It’s peaceful, serene, with woods behind, birds and animals surrounding.  At one point while we were out there, a large hawk flew over us and perched on the railing of the deck of the condo next door.  I am relaxed, my old friend and the friends I have spent time with the past few nights a true gift from God.  I feel blessed.  I feel like God is telling me that he is OK with me, that I can move on.

And I have moved.  Happy April Fool’s day, a day that no longer will be associated with fools any more, at least to me.  I am free.

The Quest Continues

Tags

divorce, lessons learned, life, personal, relationships

This blog is going to have a little side story in it that will cause you to scratch your head in doubt.  It will, if you are anything like me.  I am scratching my head also, but am seriously thinking about doing it for the practical benefit(s).  Soooooo… hold that thought.

The quest for an affordable paradise continues.  Unless something causes the house sale to crash and burn, I have until March 31 to find a place to live.  Now, don’t let that thought cause your stomach to knot, because I am not losing sleep over that prospect.  God gave me a brain, enough experience in life, to figure things out and to realize that there is a solution to this one.  Even if it means that I have to impose on a friend to sleep on their couch or commute from my brother’s house on the north shore of Chicago, an hour commute on a perfect traffic day, it will be OK.

My brother lives in a neighborhood that once was the housing and stables for Fort Sheridan in the Highwood/Highland Park area.  If I lived with him for a while, I wouldn’t be slumming it, as well as being able to enjoy the short walk to Lake Michigan and all of the bike paths in the area.

The house buyers presented their requests for repairs and credits for my house earlier this week and my lawyer has responded.  We have not received a response to our proposed changes to their requests, but I don’t think that there will be huge issues (did I just jinx myself?).  This past week, I started looking for contractors to get prices to make the necessary adjustments to my house.  That part is painful to this penny pincher, the credits and repairs likely going to be in the $3000-4000 range.  Yeah.  Ouch.  Most of that money is a credit for window replacement, the rest for mold remediation (that is expensive) and an electrician to update the fuse box.  I am debating how I am going to handle replacing some of the framing and drywall in the garage, possibly having some friends who rehab for Habitat for Humanity assist me with that one.  I only have so much cash right now.

Which reminds me — my wife dropped a little bomb on me last week.  She bought a car, from her sister, for our daughter about a year ago.  The price was $2500 for a nice little Nissan Versa.  I agreed to buying the car if my wife would pay for it.  I pay all of our bills from my pay and my wife pays only her car payment, as well as a doctor bill now and then.  I just didn’t have the spare change to pay for a car.  Guess what?  You probably already have guessed.  She hasn’t paid a penny to her sister.  My wife’s net pay is around $2500 a month.  A small amount of discipline would have allowed her to pay her sister for that car by now.  Sooooooo, my wife announced to me that she wants me to pay her sister for the car from the money we get from the sale of our house.  It’s going to look funny to my sister if we buy a car for our son and we haven’t paid her for our daughter’s car, she said.

It looks funny to me, too was my response.  The verdict is out on this one.  The I-don’t-have-to-be-a-nice-guy-any-more side of me wants to tell her to have fun dealing with her sister on this one.  The common sense side of me says that maintaining a cooperative atmosphere might be more important that a little bit of money.

I continue to try to buy a condo at the condos and villas of Emerald Green.  Early on in my search, I focused on Emerald Green because it’s affordable, nice, quiet, scenic, and extremely well maintained by a very active association.  It’s also only a mile away from where I have lived for the last 23 years, a place I dearly love.  I have failed on two attempts to buy a condo there.  Friday, I made an offer on another condo, using another real estate agent who is a friend and is motivated to be a hero for me.  He’s also extremely aggressive, something the guy who I was working with is not (but that guy was a great listing agent).  This one is looking good.  There is another offer besides mine, a cash offer, but my offer is the highest bid, as well as my agent really working on the seller’s agent.  This condo has a direct view of the river, something I am interested in simply because of the therapeutic value, something the months to come will require.

Here’s the story that is going to seem cockeyed to some.  Yesterday, I took a look at another condo in Emerald Green, one that isn’t yet for sale but will be soon.  The owner is the woman I dated seriously before my wife.  I bumped into her (not literally) at a stoplight in town a year or two ago, exchanged phone numbers, talked to her a little bit.  I called her out of the blue when it became clear that I would be looking at a place in Emerald Green, found out that she wants to buy a house, so I asked her if she would show me her place when it was ready.  Her place is in great shape, move in ready.  She owns it.  We could make the transaction without real estate agents.  When I shot her a price, her eyes lit up.  It was higher than she expected, the price I want to pay.

Here’s the kicker — I told her that I would have no problems with her taking her time to move out.  I would move into the spare bedroom in the mean time.  Funny thing is that I trust her.  She trusts me.  Of all the girls I dated before my wife, she was the most laid back and down to earth.. and it’s obvious to me that she hasn’t changed.  So, the idea that she could stick around until she is ready to move was not a bad thought to her.  It helps us both, gives me somewhere to go at the end of the month, gives her motivation to get moving on finding her house.  She would get things like a lawn mower, leaf blower, garden tools, fertilizer spreader, etc.. from me.  By the way, she is looking for a house because her 22 year old son wants to move in with her.

That’s my back up plan should I not win the bid on the condo that I am currently trying to get.  I am real close to having this little piece of the puzzle solved.

The quest for paradise continues.

The Mystery

Tags

divorce, life

My blog title might be too mysterious.  Dramatic.  Pretentious?

*insert your cool sounding word here*

The house is sold, sort of.  We accepted an offer a week ago last Saturday, am in what must be one of the most frustrating holding patterns,.. and it’s a literal hold.  What is crazy is that I know that the people who made the offer need a house, need to be moved out of their house by the end of March.  Yet they spent over three hours scouring my house for defects with a home inspector this past Saturday.  For anyone who has experienced the tension of anticipation, the agony of waiting, you know what I am experiencing.  My house is 32 years old.  It’s not perfect.  I have been the person responsible for maintaining the place for the last 23 years.  I know what they should be asking me to fix or credit them for.

Or do I?  Three hours is a long time for an inspection.

It’s almost terrifying, this wait, this wondering what they are going to request.  Are they going to make a request that I can’t or won’t agree to?  Are they going to ask for too much of a credit?

I know the windows, except for the windows already replaced recently, are at the end of their useful life.  They work, but they are old.  I am already prepared to say yes if the buyers ask for a $5000 credit.  The roof was new last year, the driveway asphalt replaced in 2015, the furnace new in 2014, the air conditioner new in 2013.  Honestly, there is not much left except for a possibility of the mold that always occurs on the north facing side of a house in northern Illinois.

The numbskulls focused on the drywall I replaced myself last year in the garage.  It was an extremely amateur job, but it was adequate.  It was replaced for two reasons — the hose bib inside the garage was replaced, and there had been a leak in the roof between the front porch roof and the garage roof a few years ago, necessitating that the drywall in the front corner of the garage be replaced.  I heard the male part of the couple that is buying the house obsessing about it as I snooped while they were looking at the house.  My guess is that he thinks it will be a gold mine.

I hate this.  I hate the waiting.  Their requests have to be submitted to my lawyer, who will review and report.  I did not hear anything today.

In the meantime, I have taken action to move along and prepare for where I will live if the house closes March 31 (like it should).  There is a condo development close to where I live now that I have focused on.  The prices are reasonable, the condos, although close to forty years old, are very nice.  There is a very strong, active, condominium association there.  The condo models that I am interested in are a 1024 sq ft, two bedroom, one bath layout with two large patio doors across the front, access to an awesome patio.  Each model has a large wood burning fireplace.  The kitchen is a galley kitchen, eat in , with another patio door that opens out to the deck/patio.  Each condo has a private one car garage.  It has been tough finding a place there.  The prices are great and the location is incredible.  When a condo comes available, it gets snatched up.

Except for one.  One solitary condo at the back of the complex.  It has been listed as a short sale for 82 days, enough that the asking price came down another $5000 last week.  That was enough to cause me to take a look.

The location alone is worth it.  It’s at the back of the complex, overlooks a meadow that borders the DuPage river.  The view from the deck will be beautiful and unobstructed, no chance that anything will ever be built behind the building.  That alone is worth buying the condo.

And that is what I am banking on.  The price is around $30,000 less that any of the condos that have been sold there, because it is an absolute pit.  All flooring, all windows, even the patio doors will need to be replaced.  It’s bad.  The furnace looks to be original, barely functional.  My best estimate is around $16,000 to make the place inhabitable.

This crazy man made an offer, one that is being considered.  I figure that working on the place will keep me occupied enough to dull the pain of the final separation before divorce.  When the condo is done, it will be beautiful.. but it will take a lot of work.

Mysteries.  Unknown.  A part of me wants to know what is going to happen, a large part of me doesn’t want to know.  I want to be surprised and I hope it will be pleasant!

 

Humor Me

Tags

divorce, family, personal

Keeping my sense of humor during this time of transition in my life is a challenge.  I used to think that nothing would dull my ability to laugh at life, whether it be sickness or trial, and for the most part that has been the truth.  This has not been a time of wailing, depression, or extreme loneliness — those times came before.  The challenge comes in maintaining the proper motivation for life, pushing through, staying strong, doing what needs to be done.  Even more of a stretch is recognizing what this whole divorce situation is doing to my family, how they are handling it, and deciding how I should react.

That might be the most difficult challenge.  Already aggressive and angry before my wife and I headed towards divorce, his anger was magnified by the announcement.  It’s tough for him watching the house literally and figuratively being dismantled, prepared for sale and the finality of what certainly means an end to life as he knows it.  I get it.  I feel for him.

That said, I have to carry on, keep working on getting the house ready to sell, despite his protests and his lashing out.  A week ago, last Saturday, I began preparing our living and dining rooms for painting, took down pictures and patched and taped the trim.  The living room is where my son retreats when he gets tired of playing video games in his bedroom, even has taking to sleeping on the living room couch most nights (which I do not like).  After working all day and evening last Saturday, I plopped on the couch and settled in to watch a movie, the second installment of the Rambo series.  Just as Rambo started getting into it with the bad guys, a perturbed male voice announced behind me — CHANGE THE CHANNEL, I WANT TO WATCH THE FOOTBALL GAME.  I was tired, drained, and not ready for the conflict that had just been thrust at me.  On top of that, I can’t think of a time in recent history where my son has not done exactly the same thing to me.  I rarely get to watch more than ten minutes of a movie before my son enters, demands the channel be changed, or snatches the TV remote to change the channel.

This time I refused.  I told him no.  When he started to fight me about it, I stood up.  Immediately, I had a large 17 year old boy swinging at me and connecting.  I yelled at him, told him to stop and think about what he was doing.  When he started swinging at me again, I knocked him to the floor, slapped him on the arm, backed up and told him to leave me alone.  He didn’t.  He jumped up and tried to tackle me, then when he failed to do that ran out in bare feet and shorts to the garage, where he grabbed a hammer from my workbench.  Stomping back across the garage, he announced to me that he was going to use the hammer to put holes in the walls inside the house.  I stopped him.  He swung the hammer at me halfheartedly, then threw it against the inside of the garage door.  Retreating to my workbench, where my mountain bike was also parked, he stood on the carpet there, threatening to find a tool to use to wreck my bike.

He stood there for two hours, barefooted and in shorts.  It was 7 degrees outside.  I stood inside the house, asked him to come inside and talk about what was going on, told him I was sorry for what is going on, explained that nothing he could do would change the situation.  Any damage he would do would only make the situation worse.  My son pleaded with me, don’t sell the house.  It has to be sold, I told him.

He’s angry.  I get it.  So am I, for that matter.  He’s also trying to control, using the divorce as another excuse to be aggressive.  I get that too.

At one point, I called 911 but hung up before they answered (it rang 3 times without an answer).  I didn’t want to deal with a son who was frostbitten.  I didn’t want to have to fight him, which he was challenging me to do.  I didn’t want my mountain bike to be damaged, a prize to me in more ways than one.  And I was too tired to deal with the situation for much longer.  I feigned a call to his mother, who was out with friends.  I called a friend, who at 11:30 PM had already gone to bed.  My only real choice, besides asking the law to intercede, was to wait it out.

Eventually she came home, nearly two hours into the standoff, just as I had reached my breaking point and had started yelling at him to get inside the house.  Hearing me yell, she immediately blamed me for the entire situation.  He’s obviously distraught, she exclaimed, so leave him alone.  I wasn’t going to leave until he did, even as they both berated me for loving my precious bicycle more than them.  After another half hour of standoff, he agreed to leave my bicycle alone if we would leave him alone.  We did.  He came inside, instantly charged me as he came through the door, swinging at me again.  I left, went upstairs, shut the bedroom door behind me and locked it.  It was 12:30.  The conflict had started nearly at 9 PM.

The next morning, when I came home from church, my wife insisted that I finish painting the downstairs rooms and hallway by the end of the day.  She didn’t offer to help.  It was all my fault.  I was wrong for what had happened the night before, needed to be more sensitive to our son.  While I agree with her that he is more sensitive right now, she did not agree with me when I said that he was also trying to take advantage of the situation.  There needed to be a balance.  Instead of backing him up, for a change she needs to support me and not instantly defend him.. for once.  Just because we are getting a divorce does not mean that she does not need to support me.

And so it goes.

I can’t get out of the house fast enough.  This needs to be over.  That was my prayer at 12:30 last Saturday night (or early Sunday morning).

It does suck to be me, enough that it’s almost comical.  The money that I was hoping to use to start the divorce moving was sucked into a car repair, to the tune of $1600 a week ago, with $160 added for a rental car.  Yep.  December 31, my VW decided to rebel.  Maybe it’s angry with me, too?  I only have to laugh.

I have finished painting downstairs, start painting the stairwell and upstairs hall today.  New windows will be installed in the upstairs master bedroom this Wednesday.  New carpet has already been installed, powder room tile regrouted, kitchen cabinets restored, trim replaced, doors rehung, outside of the house cleaned and repaired.  I’m close, probably 2-3 weeks away from the house being ready to list.

I’m trying to be patient.

Until then….

Not As Dark As I Suspected It Would Be

Tags

divorce, family, mariage, personal

I thought I would be numb right now.  I thought that I would be in the throes of misery.  Tonight should have been one of the most terrible experiences of my life.  Why, oh why, do I feel calm and peaceful, serene?

Tonight we had a family meeting.  We told our kids what is about to happen.

I made a decision earlier this week, after listening to my wife waffle, after trying to find a solution to our family Christmas holiday that would be fair to not only my children, but to my family.  After all, my wife had called my mother a few weeks ago and initiated a conversation that pretty much ensured that she would not be welcome at my family’s Christmas celebration.  The result of that phone call made it nearly impossible for us to wait to tell our children about our divorce until after Christmas.  With that in mind, I texted my daughter, found out when her last college final exam would be (Wednesday of this week), asked when she would be home (this afternoon).  My decision was a tough one, one that could not be shared with my wife because she would not go along with it.  I doubted the wisdom also, but my gut told me to do it.  Wednesday night, I talked to my daughter, told her that her mother would not be going with us this Saturday to celebrate Christmas with my family.  Her mother had a falling out with my parents.

You and I both know that would not fly with my daughter, especially if you know my daughter.  I called her from my car, on the way home from a meeting.  Before I arrived home, she had already texted her mother and asked what was going on.  My wife was not happy with me, not just because I had put her in a bad position, but because she claimed I had lied when I said she had a falling out with my parents.  I didn’t fight with her, simply reminded her of the phone call that she had made and the circumstances that were created as a result.  It was true that earlier this week she had offered to go to my family Christmas, my mother advising her against it.  That was why she was claiming that I had lied to our daughter.

A portion of my decision rested on the fact that I knew my daughter would have a day to think about things.  She would have the support of her friends.  She would be able to meet with a counselor she has been seeing at her college.  My girl is strong.  She does not avoid.  When she got home, she talked with her mother for a while, then requested a family meeting to find out what was going on.

I am very glad that she did.  We sat down as a family, calmly, and my wife and I gave our children the news.

“This is something that should have happened a long time ago, for the sake of all of us.”  My daughter delivered that statement with resolve.  And she is right.

As suspected, she was not surprised.  My son feigned surprise, tried to act angry, but it was weak, something I think he may have already rehearsed and realized that it wasn’t the best.  He retreated, went up to his room.  Nate is going to require some space, but he is also going to require the most care, I think.

At the moment, tonight seems to have needed to happen when it did.  Now the gorilla has been dismissed.  We can celebrate Christmas together in a week, knowing that we still have some time together in the home that we have shared.

Heaven meets the Doctor

Tags

change, Christianity, divorce, heaven

Doctor L sat across from me, his left leg crossed across his right knee so that his skinny argyle clad ankle showed, bony fingers intertwined while stroking his beard, eyes creased merrily. Merry is his normal expression, the expression of a man whose conversation I have come to enjoy immensely in the past weeks, a friend as much as a counselor. One does not need to know the man to know he is Jewish, his appearance says that, the richness of his faith evident in the conversations we have. The doctor is excited to be able to talk about his faith with me, my strong background as a Christian something he appreciates, and often our conversations go in the direction of how our faith in God affects our lives.

He was about to share something about faith, his posture giving him away, his smile showing the satisfaction of the God he loves to talk about.

“There is a willingness in people who believe that there is life after death, a heaven where life continues, a better life than here. They are able to accept a life here that is less than acceptable, live in pain, stay in a relationship or a career that does nothing for them, all because there is something waiting on the other side. They ask God to do something about the pain they are experiencing here, but they don’t really expect it to change or they don’t do anything to change it because of the hope that something better is waiting on the other side of death.”

He paused again, hands uncrossed and now folded across his lap, a signal that it was my turn to talk. His statement had struck a chord, a bit of that thought ringing true with me, maybe because Doctor L was going somewhere close to the destination my thoughts were already going. The man is not going to give me specific advice, I know, but there are times when it is real evident he is trying to get a certain point across to me. The man is also a good listener, a quality any counselor should have, but he seems to do it better than most. It seems like he leads me to a place where I am already going and I know it’s because he is listening to what I am saying.

He also knows that it often takes very little to animate me, to engage the talker I can be.  This was a thought I could wrap my mind around.

I had just read James 4 in my bible that morning.

What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Life is so short.

“What do you think is going to happen?  What is heaven going to be like?”

I had to confess that I really don’t know.  There is that inkling of a notion that heaven is a second chance, a place where not only is my body is new but I will have a shot at relationships that I missed or had put aside in my youthful foolishness.  New relationships, full in not only a sexual way but a relational way made rich by the presence of God.  Better.  Heaven may just give me hope that the relational emptiness, the lack of meaningful touch, is only temporary and renewed when I get there.  Is heaven a place of constant and eternal worship or singing, bowing to an everlasting sovereign God?  Maybe it is.

“If it is, then why be satisfied with what does not satisfy me here on earth?”  It wasn’t the doctor who presented that question.  I asked that question, not really of Doctor L, but really just so I could say it out loud.

The message he was trying to get me to understand is pretty simple. We had spent the few minutes leading up to his statement talking about not only how Christians approach the notion of divorce but also how Jewish law approaches divorce. We even talked about how the purpose of marriage has evolved in our modern world, how it has gone from a practical arrangement less geared toward romance, more towards survival, to one that has become focused on relationships and meeting emotional needs.

And he got my wheels churning. Thinking about change.. it is the end of the year, after all. My thoughts do go to that, my natural tendency to internally organize taking me there whether I realize it or not. The biggest arguments I have had with my wife, ones that have focused on what I need changed, have come at this time of year, a huge one happening on January 1st of this year. Coincidence? Maybe not.

The good Doctor L assumed the pose again.

“Much of the Jewish religion is about peace, finding it and giving it.  We even make concessions in the name of peace when it comes to marriage, allowing one untruth to be told.  Do you know what that is?”

No.  Please tell me.  This should be interesting.

“You should tell an ugly woman at her wedding that she is beautiful.”

Nice story.  Funny.  But what does that mean to me?

“Sometimes we lie to ourselves, make our situation out to be something it is not, all in the interest of peace.  No one wants to be a bad person.”

True enough, but is anyone really a bad person?  A person can do bad things, we all do and we are all sinners, but our sin does not make us bad.  I understand that.

“Nothing you do is going to make you a bad person.  And you can not let that hold you back.”

I am changing whether I want to or not. Even my willingness to talk to the good doctor is evidence of that, my central Illinois macho male put aside in the interest of finding a way to wrestle with my demons.

The doctor stood and I stood on cue with him, his arm outstretched in my direction, hand on my shoulder as he smiled warmly.  This day, as usual, he had given me a lot to think about.  Shared that peace, gave me a reason to put away that ugly bride persona.

“Until next time, my friend”