Whirlywind

Tags

life, marriage, personal, relationships

WHEW!

I made it. Life since December has been non-stop, mostly related to preparing my condo for selling, as well as wedding plans. Thankfully, Lisa relished the whole wedding planning process, so my job for the wedding was mostly to nod in agreement. I do that well. There were tasks I had to do, but mostly I just had to show up. The caterer was my big task, which I accomplished. Let’s face it, food really isn’t a challenge. Our guest list was small, intentionally, only 53 people, so ordering food was easy.

The condo prep was a lot of work, constant. After weeks of painting, replacing a floor, rehanging doors and doing some general cleaning, I was ready to hang it up. When the last baseboard was replaced, I vowed not to touch another hammer or paint brush for the rest of my life. Ha! Like that is going to happen. The kitchen floor, in particular, looked very nice. Lisa saw that and immediately the wheels started turning in her head with ideas for projects to do around our house (condo). At the beginning of February, my condo was ready to sell. The listing went active at 4 PM on a Sunday. Within minutes there were multiple requests for showings the next day. I worked from Lisa’s condo (next door.. short commute) Monday morning, to accommodate the showings, and was rewarded with two offers that morning. Another followed early that afternoon. Two were nearly $8000 higher than the asking price, and one of those offers was an as is offer. It was nice to be in a seller’s market!

I’m not sure how many showings there were the first day. Let’s just say there were a lot of showings, so many that I had to start turning down requests, allowed one more showing Tuesday morning before I accepted one of the offers. My realtor vetted the credit of each of the buyers, said all three had solid loans. After some discussion, I decided to accept the offer from a young man who is an elementary school band director. My daughter teaches band, so I figured he would be an admirable choice. A guy who teaches kids instrumental music all day likely needs a quiet place to live.

My place sold and appraised at a price $17000 higher than any other condo like it in our condo association prior. In a few short years, the value of my home increased nearly $60000. That may not sound like that much in today’s real estate market, but my condo was a small 1000 sq ft, two bedroom one bath unit with an attached garage. The equity was enough to make me feel stress free financially for the first time in what seems like an eternity.

I closed on the condo a little over two weeks ago. The four week period between the sale and the closing went quickly. Thanks to FB Marketplace, nearly all my furniture was gone quickly. Since I was moving into Lisa’s condo, all but a few items had to be sold or given away. It’s pretty amazing what people will buy if it is cheap. The worst items seemed to garner the most interest — a forty year old wobbly dresser and nightstand ($5 for the pair) sold in 10 minutes, with countless inquiries. I sold the dressers and nightstand in the master bedroom to a woman who fixes up old furniture and resells. She even helped me move it from my second floor unit to her van, came back to pick up the rest. When she saw some of the other stuff I had, she offered to buy some more items. I hated to part with one of those items, an outdoor bench that I had out on my balcony, weathered nicely, a home made project my dad made from an old headboard and footboard. I was touched by the immigrant couple who showed up in an old Toyota Corolla to buy the tattered full mattress and box spring I had. They drove an hour to pick it up, but it was obvious they were grateful for it. Neither spoke much english, but when I asked them if the bed was for their children they said no, it was for them to sleep on. They struggled to load the frame, comforter, sheets inside the car, then bravely strapped the mattress and box spring to the top of their little car. Somehow they managed. I felt a little guilty for taking $10 from them, tried to decline the cash, but they insisted I take it.

I moved some things into Lisa’s condo, but that was difficult, as her son still had things there. I planned to move the remainder of my things in a week before the closing, but when I went to her place to move, I found out that her son’s girlfriend had kicked him out the day before, so he had moved back in to Lisa’s. After the smoke cleared, and I had managed to hold my temper, we talked it out. She asked him to move his stuff out, which he did immediately. There will still things left, and he was still living with her, but I was able to move most of my stuff over. By the day before the closing, I had moved my stuff to OUR place.

For two weeks, I needed a place to live. I try to honor God and understand why it’s important to wait to live together until marriage. A couple we know from church, who also were studying with us to help prepare for marriage, offered to let me live in their garage loft until the wedding. The loft is his office, so it was a sacrifice for him to let me live there and work from there for two weeks. I am very grateful. Not only was it kind of them, but I really enjoyed getting to know Jim and Cindy better during the time I stayed with them. The loft doesn’t have a bathroom, so I saw them quite a bit, as they left their back door open for me so I could use their basement bathroom. I used that most of the time, but during the night there was no way I was going to stumble through the dark and into their house to use the bathroom. I got used to peeing in a cup!

The wedding was this past Saturday. I will save the details for another blog. We both remarked that night, after we were recuperating from the day, that the day was even better than anticipated. Lisa really plans well and it showed! Such a wonderful day. I am married now. As you can tell from the picture, she is gorgeous, and my jaw dropped when I say her appear in her short wedding dress. I don’t like most of the pictures of myself, as the winter was not kind to my physique! I will lose quite a bit of weight as the cycling season starts, thank goodness.

Life is good, better than I imagined it would be five years ago. A lot has changed. I am glad to be able to trust in God, because he has truly blessed me.

The Ride

Tags

life

37 months, 19 days.

It seems like so long ago, even as I look at the time elapsed and realize that it really has not been all that long. So much has changed in my life in those brief months that indeed it feels like a lifetime has passed.

I have a new job, one that I have worked for over 16 months now, a job that probably rescued me from some suffering and protected me from financial ruin. The position is a great fit for me, with a company that encourages and recognizes employees, promotes a positive culture. I was nominated by my peers recently as employee of the month, then selected for that honor by management. After working 25 years for a company that used me up, then worked five years for a company that was just as dysfunctional in it’s own unique way, I have journeyed in my work life to a place and a job that I find very satisfying. Honestly, 2020 was not much of a challenge to me, largely because I didn’t have to worry about my job, about my boss, wasn’t wearing a target on my back.

Work isn’t my life, though, even though a large amount of my time and energy goes towards my work. Looking at the changes to my employment and the relatively short amount of time that has passed since the latest changes, that too seems like another lifetime. It was, I guess. Each job I have had carries its own unique memories. Many are a capsule, a stop along the journey I am on.

And that’s really it. Life is a journey, with a beginning and a destination that I can’t quite yet see. As a bicyclist who has completed many a tour, I know that most rides seem much shorter when I break them down into segments. When I look at my life, I see those segments in my life —

*a childhood spent in several places (but mostly in the same little town)

*college in southwest Missouri, my first job as a youth minister in a small town near the Lake of the Ozarks

*a year back at home with my parents

*another job at a church in Illinois

*a job as a restaurant manager that brought me to the Chicago area and where I met up with friends who I helped start a church in Naperville (one of my favorite segments along the journey)

*marriage and that first little one bedroom apartment, and the beginning of my fascination with riding bicycles

*my first house, where my two children were born and raised. It was the longest segment of my journey so far, and the part of my journey that turned sharply uphill

*separation, then divorce after 25 years of marriage. It was during this part of my journey that I had to rely on friends and family to keep me going… just like a good bike ride.

The most recent segment was those 37 months. What an odd part of my journey it has been! The separation before the divorce, a period of 7 months, was a very dark time, a time that was painful yet also a huge relief from pain at the same time. Comparing it to a ride, it’s that point where your body starts saying no and a cramp or two comes on, but my brain knows that pushing through that pain will bring a satisfying reward. I pushed through it, tried to learn as much as I could about myself while I was doing that. It has been during this time when I have been glad that I have friends to share the journey with. I think that has been what has brought back the enjoyment of the journey. I am pretty sure those friends are going to be with me the rest of the way.

I feel like another segment of my life’s journey is just beginning. Things are changing, getting better. After making it through the hard time, climbed the tough stuff, I feel like I am recovered and looking at a smoother part of the journey. How long it is to the finish (if there is one), I don’t know. As someone who believes in God, I have to think that the hardest part of the journey is getting to what seems like the end… and then coming to the part of the ride that is an eternal tailwind (and with a new, body/bike as well).

Puddletrack

Tags

fun, life, personal

Too bad my fat bike doesn’t float.  The tires are large, but they are not buoyant.  Here in northern Illinois, we are having one of the wettest Spring seasons on record.  For off road bicyclists such as myself, that can be frustrating.  It’s not good for most people.  The trails closest to me are next to a river, are built on and in between berms that are swampy even during the dry seasons.  For more than a month, they have not been rideable.

Some people don’t care, judging from the damage to the trails.  This picture was taken a few days ago.  It’s obvious that there are quite a few people who just rode through it.  The section pictured is a the bottom of the trail head connector.  I am surprised that it wasn’t blocked.  When I rode last night, it was still a quagmire though no longer covered with water.  I turned around and entered the trail from another connector.  Riding mud is not fun, plus it screws with a bike.

We had a few days without much rain.  Most of the trails were in great shape last night, although I still had to be careful, had to avoid some trails.  Last Sunday afternoon, I rode another trail system in the Chicago area with some friends.  They were scary difficult, rocky with steep and twisty descents/climbs.  My new bike, a carbon Salsa Deadwood SLX with 29+ wheels (2.6 tires, for now) helped give me the confidence to at least attempt everything.  Three hours of riding and I was satisfied, not as tired as I could have been.  Even though off road cycling has not been a viable option for the past month, I have been riding.

My fat tired bike has proved to be an entertaining riding option.  Pretty much out my front door are forest preserves and rails-to-trails paths, so I have been riding 4-5 days a week on those trails.  There is an old landfill a few minutes away, now a recreational area, that has added an option for climbing.  There is more resistance to riding paths, especially on a fat tired bike, so I feel stronger now than ever.  I ain’t no stud, but I ain’t no slouch either.  Of course, my roadie friends have helped me a little.  We have ventured out on the path the past two Wednesdays, rode to a little craft brewery to participate in their trivia night (third place the first time we trivia’d), then trekked home with lights.  It’s tremendous fun!

When it rains on my cycling parade, I make my own parade, I guess.

Another gully washer this afternoon.  Rats.

Burning Flesh

Tags

Humour, lessons learned, life, personal, technology

My feeble mind goes back a few years to a day when perhaps my life was spared.  I still remember the acrid scent of burning flesh and ozone, the horrified look on my son’s face after he had witnessed his father being thrown across the room by forces unbeknownst to him.  I was attempting my first minor project that involved house current, too cheap or too poor to hire someone to do the job who actually knew what they were doing.  We, meaning my former wife and I, had redone our son’s room to a sports theme, with walls painted to resemble grass, a border of various and assorted balls, shelfs lined with his collection of trophies, a sports themed switch plate.  The final touch was to add a soccer ball light fixture to the ceiling fan.

I was up to the task, a little research on how to retrofit a ceiling fan done on the internet.  Armed with YouTube handyman courage, I climbed the short metal extension ladder in the middle of the bedroom, screwdriver in hand, prepared for what I thought was the most simple task to add to my arsenal of household accomplishments.  The breaker to the bedroom was shut off, the master wall switch in the off position.  I should have been safe.

Do I even need to say how wrong I was?

The cover plate on the ceiling fan was removed easily, the wires disconnected.  I put the retrofit fixture for the light in place, attached the wires to the terminal connections then gingerly put my screwdriver on the terminals to tighten them down.

POOF!!!!!!!!

I had touched the metal of the screwdriver against the ceiling fan housing, only to discover that I should have shut off the mains at the breaker box.  Horrified, my son watched as I was launched off the ladder and across the room.  He bolted (a ironic term) out of the room to retrieve his mother, sure that his father was singing with the angels.  I came to as the scent of my own burning flesh mixed with the smell of fresh ozone.  I looked at my hand, still tingling from the trauma created by the introduction of house electricity, intrigued by the slightly smoking black spot in the side of my knuckle.  The current had entered there.  Further inspection revealed where the jolt of electricity had exited at my elbow.

I wondered if I had super powers as a result.  They have yet to emerge.

Recently, the recessed light in my shower stall ceased to work.  I knew failure was coming, since it often shut off a minute or two into a shower as the fixture overheated.  It was only a matter of time before the light quit working.  After it failed, I investigated the cause.  It wasn’t the breaker, which sometimes had to be reset after the light shut off.  It wasn’t the switch.  Replacement bulbs didn’t solve the problem.  It was obvious that either the light socket or the heat sensor on the fixture had burned out.

Crap.  I am still too cheap to pay someone to fix it.  That meant I had to risk my life again to fix it on my own.

 

This time experience was on my side, as well as a whole lot better breaker box.  Now I live in a condo, with the main power on a different floor and away from my condo unit.  Shutting off the main power was as simple to going to the condo building utility room and shutting off the main to my unit.  I connected an extension cord and utility light to a hallway outlet so that I would have light in my bathroom while performing the task of replacing the light socket.  I had decided to retrofit a LED light kit, which meant I had to cut the wires, remove the existing socket and bracket, and strip the wires to wire the new light fixture in.  I performed the task as I stood in the tub, half expecting to meet Jesus as I cut the wires.  Half surprised at the lack of response as I cut the wires, then stripped the insulation back and connected the wires with nuts, a relieved SHenry completed the task.  I inserted the next fixture into the recessed can in the shower stall ceiling, cleaned up, turned on the main power, flipped the switch.

VOILA!  Success.  Glorious success.  The new LED fixture worked without flaw and looks even better than the original incandescent light.

A friend heard of my success (bragging is never a good idea) and now wants me to replace her failed closet light.  She had better make it worth it….

No Chestnuts Required

Tags

life

This is the state of my living room fireplace as I write, the fire blazing warmth into the space I call my home.  In the next 24 hours, I am going to be very glad that I spent the money for a cord of well seasoned dry firewood.  Temperatures in the Chicago area are expected to drop below minus 20 degrees, wind chills dropping to the minus 60 mark.  Any thought of venturing outside tomorrow will be pure insanity.  When I prayed for my meal tonight, I thanked God for a warm house to live in, asked for his added protection of anyone who is not blessed in the same way.  Anyone stuck outside will quickly resemble Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.

I also prayed that any and all stinkbugs be stuck outside of my home, frozen in death and never to taunt me from my ceiling again.  The cold weather has brought them in.  I flush at least one a day.  When the fire is lit, I cackle with satisfaction as I toss the insidious brown creature on the coals, watch it pop.  There is a special place in hell for stink bugs.  Why they exist is a mystery to me.

My car is in the garage tonight.  For the past month or so, my daughter’s car has been there.  Since she won’t need the car until this June, when she comes home for two months, my VW has dibs on the warmer space for the next day or so.  Her car is parked in a guest space tonight.. I am such a scofflaw.

Most businesses around here are closed tomorrow.  Everyone in my office is working from home.  As my boss reminded me, my VW may make it to work, but it probably won’t start after sitting in the parking lot for an hour or more.  So I brought my lap top, a price book, and a writing project home with me tonight.  Yes, a writing project.  My company publishes a quarterly magazine, with success stories in each issue.  I have written a few success stories that are published, so I guess that means I am a published author.  My boss assigned another writing project to me, an application where one of our controls is operating successfully in a carbon black application.  I was the one who helped make it happen, something that is pretty cool, so I guess I have reason to proudly write the story.

I can’t wait to crawl under the covers tonight, the weight of the multiple layers of blankets a cloth hug that surrounds and comforts me.  My thermostat is set to automatically drop to the lowest temperature setting after 10 PM, so it gets fairly frigid in my place over night.  I like that.  It makes any middle of the night trip to the potty a trip through the arctic, but it’s worth it.  My furnace becomes my alarm clock, since it comes on at six in the morning, long enough for me to take a shower without goose bumps.

This fire is wonderful.  Time to put the laptop away, get out a jigsaw puzzle, sip some wine.  Any young ladies who would care to come over for a snuggle in front of the fire, well, there’s room……

 

Frosty the Bike Man

Tags

fat bikes, life, middle age

Once upon a time, in SHenry’s land far far away, the prince of SHenry land used to throw care to the wind.  No matter the weather, the prince would ride his trusty steed, undaunted by wind or rain or sleet or snow.

He’s beginning to rethink those days.  What in the world was he thinking?

It’s definitely winter in SHenryland.  Never one to complain too much about weather that always happens, I am OK with the single and sub zero temperatures as of late.  With the addition of a fat bike to my stable, I am downright giddy when fresh snow has fallen overnight.  However, I don’t throw on the layers of clothing required without a thought, like I used to.  My mind tells me to hold my horses, it’s cold enough out there to cause body parts to fall off.  At my age, body parts are at a premium.  Said body parts may not fall off in cold weather, but they have a tendency to remind me that it was freaking cold.

 

The sun was out today.  I had plenty of time available.  However, the temperature was barely pushing 5 degrees.  Ride, you say?  Nay, nay, said the little voice in my head, stay inside in front of the fire, take a nap, eat some popcorn.  It really took a lot to resist that little pipsqueak in my brain, pull on the cold weather gear, get my princely butt on the fat bike.

Butt I did it.

Four pairs of socks, including a Goretex pair, with my Woolie Boolies on top.

Under Armor mock tee

Padded capri bibs (yes, I call the knee length ‘capris’)

Fleece lined tights

Fleece lined long sleeved jersey

Zip up fleece

Neoprene ski vest

Helmet liner

Full face gator

Insulted head band

Booties

Gloves

I swear that one of the reasons I have second thoughts about riding in the cold is that it takes such a stinking long time to get all that crap on!

It was glorious.  After three weeks of riding my new fat bike, I am still amazed at how easy it rides.  There is so much beauty to ride right out my front door.  It’s a blessing.

Nothing fell off.

 

 

First Love

Tags

lessons learned, life, personal

What did I ride before this bike came into my life?  I don’t remember, really, but I do know that I knew how to ride.  The Royce Union three speed banana bike was my first real bike.  That I know.  I was a proud seven year old boy.  I rode that bike to an early death, beat the snot out of it.. all without a helmet.

I likely have a little brain damage due to that fact.  No helmet meant that I saw stars, as well as lost a lot of skin and blood, many times while riding that bike.  It wasn’t the most safe bike in the world to ride, something I was destined to prove over and over again.  My parents bought that bike for my birthday, June 1, ready to attack the summer months of Sacramento, California.  We lived on the outskirts of town, in a new housing development with plenty of open fields, places to ride like miniature Evil Knievels.  The neighborhood game was a modified version of chicken, played in the middle of the street with boys lined up across from each other to form a gauntlet.  Each player had to try to ride their bike successfully through that gauntlet.  My banana bike had that cool little sissy bar in the back, a perfect handle to stop me.  The speed it took to try to make it through the gauntlet was my worst enemy — I was stopped suddenly, my forward motion launched me over the handlebars, my elbows and chin out in front of me as I hit the pavement.  I still have scars on my elbows from that crash, the skin hung from my elbows as I stumbled through the front door to show my horrified mother.  She knew the emergency room techs by their first names that summer.

I am also lucky that I was able to father children.  That shifter wasn’t exactly in the best position.  Ever heard of the term ‘racked’?  Any boy who rode a bike like mine knows the term well.  Just thinking about it makes me lose my breath.  Mom kept an ice bag close at hand and an ample supply of ice in the freezer.

Thus the love began, a love that hurt me, that kept me healthy even as the injuries healed, that taught me a few things.  I will always remember my first love.

Now… where is my ice bag?

But What Am I?

Tags

Humour, life, neighbors

I had an evil thought yesterday.

Yes, just one.

Then I thought a little more about what that thought entailed.  What it really would have made me was a childish tattletale.  I may be childish, but I am no tattletale snitch, no matter who I would be telling on.

Go ahead, stick your tongue out at me.  You are rubber and I am glue.

I could play the silly snitch game if I wanted to.  The opportunity is there.  The object would deserve it.  While checking with property management yesterday to see if it would cost me if I kept my daughter’s car in my garage or driveway, I did something that some people don’t do — I checked the condo association rules and answered my own question.

VII.  VEHICLE REGULATIONS

A.  Residents are provided an easement to a garage for indoor parking and to the adjoining driveway for outdoor parking.  Guest parking spaces located throughout the property are primarily for the use of guests.  Homeowners are required to use their garages and driveways for parking.

Hold on a second… my nasty downstairs neighbor parks her car in her garage, but her husband parks his truck in a guest parking spot.  He leaves her driveway open, probably so he won’t upset her delicate psyche.  THEY ARE BREAKING THE RULES!

Those naughty people.  Tsk tsk tsk.

The little devil on my shoulder tempted me to say something.  After all, she has ratted me out plenty of times in less than two years.  She DESERVES it.  After all, she continues to bang on her ceiling every time she hears a noise from above, turns on her garbage disposal when she thinks I run my kitchen faucet for too long, steps outside and yells up at me when any or most things annoy her.  She DOES DESERVE it.

No, I will not play that game.

 

So what if it’s not January 1?

Tags

life, middle age, personal

Recently, I shared here that I am trying out a fitness app and using the diary feature to log my food and calorie intake.  The log takes into account any exercise for the day, a helpful motivator that helps keep it real for me.  I set a reasonable goal for weight loss and control of two pounds a week, which for a guy my age and height is 1500 calories per day.  If that sounds difficult, think again.  It’s not been difficult at all.  Since the app also has a food blog with tons of healthy recipes that are also good meals, it’s literally been a piece of cake (strawberry banana bread, actually).  Using the app has provided the discipline that my personality requires, so I have not missed a day of logging since I started nearly four weeks ago.  I can’t give a weight I am at right now because I don’t have a scale, but I know where I started.  I also know that there were clothes, especially jeans, that I couldn’t wear a month ago because they were uncomfortably tight.  Those jeans are now loose on me.

For an example of the report the diary generates, here is today’s count as of lunch.  Because of two hours of exercise this morning (that will change once I go back to work), I have some fudge (yes, real chocolaty fudge) in the calorie count today —

Optimism abounds for me right now, not always my state of mind this time of year when it comes to my body.  Instead of sinking into a winter pudginess, I am going the other direction.  Perhaps the old ladies at the pool this next summer will be impressed?

It doesn’t hurt that December started with snow, then turned mild.  Combined with extra days off, there has been ample opportunity to ride outside, something I have taken advantage of.  My mountain bike suffered a minor breakdown Monday, a broken rear derailleur, but thankfully I had an extra part and chain waiting — I am a little hard on that particular bike component and was ready for it.  I did use the breakage to scam a test ride on my buddy’s extra fat bike yesterday, a beast with 4.5″ tires.  Since I live alone, the Plus One factor does not affect me, so the call of new bike is very loud right now.

Here’s a picture taken last Sunday — because I know there are those who will be insisting I prove the above.  Yes, that’s my ‘lady friend’.  It’s obvious I have some ways to go, but my goal is a few months away.

 

Health Insurance Roulette

Tags

life, personal, relationships

One of the more frustrating challenges in the past few years, especially since I changed employers March 2014, has been affordable health insurance.  When I was fired, I lost the BCBS family silver PPO that my employer subsidized.  It had been close to 25 years since I had to worry about health insurance for myself or for my family, the cost of my insurance and insurance for my family subsidized by my employer.  The pay I received from that job was bad to marginal but the health insurance benefit was above average and good, the $28 deduct from my weekly paycheck worth every penny.  Suddenly, I was faced with paying for COBRA insurance, then working through the then new federal Healthcare Marketplace.  I was offered a job two days after I was fired, but my new employer was small — a three person office with me being the only official full time domestic employee of a company based in eastern Europe.  There would be no company health insurance benefit, although the job offer included a monthly allowance for my family’s health insurance.  Even then, I would be required to pay roughly 75% of the insurance cost.

One note — I am very proud to be able to say that was only unemployed for two days.  The word of my demise spread quickly, as nasty stories have a tendency to do, and someone with my reputation and experience is rare in the industry I serve.  There was a lot of interest to hire me and the company who hired me was very happy to get someone with my experience.  Unfortunately, I needed a month to recover from the stress I had been through in the months/years leading up to the incident that led to my firing.  So much had been heaped on me for a long time, combined with financial and family/marital stress that added to the stress at work, that I had reached a breaking point.  While my employer had been extremely cruel to me, I hadn’t helped myself with my final reaction, which had been to tell my boss to fire truck off — he had been looking for a reason to fire me and was intentionally trying to push me over the edge.  After a long Wednesday that had been preceded by several long days and months of constant ruthless badgering by my boss, I handed the reason to him on a silver platter.  I can only say that I have had to learn some hard lessons about dealing with anger properly.  It’s not that I was an angry, raging lunatic, but I tried to avoid losing my temper so much that it wasn’t healthy in a lot of ways.  It hurt me physically and there were times where the frustration became too much for me to handle.  That time of my life taught me a lot of lessons, the stress actually pushing my body past its limits.  It was a good thing that I had good health insurance at the time!

For the record, no matter what my ex says, curse words are not a normal part of my daily vocabulary.  I know how many times she heard me curse in the 25 years we were married — so few that I can count the number of times on one hand.  Saying fire truck to my boss means that I was stressed out of my mind.  The day before the firing, the stress had been so bad that I had to go out to my car so that coworkers would not have to watch me lose it.  I sat in my car weeping uncontrollably for a good half hour.

I negotiated the dark waters of that first open enrollment fairly well, barely making the deadline for the 2014 open enrollment.  My son was diagnosed with borderline ADHD when he was 10 years old, prescribed the expensive medicines that go along with it.  I didn’t agree with the diagnosis then, don’t agree now, definitely question the necessity of the medications.  My boy has been exposed to an amphetamine that he will never be able to quit taking.  Those medications and the psychiatric care that goes with them make it a challenge to get affordable health insurance for him.  Most plans do not include those medications or psychiatric care.  If they do, they are very expensive.  That meant that the federal subsidy was necessary to keep the monthly insurance payment below $1000 per month.

The PPO for 2014 was discontinued at the end of 2014.  The plan that replaced it cost three times as much, making it impossible to afford even with the federal subsidy.  Through the Marketplace, I found another lower tier PPO that covered the medications required and was roughly the same cost.  It was supposed to also include the pediatrician and doctors we used.  The monthly federal subsidy was a little higher.  After signing up, we found out that our doctors had dropped out of the PPO’s network.  We were screwed for 2015.  So, when that PPO was also discontinued at the end of 2015 and replaced once again by a far more expensive PPO, I changed to an HMO for 2016 that was affordable.

2016 was the year the divorce started, although we didn’t separate until April 2017.  Late 2016, I took an advance from my retirement fund to pay off outstanding credit card debt (another stress for years, as well as a symptom of a terrible marriage).  When 2016 taxes were filed and my wife and I had separated, I received a letter from the IRS that advised that our 2016 income had exceeded the maximum combined income to receive the federal health insurance subsidy — which meant that I had less than two weeks to come up with the nearly $7000 to pay back the total 2016 insurance subsidy.  Since each of us had changed addresses, the letter got to me after the due date to pay the $7000, resulting in a hefty penalty for late payment.

This story is getting long.  Let’s just say that I was fortunate to have the money from my portion of the sale of our house.  Otherwise, it would have been much more difficult to deal with.  As it was, it depleted my savings to near nothing, making the first year of divorce a quite bit more uphill financially.  I am thankful that I planned my post divorce budget well, something I think my ex hates.  She suspects I have unlimited finances, I think, judging from the way she asks for money.  Truthfully, if I don’t stick to the budget I have set, I would be hurting.  God help me if there is an emergency (like my car is strongly hinting at now).

Things like unexpected changes to health insurance premiums can really mess with that budget.  This month, I start paying on the Parent Plus loan that I had to take out during my daughter’s junior and senior years of college.  I planned on that, but it means my budget is even more tight.  To avoid the excessive health insurance premiums and possible federal health insurance subsidy issue, this year I avoided the federal Marketplace altogether.  Instead of health insurance, I enrolled in a federally recognized health share for myself.  I found an inexpensive health insurance plan for my son — and found out that I either misunderstood what the salespeople told me or I was lied to.  His plan is a supplementary plan, not intended to be the health insurance plan.  It also doesn’t cover his prescriptions or psychiatric care, something I was careful about when shopping for his insurance, so I know I was lied to in that case.  His insurance is definitely not the plan I was told it would be.  It sounded too good to be true and it was too good to be true, as is usually the case.

So, my son needs to find insurance that meets his needs.  I have been asking him to come over to my place so we can look into a new plan for him, cancel the plan he has now.  I can’t cancel his insurance because legally I am not allowed.  I also want to see if he qualifies for a federal subsidy on his own, probably the way we can afford the insurance he needs.  I have to pay for his insurance, 100% of it, per the divorce agreement.

He is avoiding me.  Until yesterday, he ignored my phone calls and text messages.  He has done that for weeks.  I would have tried to get his mother involved, but wanted to give Nate a shot first, let him learn how to do it on his own.  I have communicated the reason why it needs to be done this way.  The open enrollment period ends this Saturday.  It has to be started a few days before or else there will be trouble.

They both answered me, partially, yesterday.  When I say partially, both said they received my messages.  So I encouraged her (and said it has to be done) to work with him to get enrollment started in the next two days.  I said I have to approve any plan enrollment before they enroll, as I have to get it approved for my employer to pay their portion.

Crickets.

The challenge isn’t just dealing with the health insurance itself.  This would be difficult if the divorce had never happened.  Dealing with it with all the angst of the divorce is making it a real challenge.  Trying to get both my son and my wife to work on getting the health insurance questions resolved requires patience… and prayer.