Divorce and Death and Dating

I've been thinking about my divorce, final back in 1989.  My ex and I had an argument, nothing new, five years married and we spent 2, maybe 2 1/2 years together.  She always wanted to fight.  I would go to leave and she would attack me, usually with a weapon.  This last argument, I split for a few days.  She moved out of the house and took everything.  Even my photo albums, pictures of my grand parents, everything.

I decided, what the hell, I cleaned up the house and rented it out.  Then I moved in with my mother until I could find someplace else.  My ex flipped out and dropped the kids off with my mother one day when I was at work.  I guess she expected me to chase her down and ask her to move back,  Really?

Okay, I had physical custody.  Now what?  To make a long story short she filed for divorce, tried to convince the court I had kidnapped the kids from her, made up a bunch of lies and then she and her boy friend got ripped off on a drug deal so they fire bombed a house.  The wrong house and they killed two old women.

Theoretically, if the cops end up letting someone go because of insufficient evidence it isn't supposed to count against the arrested person in a custody battle.  Realistically, if you murder someone in the middle of a custody battle you have pretty much lost.

My ex was a psycho, but, in a lot of ways she had a really good heart.  We threw a Christmas party for my family and she made custom Christmas stockings for everyone, the Jewish people had Menorahs and Stars of David and stuff.  It was a blast.  She could be really great, sometimes.  Other times she was as psycho as she was nice.  Bi Polar maybe?  Who knows, she was a total psycho, but, sometimes she could be really great.

Fast forward to 1994 and the kids want to go live with their mother.  That is another long story, with a bad ending because I let them and my son ended up dead.

Through all that I worked hard at going from drop-out to machinist to tool maker to engineer.  Then I got sick, my heart crapped out.

Lots of baggage and I thought I was dealing with it okay, did some grief counseling, going back to school, etc.

The woman I was dating recently really did a number on me.  I am really vulnerable between the day my son died and his birthday, essentially the month of January.  I don't usually go out New Years because he died on the 29th.  This year I did and I had a pretty good time, even if I was dying inside.  I always am around that time of year and I need to deal better with his death.

As psycho as my ex-wife was, she wouldn't have hurt me the way this last woman did.  She may have wanted to, but, my ex would never have, never did, rip my heart out the way this last woman did.  My ex can be pretty ruthless, but, more in a physical way (we share that trait), causing people emotional pain for pleasure is just wacked.

So, am I really ready to date?  No.  I screwed up.

But it taught me a lot and I am always happy to learn.  I learned I have a lot more to deal with over the death of my son, my wife and even some others like my mother.  I have to learn to deal with the loss of a career I worked hard at.  Lots of loss and I really suck at dealing with loss.  You'd think by now I would be an expert, but, I'm not.

I'm good at keeping going when everyone else quits.  I will keep working on something, "beating a dog to death" until I make it work.  Not a real dog, a figurative "dog" of a project.  So I end up being credited with doing things people have failed at, the "impossible".  Only, I can't do that any more.

So, here I am.  Not getting any affirmation from women.  Not getting any affirmation from work.  School is cool, but, it is kind of boring.  It drags...goes so s l o w...

In fact I am not getting any affirmation from anywhere, except God.  God is doing some very cool things that have really made my life better.  Recently I had a small windfall where I bought some new hiking boots and gave some money to the church so the youth group could go to a Christian concert.  The concert was kewl, but, only three youth and fifteen adults went.  I paid for a bunch of adults who have more money than I do.  Good trails are a ways away and I couldn't afford the gas to go, but, got another small windfall and spent some gas money driving out to the Poto today.  Good walk.


Now, I know no one really dies.  I don't mean I think, I mean I really KNOW that no one really dies so my son and my wife and my mother and everyone else is okay.  So why am I so freaking sad about all that?  Selfishness?  No idea.  I don't get it.  I don't understand where the tears come from, or why I miss Billy and Lisa and my mom so much.  It makes no sense to me.

But, this is what I know.  I need to learn how to deal with this emotional grief schtuff way the frick better.  If I hadn't been so vulnerable, ms. "I love you but you made a snide remark", would never have gotten to me.  Especially since I knew she was lying and cheating.  I mean, WTF is wrong with me that I go off the deep end for someone I know is lying?

Stupid.

I wouldn't even have sex with this woman, I used to let my little head do the thinking and I didn't this time and got burned.  WTF.

I need about a hundred hits of mesc, a motorcycle and around 5K for a road trip.  By the time I got home in a month I would be so burned out that it wouldn't matter what had happened because my brain would be so scrambled I wouldn't care anyway.  By the time I recovered and got straight I would be beyond caring.

But, I ain't doing squat where I can pick up enough benjamins for all that and even if I was I probably wouldn't.  Probably.  Besides, what would I do with the dog?  It would be dangerous to take him riding on a motorcycle while I'm on mescaline.  It would be so nice cruising down south though....coping trails from all the lights....totally happy no matter what.  LSD would be better if I could get some without the strychnine...

Never had a bad trip, would I with all this grief crap?

So, stoned out road trip is out of the question.  I just got to suck it up and get on with life...except for the whole grief thing.  I tried the "suck it up" bit.  It has been 15 years.  WTF?  Still dealing, or not dealing, with it.  So what is the next step?

No clue, but, I can never be thankful enough to God for bringing the narcissist into my life to make me realize how F'd up I really am right now.   The one thing I am sure of is that now that I realize how F'd up I am over all this death crap God can work with me to straighten it out.

God is good, even when life isn't.

Lost Love and Making Life Better

So here it is in February and I know I made the best decision in my life not allowing the woman I was dating to spend the anniversary of my son's death with me.  (last blog back in Dec '13, http://jdayer.blogspot.com/2013/12/dealing-with-shit-and-love.html ) She broke up with me the day after my dead son's birthday.

Dealing with emotional crap is difficult, but, not dealing with it is even worse.  I made a bad choice dating her, but, that ends up being a good choice for me because I always learn more from the worst mistakes than I do from the minor ones.  Lets just say that this was an awesome lesson and I am really thankful that I learned it.

She wasn't being honest with me.  She was surfing a dating site while she was dating me and she was constantly breaking dates.  She was rarely available on a Friday or a Saturday and never on both in a row.  She had specifically told me that she had used this dating site and had hidden her profile because she considered me her exclusive boyfriend and she told me that she loved me.

Okay, after about 4 broken dates I checked the site and there was her profile and a message saying the last time she was on was that day.  This was about 3 weeks before she dumped me.  It isn't like I am a jealous guy, we only dated a couple months.  The fact that I never asked her to be exclusive to me and then she lied about it bugged the crap out of me though.

I don't confront people, never tell people what you know.  This is a "God Father" piece of wisdom I have believed for a long time.  Drag out the DVD, Brando tells James Cann, "never tell anyone outside the family what you are thinking!"

Anyhow, I tried to work stuff out, but, when she dumped me I confronted her.  She lied her ass off, of course.  I told her she made the right choice in breaking up with me.  I meant that and mean it today.  I messaged the crap out of her using that dating site, after blocking her so she couldn't reply.  She could have blocked me, or uninstalled the app from her phone, but, she didn't.  I figured it was the best way to make sure she never tried to work things out with me.  Sure, I had her phone number (I deleted it off my phone, but, bills are often handy for something :-) and I am sure I could track down her e-mail, but, why?  I just focused on the thing she lied about and used to cheat on me with.

Before I blocked her from sending me messages she actually tried to tell me that she still loved me and the only reason she broke up with me was because I made a snide remark when she broke date number 8, a Saturday night.  Can you imagine loving someone and then dumping them because they made a single snide remark?  Yeah, me neither.

I am enormously glad I didn't have intercourse with her.  Okay, so we did just about everything but have intercourse.  There is something really hot about watching a woman on her knees in a mirror......anyway, probably went a little too far there.  I should have kept my pants on.  I think my refusal to have actual intercourse probably contributed to her dumping me, and that is a good thing.  Still, one night we spent about 4 hours doing nothing but "foreplay" and that was amazingly fun.  I will do that again if I can find another woman willing to spend 4 hours teasing each other to death.

It was an amazing learning experience and I think my vulnerability around this time of year really made it important to me.  As weird as this sounds, it makes me want to be more open to being hurt rather than more closed off.

One of the biggest lessons I learned was to stop depending on my own judgment about women.  I know I can't trust myself anymore.  I am going to focus on depending on God.  Terrific lesson to learn.  And FYI, the word fornication in the New Testament is translated from the word Pornia, which is the root word for Pornography and at the time the New Testament was written actually meant Temple Prostitution.  Where the New Testament tells us not to fornicate it is actually telling us not to engage in pagan fertility rites.  I guarantee I am not engaging in any sexually oriented worship to pagan gods.

Really, the only reason I didn't have actual intercourse is because I didn't want that close an emotional attachment with someone I thought I was probably going to break up with.

I think God guided my choice not to spend the anniversary of my son's death with her.  I know I prayed a lot about it and I know I made the right choice.

In the end, pain is a great teacher and to be a great student I think we need to be as open to being hurt as we can be.

Dealing with shit and love

So I started dating this one woman and I have been talking to a long time friend at the same time, dealing with Christmas and the anniversary of my son's death (12-29) and realizing that there is so much shit in my life that I have packed down and never dealt with I really don't know how to handle it all.

I recently read this book called "The Lover" by Marguerite Duras.  This woman has an incredibly raw style of writing that leads the reader through all of their own emotions.  Great book.  Between this woman I am dating and this book by Duras I have been dredging up all the shit in my life and really addressing it emotionally rather than packing it away.

This woman wanted to spend the anniversary of my son's death with me.  This time of year is usually really difficult for me, and this year because I am forcing my self to deal with the raw emotions it is particularly difficult.  I know next year will be the first December I have enjoyed since 1999.

Last night it occurred to me that next year this woman I am dating might not be with me.  That would be bad because I am falling in love with her and if I spend the 29th with her this year and she is not there next year the emotional crash would be terrible.  Sounds really pussy huh?

Emotional shit can be difficult to deal with so, in the past, I really have not dealt with it.  To go forward I really need to go back and clean up that shit and I have to do it by myself.  Truthfully, depending on her this 12-29 would be the pussy move.

I think I hurt her when I told her, but, we will deal with that or not.  I hope we stay together, but, I have recovered from lost love before and I will probably have to again.

I think the next couple of months are going to be really big to me.  Dredging up shit recycling it into something useful rather than packing it down to build my life on a foundation of ignored, hard pack emotional shit.

Will she have the patience?  The strength?

I know my old friend does.  She rocks and she will talk to me when I need it.  I think I am going to spend a lot of time writing about this stuff, and some time talking.  We will see.

In the end though, I guess what I am saying is that we all shit and we all have to deal with that shit one way or another.  Emotional healing is the worst, the messiest and dealing with it has the most benefit.

So here I am, getting better every day, hoping that as I change, this time, I can keep some of the people I love in my life.

Life intervenes

The other day I met a woman I really liked and I asked her out.  I have been out a couple of times since my wife passed away.  Once with a long time friend and once with a woman I met on the Internet.  This one I asked out, out of the blue.

That first date (with my old friend) was great, but, that is where it stayed.  She is an amazing woman, single mother who put herself through school to earn a Masters in Accounting.  Now she is helping to raise her first grandchild.  I like amazing women, women who are strong and smart.  I have loved this one a long time and I'll keep loving her.  I just don't see a future for the two of us.

The second date sucked.  She was about as responsive as a brick.  When I was younger and I dated a lot I used to make women laugh.  I tried to draw her out, but, since my wife passed laughing and making people laugh is not a big part of my repertoire.

I blame me, but, it was both of us really.  If I had been my old self I could have made her laugh and she would have enjoyed herself, but, it would have been one of those meaningless affairs.  An affair without a moment.  She'd be an "oh yeah, I vaguely remember her....." and had I not met her during such a pivotal moment in my life I would have forgotten her already.

Life is really comprised of these tiny individual moments that we remember forever.  Sometimes we know when they happen, sometimes we don't.  They are moments with people we love and people we know and strangers we have never met.  They are pictures our minds take and file away without our even knowing them.

This last date, the woman and I met for coffee and we hung out for three and a half hours.  I wouldn't have guessed it was that long.  She is another amazing woman, smart, capable, strong.  The kind of woman I consider myself very fortunate to have even met, much less gone out with.

I don't put people up on pedestals, but, I recognize that some are amazing in some ways.  Some people exist on charisma and others think they are amazing, not for their accomplishments, but, for their charisma.  Actors and politicians and talking head journalists who probably don't wear pants and have bunny slippers on as they blather on about subjects they don't really know anything about.  (are examples of people known for charisma rather than accomplishment, as if attracting people makes someone capable)

Then these different, opinionated, people encourage conflict between people of different opinions.  Its dumb.  I think some people have done some amazing things, Matt Damon for example in partnering to write and produce "Good Will Hunting".  Just because Matt Damon does something amazing, should I let him tell me what to think?  Should I put him up on a pedestal and adopt his opinions on something other than entertainment as even useful?

My answer is maybe, people who have done something others have failed at are usually worth listening to.  Not because of charisma, but, because they have accomplished something.  Has Obama accomplished anything?  Not that I know of, except to get a lot of people to believe in him.  I see that motto, "change you can believe in" and it makes me want to laugh.  All belief, all charisma.

So no pedestals, just people who have actually done stuff, factory workers and doctors, nurses, engineers, accountants, laborers, skilled trades, professionals, the millions of people who actually do amazing things within the billions on Earth, and then people who talk a good game.  Maybe the talkers are trying, maybe not.  Trying doesn't cut it, talking doesn't cut it, amazing people do stuff.

So here I am, in this coffee shop, listening to this woman tell me about herself and I can feel my mind take one of those snapshots, those memories that last forever.  This is a woman I can listen to, a woman I can disagree with about somethings, agree with about others, this is a woman who has done some really amazing things and I find myself in awe of her.  My late wife was pretty amazing (almost anyone who knew her could tell you that), even my first wife was amazing, in a psychotic kind of way.  The older I get the more I want to spend time with amazing people.

I think we will date (my step daughter has ideas about that, she is insecure about losing her last parent) and I hope at least we stay friends a long time.  But, what we want isn't what life is about.

Life is about these tiny moments that come and go and we remember forever whether we want to or not.  Life intervenes in these moments, these snap shots in time, that make up our lives.  These moments come and go, they become a part of how we think, our decision making process.  The slow motion of a car rear window starring when a bullet hit it and the screams of a girl and her friend when they realize she was shot.  The sight of my oldest picking up a wine cooler and trying to drink it when he was about a year old (note to new fathers, don't put bottles on tables toddlers can reach), a guy smoking a cigarette waiting for formation in the Army, a teacher in elementary school, the girl at the desk next to me in third grade, my late wife walking down a hallway at church, my son sitting on a curb.  All these moments that we can smell, taste, feel, that make up our real lives.  Our forever lives.

So here this woman that I don't really know, this amazing woman who has done so much just being a normal person, is part of my forever life.  She is now one of those moments that, no matter how life intervenes, is going to live with me forever.

Teachers and Messengers

One of the great dangers of religion is ambition, and by people who seek to place themselves in authority and judgment. Only in confused understanding can the false follower of God seek authority.

Teaching implies we can determine if a student has understood the material. A messenger makes no such judgment and that is an important distinction.

Matt 5:19 tells us:

"...whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire"

And what does the word translated into "fool" mean? The Greek word translated into "fool" in the Bible translates into "baby" today. Why? The Greek word μωρός is derived from a word meaning "not understood" and really means "one without understanding". In reality the passage could say, "...whosoever shall say, 'you do not understand', shall be in danger of hell fire"

Teaching implies the ability to determine if a student has learned anything. Teaching implies the ability to judge, which is something Christ has told us not to do. Christ tells us that those who say that others don't understand are in danger of hell.

There is an important distinction here, which Christ made, witness and judgment. Christ often witnessed the lack of understanding of the religious leadership, noting that they taught the ways of people as the law of God. Christ also judged, but, it was not Christ who judged but God who judged. Christ witnessed the judgment God had passed. In this way Christ taught us not to judge, but, to witness what the Holy Ghost has given us.

The distinction is the difference between a messenger, who repeats a message given or witnesses, and the authority who speaks their own understanding and judges those who understand..

The difference in a messenger or witness is that the messenger should be ignored in deference to the message and the authority who sent the message. We do not give deference to a telephone or the paper a message is written on.

Deference is given to teachers.

Matt 28 tells us: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:"

But the word translated into "teach" here actually means "make disciples" so this passage could be translated "Go ye therefore, and make disciples in all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:"