mommy

let's start with a platitude.  everyone has a mother.  every creature...  mother's are more common than right arms.  still, not all mothers are present.


this is an ode to my mother.  my mother who was absent.  (she was present for perhaps  1/11th of my life up to the point when she passed.)  my mother missed my early years completely.  incarceration is a bitch for the littlest ones. 


not all mothers enter into it purposely. 


the is an ode to my mother, who at 14 likely landed pregnant by happenstance.  she had no life path carved out and probably did not plan much.  2nd generation americans in los angeles of irish, english, and german ancestry, who became pregnant at 14 tended to let life happen to them and so their socio-economic lot was cast and struggling with masses of humanity was more than statistically probable.  their children were also born into an outlook fat with struggle but so beautiful.  so, so beautiful.


i don't know if everyone else in the world sees the beauty i see.  it is true that adversity builds character and great art often springs forth from it like a delicate, radiant flower climbs out of a crack in the pavement.  (the list of prime examples is unending.)  my perspective is born of struggle and sadness. 


i grew up with four mother figures by the time i was five.  they were wonderfully tender women who gave me love and security.  this ode however, is for my biological mother; tresenia james. 


i don't  know if my mother embraced smack in jail not long after i was born, perhaps sometime after her father had her incarcerated for being incorrigible.  I don't know if at 15 or 16 when she went to jail it was not the most natural thing for a child with an underdeveloped brain to seek the solace of narcotic.  i imagine her at that age partly from how i remember her on heroin at a later age, falling, just floating-falling into a place of comfort, a place where fathers nurture and love, instead of giving up and worse. 


by the time of my earliest memories she was hard.  she had a tattoo on the top of her arm that read, "shorty."  that is who she was to me at first.  every time i saw her, in places like the visiting area at terminal island women's penitentiary off the coast of long beach, everyone called her shorty.  i can remember her even later on the outside, with my aunt, her sister, who was four years her younger, how she was always comfortable everywhere.  outside the liquor store with people lurking in the shadows I recall my aunt expressing apprehension but my mom was in charge of the situation and ventured forth confidently with her jaw set.  my aunt, who by contrast was weightless and playful, was comforted by my mom.  so was i.  my mom was kind of serious.


i guess at some point she saw the limitations of her own life.  i am sure she felt guilty about what she provided for me and what she provided for herself.  i doubt she blamed her father or her family or the world or our species.  i think she may not have reflected at such a level.  self actualization requires some insight and erudition to achieve.


her day to day was probably consumed by the typical thoughts of a teenager.  at times she probably suffered from believing she had somehow caused her circumstances and was worthless for reasons related to how her father treated her, how impotent her mother was relative to my grandpa, and how poorly she understood her environs.  i am sure under the influence of the dope she went places as serene and fantastic as any real destination.  i am sure she felt as soft and pliable and one with the universe as any yogi or ascetic ever.  i know in that haze she forgot.  she forgot her father.  she forgot her child.  she forgot los angeles.  she forgot the love of her mother.  she forgot concepts and values.  she forgot herself and lost in that maze of altered states she walked through moments a totally different person, an entity unfettered by any sense of responsibility or being, perhaps not devoid of love however.


i don't love my mother on what would have been her 63rd birthday because she could not take care of me.  i don't love her because she lived in prisons far and wide.  i don't love her because she gave birth to me, from any sense of obligation or cosmic, genetic connection.  i don't love her because when i showed up at the prison in lexington, kentucky or glendale, arizona or pleasanton, california, i was a rock star.  every incarcerated chola who came across shorty in the joint must have heard of this cherubic child of white and filipino descent, (of a known of. but never encountered father,) because when i walked in those visiting rooms the fucking red, velvet carpet met my feet as prison-made presents showered me with the welcome of my people, my mothers, the girls who were exactly like my mother if of a browner color.  they came to me with smiles and kisses, praising me for being even more profoundly beautiful than the pictures they had seen.  their gifts were knitted or folded or drawn.  they always returned to their visitors as if grudgingly for having to leave the prince to his royal agenda.  i did not love my mother for giving me three colorful years of her life in the apartments of los angeles, bell gardens, hollywood, downtown los angeles.  i did not love her for asking me to steal items from a grocery store or bringing an abusive man into our home, (or rather me, into their home.)  i did not love her for cockroaches or hitchhiking or methadone or a half husky half timber wolf named lobo.  i did not love her for sunset boulevard or a '67 impala.  i did not love her for marijuana at way too young an age but i did and do love her.


i love my mother because she loved me in a way that is now too incomprehensible to know fully.  she loved me in the way she looked at me and the way she spoke to me.  she loved me completely and substantively.  when she comforted me i could sleep.  when she smiled at me i saw nothing else.  i was only capable of giving her love back but my love was that of a child.  i was not disagreeable but still, i had a certain sense of entitlement. she was my entitlement.  silently i demanded some things from her, not all of which she could provide but i saw her strive for those things. 


it may seem unlikely but my mother taught me love.  she gave me all she could, all she had, all she was. 


when she died on a bathroom floor in an apartment in azusa with the mojo pin still stuck in her right arm, i was on the other side of the planet.  a long flight and a day later i met her in a hospital room in glendora. she was on life support and she was not there.  there was no life or love in her.  of her own accord she was motionless.  the rise and fall of her chest belied the stillness of her soft, sunken face.  she could not smile at me in that moment and i had been trained to deal with this.


i did not know what to expect as i flew over the pacific ocean by night sensing the vast expanse below me and within me.  i knew she was on life support but i thought my voice might rouse her and everything would be okay and i would stay by her side forever and help her to overcome this evil comfort she sought so incessantly for 20 years. 


i walked from that room back into the world i knew and accepted the outcome.  when i was asked to go back into the room the next day after the decision had been made i levitated to her bedside and touched her hand.  those who were in the room watched me closely.  i forced two or three salty tears from my eyes and indicated i was ready to go.  back in the waiting room i participated in hugs and tender reminisces of six or eight people, of whom only half of us knew her at all.  then i went with my friends to a mexican restaurant and got drunk on margaritas. 


throughout my childhood i was more or less incapable of crying.  i didn't know why.  i only knew i seemed to accept the facts of the world, not bemoan them.  i was less than for it, too.  later in life when i learned to cry, or came to cry, i came to understand how good it really was.  the love i felt doubled in on itself then multiplied again and again.  i began to feel the weight of the world.  i sensed the nature of sorrow and came to adore it like a lover, to nurture it like an extension of myself and to feel it effortlessly and from instinct. 


if i am in any way special it is because of my perspective.  i love and crave justice like oxygen.  i am of the people because i come from disadvantage and it has always been my life's goal to be a champion for my people.  in many ways i have not lived up to that, perhaps because i am emotionally challenged.  perhaps because i am lazy and indecisive.  still in other ways i do what little i can.  in my work i try to help people assimilate into our crazy, hyper-capitalism.  our utilitarian jobs do not edify people.  they are not about stakeholders-but i try hard to help people understand the forces that play on their lives and find ways to cope and thrive. 


i have worked hard to educate myself in order to be responsible as an adult, responsible to my class, responsible in some way to those who are like me and so much worse off.  i had it good in many ways.  i had an aunt and uncle step in and raise from 11-years-old on.  i would not be a functioning father to my two wonderful children if not for that good fortune.  i am so thankful for all of my mother figures: aunt nancy, lupe, nana, elsie, carmelita, theresa elder, and more.  but my mother, tresenia james, set the bar.  she showed me and gave me love and in spite of her absence and her addiction, it was in those moments when we were together that i learned what everyone should have and know.  i love this metaphor about the wounded oyster.  (it is, after all, the wounded oyster which heals itself with pearl.)  her love as i remember it and feel it deep inside myself is my pearl.  i feel beautiful and i feel a beauty inside me that emanates from her love, so long ago.


you know a mother's love and how profound it is.  you have or had one-and you know.  it is more than circumstances.  it is more than your struggle. 


my mother's love informed my life.  it is the template for what i want in the world, for what i want for everyone.  it was pure and perfect. 


my love for her still, is the best of me.  i am become empathy.  i love.

jeff

There is a guy I kind of love who is, unbeknownst to himself in all likelihood, a racist.  I love him from nostalgia and from knowing his goodness.  Deep in his heart I know he loves. 

Outwardly he hates.  He used to be engaged to be married to my sister and they spent a decade together, a decade in which he was a part of my family and a good father figure to my nephew and niece.  In approaching the subject that is my former brother-(not-quite-)in-law it is important for me to start there, with the fact that I love him.

I do not love the persona he has embraced in the years since he went his own way.  Our relationship is now defined by our connection on facebook. 

On facebook JEFF POSTS ONLY IN ALL CAPS.

That in itself is sociopathic behavior, which many other facebook friends and acquaintances, (along with myself,) have tried to dissuade Jeff from.  He refuses to change his all caps posting. 

When Jeff and I used to commiserate and commune at family gatherings he was not particularly political.  He seemed to harbor some anger in those days that was not directed at any person or group in particular but revolved around his own hard luck navigating his life and making ends meet.  Occasionally he would engage me on a subject that bothered him and when we disagreed he tended to defer to me perhaps because I put together a more cohesive argument. 

Since Jeff and my sister split Jeff fell on some hard times and eventually left California to join his family transplanted from Ohio in Florida.  He ended up going to trucker school and now he traverses the country in a big rig.  He has become exceedingly political in the last few years and I surmise he is listening to Glen Beck as he drives back and forth across the United States. 

He hates President Obama.  He believes Obama is not a Christian, is not American, and is intent on bringing the USA to its knees in every way.  He disdains anyone and everything that is liberal if strictly on the basis of that thing, person or idea being liberal, left, educated, reasoned or on the side of the masses. 

For me it is easy to dismiss Jeff's, (Beck's,) ideas for any number of reasons.  I know that his views require a suspension of intelligent reason in large part based on mountains of evidence.  (Just today I read yet another article which represents the kind of evidential reason I speak of.  Paul Krugman wrote an article in the New York Times about the economic turnaround in California.  Krugman cites facts, which do not require any faith to be placed in his status as a Nobel Prize winning economist, to understand.  In the big picture what Krugman writes about California is representative of so many facts on record about our country and the world at large.)

Still, Jeff firmly believes that if he can argue a point then that argument has as much merit as any other point of view.  He is immoveable in his beliefs about immigrants ruining this country, the social safety net destroying the American dream and so on.  Jeff is angry.  I assume his personal struggle to survive has created a certain desperation in his psyche which combined with his relative lack of background in critical thinking has left him to own a terribly misguided anger.  Jeff hates.  It starts with Obama and quickly spreads to Hillary, Pelosi, Krugman and anyone else Glen Beck suggests he should hate.

On facebook I participate in a group that often discusses political ideas and news of the day.  Generally the group is liberal or at least dominated by reasonably liberal posters.  Jeff is one of the few dissenters typically and he is wild in his dissent.  He has in ways moved the group from discussing nuances about policies, events and ideas to joining in to show Jeff the folly of his ideas.  At times we have discussed the intricacies of ideas as complex as term limits in meaningful ways.  Some reason that in our corrupt system of favors for favors and big money term limits are an absolute necessity.  Other have suggested that experienced, tenured legislators have value in knowing how to navigate the process to the benefit of society.  I consider this a valuable discussion.  I don't if Jeff even has an opinion about this particular issue.  Rather our group has devolved to some degree as Jeff will often make arguments so lacking in reason others of any stripe are compelled to reason with Jeff about his how arguments err.  Never has this tack born fruit.  Jeff is immoveable. 

Recently Jeff's arguments have become more obvious and hateful.  A friend of mine called me a month ago or so because she wanted me to know immediately that someone had posted on my facebook "wall," such hate-filled rhetoric it made her cry and she could not even finish reading it.  This friend happens to be a young idealist.  She is as filled with love and well meaning as anyone I know.  She was literally appalled and wanted me to know quickly so I could delete Jeff's posts because she thought they might in some way reflect on me and she would never want me to be seen by anyone as in any like Jeff.  I had already read Jeff's posts and I was not moved to delete them, (which is not to say I did not find them disgusting.  What Jeff wrote was thoroughly disgusting.) 

I remember a story I once read about a yogi who described the monks in the monastery he lived in as like so many pebbles in a sack.  He said by living with one another and communing daily, like pebbles they rubbed against one another and the effect was that of polishing the individuals.  I like this metaphor.  It is why I like discussion groups on facebook or elsewhere.  I think it is important for humans to discuss and disagree and reason and gain ground on some agreements perhaps more so in this modern computer age of disconnection.  I am attracted to free and open exchanges of ideas. 


Another good and close friend contacted me a few days after my young idealist friend reached me to say that he had had enough of Jeff's unintelligible, racist rants and that he was going to have to leave the group.  I understood even if I did not want him to leave.  I would prefer my friend had thicker skin. I would he stayed and countered Jeff or ignored him, both responses having the same effect of denouncing Jeff's arguments for what they are, mere tripe.  My friend hoped to persuade me to remove Jeff from the group.  I understood his entreaty but I could not bring myself to move on it, (though it was a real consideration.)

Right around the same time another friend of mine engaged Jeff in an argument that quickly devolved into one of name calling.  My friend is a writer and he fairly eviscerated Jeff with some of the most lewd and disgusting images I have ever read.  In turn Jeff followed suit and basically played the same themes back to my friend but of course, in choosing the same course Jeff revealed his lack of imagination and showed himself the inferior put down artist.  Later my friend returned to the argument and deleted all of his posts. 

Jeff is still my friend on facebook and in truth, I still love him.  I hate his ideas.  I think they represent a serious lack of scholarship and worse, a weak-minded succumbing to the tools of propaganda.  After all Jeff is not a man of means.  He barely scrapes by in his life and yet he espouses ideas and values of the wealthy class. 

Personally I have grown tired of engaging with Jeff.  In the last month I may have commented on something he said once or twice.  Yes, when all that ranting and raving was going on I did jump in near the end and chided Jeff a little, reminding him of the Jeff I once knew who helped raise my nephew and niece and who was not the man of hate he now portrays himself to me.  I don't know if those words had any affect on Jeff whatsoever but he did not respond to them.  For me arguing with Jeff has kind of run its course.  Still, I have chosen not to disassociate myself from Jeff. 

I don't see Jeff changing.  I don't see anything I say changing him in any meaningful way but I do think it is preferable to disagree with Jeff or argue with him on occasion to simply removing him from the discourse.  For me it is important to still love Jeff though I expect the same from no one else. 

the evolution of grief

i guess there is something to this idea that grief comes in stages.  mine is ever-changing.  it is amazing how beautiful a thing it can be, how tender and human and fragile, and how defining.

the night i left my eventual wife's apartment having confirmed her pregnancy and learned of her unwillingness to carry the child to term, i looked into my own eyes on the drive home in my rear view mirror and i saw tiny cracks, micro-crevices, really.  it occurred to me perhaps i had arrived at the threshold of middle aged.  perhaps this is where things turned downhill, when vulnerability set in. 

i was in my little, black, two-seat sports car, with the top off on a winter evening.  the cold did not warrant having the top off but i hadn't realized that when i set out.  i stopped at a traffic light in the left hand turn lane, and a truck pulled up behind me with bright lights set high enough above my trunk that i suddenly had a rectangular spotlight shining on my forehead. 

i looked at my eyes, around my eyes at the lines, mostly at the one line between my eyebrows, that curved like a miniature bolt of lightning upwards.  i had formerly liked this line.  i thought it gave me character, perhaps it imbued me with an air of thoughtfulness i fancied.  now instead of quickly disappearing it was leaving behind a slight crease.

i thought of all she had said to me.  she said she had enjoyed being out and alone recently and that she really liked her apartment.  this was to tell me she was comfortable and intended to go spend a season away from me. 

to that point i had pushed her away plenty in the past, then upon sensing her gaining her footing and making her way without me i would pull her back to me as forcefully as possible.  i employed every bit of guile and charm i could muster.  i preened and paraded like a peacock.  i wrote her poetry exaggerating her every aspect.  i made love like we were on fire.  i sought to impress her at every turn.  i meant to convey generosity and goodness and high ideals always. 

you see i needed that over the top sensation from her and from all the other girls, too.  i am not saying it was okay.  it was tragic.  i say it matter of factly.  i am a product of my conditions and i equated drama and ardor from multiple relationships to real love.  i think what happened, and it is hard to know being so close to all of it, is i had a need to be needed which resulted from my being moved around as a child from family to family and not knowing my mother's love, (or my father.)  i was an agreeable child because i was always on the make, that is, trying to endear myself and make myself super attractive in every way to any and everyone for whatever reason or purpose.  i had very few limitations in this regard.

the result was that as a single adult i spent a great deal of time in pursuit of, or rather, gathering, as many admirers as possible.  also, as i progressed through my 20s and into my 30s the pretty girls just got younger and younger.  i rationalized my behavior by telling myself my love relationship would be the most important relationship of my life and therefore getting it right was paramount to my success.  when my behavior became duplicitous i flirted with boundaries.  i played games with words and planted verbal traps. 

i only know i did these things now.  at the time i believed it all.  in retrospect i was pathetic but at the time i was serious.  even the word games.  i would plead for more time or certain understanding, empathy even, believing i was worthy of those things as this could be just the most important relationship ever.  i was convincing, too.  at certain times i may have had some level of involvement with even three girls, one at the end of the cycle where the break-up was taking hold but there was some leeway and i could talk my way back into that relationship if i was so inclined, (which i might be at least often enough to keep that person holding on some,) one in the middle of the cycle, the official girlfriend who i was then in love with and whom i spent a majority of my free time with and who was my regular lover, and one on the front end of the cycle who i might just be flirting with or perhaps exchanging emails.  this was not a formula i employed like some sort of sick don juan but rather it was a cycle i can only now identify. 

now in the late stages of this cycle after a great deal of proverbial water had gone under the bridge, i found my eventual wife wavering in her ardor and devotion for me.  she carried our child, which she would later suggest i had planted purposely when we were both blind drunk, but said she would end it and that she didn't know about us right then but she was going to think about that and try to create some distance from me in order to think clearly. 

i drove home that chilly night slightly devastated.  i had also noticed recently that girls were not looking at me as they once had.  those darling buds of 20-25 were looking at me like i was a contemporary of their fathers, and at 38, i was. actually, i was not devastated, i was stoic.  i remember getting home around 11pm and resolving not to be emotional but rather to know that i still possessed charms and to assume she was not the ideal person for me so i should go to sleep so i could be fresh for work the next day so i could impress and thereby take care of the one constant in my life, my steady job in customer service where somehow i had found enough favor to maintain the position and steadily advance in spite of my unconventional appearance and my occasuional lapses of propriety.

right after my alarm woke me my phone also rang and it was her saying she had a change of heart and that she was ready to go for it with me.  i was perturbed because of my own resolve of the night before and at the same time i showered and drove into work that day in an odd state of euphoria feeling like my life was changing and this was momentous, (which of course, it was.) 

now she is gone.  i mean, she is down the street and we have children so we're in touch but the marriage is over.  the paperwork remains but everyting is else has cleared up. 

i remember now shortly after we were married she would remark on her own wisdom relative to some of her friends for having chosen an older man, (11 years, one month and 22 days,) a man who was ready to settle down.  at the time i took it as an affront.  i thought i was such a great choice that someone in her position could only reasonably assume that older was in and of itself the wisest choice.  i thought she had done so well for herself in me.  i was virtuous, youthful-relatively speaking, intelligent and interesting.  of course all of those assessments were reviewed through my most narcissistic of lenses.  for her part she was making a case for the union because she felt one needed to be made.  i was not the only one in the relationship who practiced self love and she too, poured it on thick.  she considered herself to be exceptionally cute, and she was.  still, her opinion was inflated.  her remark was meant to explain how a fairy of this extreme magnitude of cute could possibly be with someone like me, a slightly older man of average pulchritude, and for her physical beauty was and is king.  whatever is second is so distant in it's relation to this characteristic as to be laughable. 

when we first began discussing separation she proclaimed her virtue by saying she wanted me to be happy.  in fact she thought it would be great if i met a girl closer to my own age to be involved with.  i don't think she said it with malice but it felt malicious.  again she was attacking my physical appearance.  apparently i was very old for her.  in those early days i thought she was simply mistaken as i like hot girls who tend to be younger.  now i don't know.  mature girls seem perfectly attractive.

when my wife said she thought i had practically tricked her into being together i took exception.  i thought that was ludicrous.  now, i am not so sure.  i did see the lines on my face.  i remember that.  i was getting older, indeed my argument to her that night in her apartment had been to state plainly i was getting older and for me it was easy, i was ready to settle down.  no perfect match was ever going to show up.  rather i realized the key was to be committed to working it out and i thought she and i had a substantial foundation on which to build.  she seemed to accept this argument as her own in some regard the next morning. 

i don't know if the accepted stages of grief are in fact my stages of grief.  instead i feel like i am in the bad stage of grief, which actually feels like it is down the line a ways and not really that bad of a stage.  i see so many bad traits in her now.  i don't think she has much in the way of a motherly instinct.  she has enough and she certainly loves her children but she also fancies herself the party, fun girl.  she takes pride in being that and generally needs a lot of reinforcement when she is drinking from those around her to reinforce her indulgent behavior.  sometimes when i look at her face i think she has a porcine quality.  i see the bad in myself too.

one of her reasons for leaving was that she did not think i was doing enough as it related to the daily responsibilities involved in raising children, that is to say; household chores and childcare responsibilities.  while i admitted she did more i attributed what i perceived to be a slight difference to children being somewhat more drawn to their mother than their father, most likely due to temperament.  she said that since she was doing it all anyways she had come to realize that she could do it so she might as well.  ironically, i had once thought i needed to let her feel stranded or alone on a decision from time to time as she seemed so dependent and unwilling to handle basic responsibilities that i knew she was perfectly capable of but she lacked the confidence to do so.  this revelation too, cut me.  it seemed to suggest she had already endured the relationship for a season from some need to have me around to handle life's difficult stuff.  this kind of enraged me at first, (in an earlier stage of grief, perhaps.) 

i see now all of my behaviors which sabotaged this relationship.  i tried to get us to talk and to work on our difficulties but she would not.  i tried to have state of the union discussions but she balked or complained after an hour or so that it was going on for so long.  i tried to proactively suggest we take steps to recreate intimacy betwixt us at which point the reason for our distance would morph from her being angry at me for behaviors from long before we were married to her feeling like her body had changed since she had children and she just did not have any sex drive.  still, in spite of those occasional forays, i did not do enough.  i could have tried harder.  i could have met her where she was but i was too proud.  at the very least i had to have middle and in looking back, i don't think she was ever capable of the middle. 

my grief changed again recently.  it is heavier and feels like a permanent defeat that will consume a fraction of my personality forevermore.  it also feels like it is passing, like a piece of myself that had gone down so low as to be imperceptible to myself is somehow emerging again, floating past the defeat and surfacing anew.  i am still a little angry and sad but i am also found.

Divorce - Final

Today my divorce from Faith is final and I have to do the post mortem.  I felt all the pain all over again in this moment.  It was as if gravity doubled in an instant.  I felt droopy and weighted down.  I wanted to curl up in a fetal position and sleep like a child. 

It was the rejection that hurt the most.  (How superficial is that?)  That is me however.  Faith wanted out.  I wanted out too, but I was unwilling to detonate the bomb.  I relied on the children for cover on this one.  I believed I wanted for them what I had not had and there is certainly some truth to that.  I wanted them to have a functional family.  Mostly what hurt two years ago when we first separated was the idea that someone did not want me.  The rejection was killer for me. 

I grew up with my mother in sundry prisons around the United States.  I visited her now and then but mostly she was absent.  I had just enough of her love to know what I was missing and that hurt like hell.  It made me mad.  I was even angry when as a teenager my Aunt and Uncle took me into their home like their own child and raised me alongside my cousin and I saw up close the love between my Aunt and her real Daughter. I was jealous and felt some rage deep inside. 

I never met or knew my Father, either.  My Uncle was pretty great but I did not have my real Father and it felt like rejection that he was not involved and never came forward, even after we had a 10-minute phone conversation when I was 23, (the only time I ever spoke to him or that he was confronted with me so far as I know.) 

So when Faith said "I think I want out," I retreated to the child's mind I once had.  It did not matter that I had at times longed to be out of this relationship even going so far as to imagine that I could never be the bad guy to tear it apart, opting instead to allow the toxicity of it all to stew so that perhaps she would take on that role.  Of course, there were those moments and then there were the other moments when I fancied we should be together forever and that the difficulties we had in marriage represented a certain threshold for improvement, a vast amount of potential in which we could make a working relationship so much better.  I kidded myself.  There was little working about the relationship. 

When the news came that my divorce was final I felt the rejection all over again.  It was renewed proof that Faith did not want me.  It hurt all over again, perhaps for the wrong reasons.  I had been imagining the arrival of this news and how I might feel celebratory, and I think I do feel some of that, too, but the initial response was all about the rejection.
 
The marriage was textbook bad but I loved that girl.  I spent so much of the last 15-16 years of my life involved with her.  We have remarkable children.  I owe Faith something.  I owe it to her to balance my values when I speak of her.  I need to tell my story and I think it is important to expose not cover up.  I also respect my now ex-wife and am certain the divorce is our shared responsibility.
 
I have regrets.  Its a laundry list, really.  I regret the earliest boundaries I set up in that relationship.  I laid claim to certain territories that were unassailable in our relationship and those places became wounds that festered and diseased. More than anything I regret my response to her harsh nature. 

The early years for us were a whirlwind of partying and sex.  We were in love for two or three years and somewhere late in that time I had affairs with others and we became on again off again and Faith was injured deeply.  I was naively duplicitous at that time.  I believed my own lies.  I thought I was searching for some kind of perfect love, my perfect match.  I thought this was the biggest concern in my life and I was a fool.  It is ironic when we finally decided to be together and to have a child that my argument in favor had evolved to one of suggesting successful relationships were that way because people worked at them.  I decided to commit to this relationship and in truth I did in some ways.  I stopped seeking out other lovers.  That was no small thing for me in those days.  That my behavior changed helped convince me of the authenticity of our love. 

When I committed to her however, she turned off.  I had thought at times the intensity of her love was not so much a con but still a sort of case in favor of.  Prior to her pregnancy with Terra and our moving in together finally, Faith was as passionate a lover as I could imagine.  When we settled in and nested a dark rain cloud moved in front of the sun of our affections for good.  It was pregnancy.  It was her body post pregnancy.  It was another pregnancy.  It was her body post another pregnancy.  It was the IUD.  It was chemical changes.  Until finally it was over. 

And my biggest regret is my response to that winter that overcame our love.  As an insecure, emotional child, I matched the affections she withheld from me by returning in kind.  If I was committed to working on that relationship to make it work, to help it work, I would have behaved differently.  I would have loved when I felt unloved.  I would have talked about it but not like a petulant child who has had his favorite toy taken away but as a lover and partner in life who wants to add to the other person's life.  I should have wanted her to be happier.  If I had behaved differently perhaps the arctic frost of our dismay could have melted.  I was selfish instead.  It was about me and my ego.  I was hurt and if she was going to behave that way, remove the love from our lives, then in my eternal quest for balance, (my highest value,) I was obligated to refrain from affection as well. 

Every once in a great while I used to try to sit down with Faith and talk about us.  I suggested a few times we should have a "state of the union," conversation every New Year's Day to talk about where we were, how we felt, what we wanted, and how we could improve.  Yes, yearly was just about how often I wanted to work on this thing.  The other 364 days I just wanted to be injured and passive aggressive perhaps so that I could have my old life back.

I am a toad, you know.  In some ways.  At the same time I can forgive myself, too.  I had no examples of really good, functioning relationships growing up.  I am conditioned and while I do strive to be a better me, I am imperfect, (like a toad, I suppose.)

Now it is time to move forward.  Faith and I have children to raise.  We will be connected through them for many years to come and it is to us to set examples.  When the relationship was falling apart outwardly and we sought therapy briefly, how to go through a divorce in the best possible way for the children became the essence of our therapy.  We spent no time talking about how the relationship might improve.  Have we followed through on any of that planning?  It is hard to know.  I know we try. 

I hope Faith finds love again.  I want her to have it good.  I think she is a better mother when she is happy and while I worry about who might end up being around my kids, if someone came along and made her happy I know Terra and Mark would benefit greatly. 

I don't know if I want to find love again.  I know I love and I know I am best when I love.  I certainly like the idea of giving to someone selflessly as one does when they are in love.  Presently I am comfortable with just working on getting better at what I have going on in my life.  I want to be better as a Father, as an employee and as a Manager, as a friend, and as a person.