live authentically

about a person who does not love me and is honest enough not to lead me on.

What could have been… what almost was … was beautiful.

Last session: 10/16/2009
Next session: 11/13/2009 when I return from two visits to DC and the SF trip.

I told my counselor that I had filed for divorce. “Congratulations” is what she said. I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress. I told about the things I wrote about elsewhere here on 43T, so I won’t go over it twice.

“This means you were ready to end it, even without any cushion to land on.” Me: “yep.”

And so I begin the authentic life. “Hi, I’m Bill, and my divorce is not yet final, but it’s in the courts, so I’m not single, and not exactly married.”

(Photo at “Ben’s Chili Bowl”)

and I can honestly say, I have no regrets.

I’ll be “filed for divorce.”

I think it goes this way:
we don’t have a marriage,
so we shouldn’t be married.

He will call me tonight to let me know the next steps.

It is a milestone.

the funeral was this week. Paul was a widower for five years with three young children when he met my mother’s single friend Evelyn. They fell in love and married. It was 1964, my sister Nancy reminded me. In the spring. The spring before I moved to California to live with my dad and step mother for the next five years. But this is about Paul, not me.

They married. It was the first wedding I ever attended. I was twelve, that spring of 1964.

I remember their wedding through foggy spectacles. There was a photo on the lawn. They were a happy couple. He was older. Chubby Checker had a new song, “the Twist” which was played at the reception, and I learned my first dance.

He had three children. Donna, Joyce and Mark. I remember a beach house on the Jersey shore where we visited. The stories include: he only had a garage, but after one particularly bad storm, he lassoed a house in the bay that had been blown away and he had it moved to his lot. Then, he had a house.

Paul had a garage, and he saved things. He had a box of “axe handles,” and a box of “broken axe handles.” He had a box of “string” and a box of “string too short to save.”

His children never accepted Evelyn. He was happily married for 45+ years. I feel sorry for his children, as I know ‘Ev’ was a good woman. Good in her core, and good to her husband and good to the children.

Paul was 92 when he died this autumn. Eve is probably 70-75 now. I know she was lucky to have those years with Paul

R.I.P. Paul Hladchuk, and bless you, Evelyn for saving his life … the second half of his life. Perhaps I’ll be as lucky as you.

The “Society of Friends” is familiar to me, in that I attended a “Friends School” as a child from kindergarten to sixth grade.

“Quakers” are know for being pacifists.

A new convert might say, “I’m not ready to put down my sword.”

A congregant might say, “That is okay. Keep your sword as long as you think you need to.”

Literally: I’ve put two of my rifles up for sale, and one has sold.

Figuratively: I’ve stopped writing about mrsbill … AND … I’ve deleted photos from my hard disk that I would not be happy to show my mother. May she rest in peace.

I arrived in DC yesterday, and for the first time in a very long time, I came here not to “get away from someone.”

I have my own apartment in IL now, and can live there in peace and quiet, the kind I used to find by getting away from the motherofmychildren.

Now, I’m in DC for my own reasons.

I’m happier about that.

last session two weeks ago on 9/11/2009;
next session 10/16/2009

I explained about telling everyone that I’m moving to the apartment, about moving, filling it with things from CraigsList, the two housewarming gift boxes, about spending more time with the boys in events in their school, etc.

I also explained how it is that this separation and pending divorce is all about mrsbill and me, not some expectation of a specific happy future, just a general concept that the future will be happier for me, and perhaps for mrsbill. That has become clearer to me as I go through this.

Still, the apartment feels like I’m finally taking the right steps for the right reasons.

A job in DC may be available in the near future if the small firm bidding as a subcontractor to the large systems integrator comes through. In any case, two years from now, I’ll be living and working there and the boys will be off to college.

We discussed the idea of mediation rather than a court battle for separation. We talked about the idea of family counseling or individual counseling.

I reviewed my brother-in-law’s admonition to be “fair and civil” and my question back to him about what is “fair.”

I reviewed the open house / housewarming scheduled for Sunday after the hockey game, and how I’d like to get to the point where the boys have one dinner a week at least at my place, and stay over when they are ready to do that.

her: what did you tell them?

me: I told them that it was time, and that I was moving to an apartment.

her: did you tell them it’s all your fault? that you’ve done nothing to help this family, and that you screwed this all up?

me: (silence)

her: no, I don’t suppose you did. You’re a screw-up. and a loser.

me: (silence … actions speak louder than words)

Hardly said a thing.

we talked about a schedule.. one night a week for dinner OR MAYBE FIVE NIGHTS … two bedrooms, there will be three beds.

seven miles away.

I explained that I’ve been staying in DC longer than I needed to, to be away from their mom. This would be like that extended trip, but they would be able to come over any time they wanted.

I told him I loved him, but that I could not stay. The time has come. I loved him, and that’s why I have to move.