I'm back...

I'll start with this: my vacation was made by my kids. They were so well-behaved, and really more like traveling partners than anything else. They were a complete joy to be around the entire time. As a reward, I hope to take them on the Disney Cruise next year. They really were fantastic.

It still amazes me to see what they know and what they can learn, especially in a new environment like that. They played in the water, swam in the pool there like they'd known how to swim for years, picked seashells, and just generally made my vacation an adventure (in a good way) more so than a trip.



A couple quick stories to hopefully bring a smile:


When my daughter was told that she was beautiful by my mother she said,"Thank you, Nana."

My mother realized she should make sure that my little girl understands that her brother is "beautiful", but my daughter was quick to respond.

"No, Nana! My brother is not beautiful!

My brother is handsome! And Daddy's handsome, and Pappy's handsome, and Uncle 'MINORS2THEMAJORS' is handsome, and Uncle 'SWEETZX' is handsome, AND MOST OF AAAAAAAAAAALL... UNCLE HTRN is handsome!"

The story loses a bit with the pseudonyms, but you get the point. lol. Daddy wasn't the "most of all". I laughed about it because it was almost like she knew, even thought there's really no way she could... You see "Uncle HTRN" was on vacation with a purpose.

He was there to get his mind off his separation. It was basically official when we left. And, while he rarely showed the misery I know he was in, he needed a lift. Hopefully a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed, not quite four-year-old niece helped.

Life is funny like that sometimes. I've said many times before, that you can find inspiration and a smile in some of the strangest places imaginable. You just have to be looking. You can look for smiles or you can look for misery. It's your choice, you'll find whichever you want.

Life really does run in full circles. I feel like I'm jumping around a bit, but there's lots of stuff going on in my head. The first lull in my blog posts came when I tried to write about my family. I still have the blog entry, but it's never been published. So many things have changed since then. I was wrong on many things that I hoped were good. I had written that my brothers, HTRN and SWEETZX, were both "happy". I believed at the time that they'd made decisions to put themselves with the right companions and that they were well on their way to happy lives. Since that first lull in time SWEETZX has broken off his engagement with his fiance (they appear to be trying to work things out at this point in time, but I'm not optimistic on the subject), and HTRN is now separated.

My divorce was officially filed yesterday and while I was talking to my ex wife about it the subject of HTRN came up and she asked me what was up.

(Days before my ex and I split, she said "...and I thought we had problems!". I was incredulous, "WE'RE GETTING A DIVORCE!" and she was comparing us to my brother and his wife. All the while saying we had a better relationship at that very moment in time. Apparently - write this down, you may not ever see it again about her - she was right. It just took time for things to actually shake out.)

I told my ex that the irony of how things were working out between them was painful to watch. It was almost like reliving it, nearly one year to the day later. I feel so much sympathy for my brother. I actually said to him a few weeks ago that the similarities between what was happening at the end of his marriage and what had happened nearly a year before were not only uncanny, but spooky. I didn't believe that things would work out as his wife had said they would, because history had proven to me to be too strong. She was saying the same things, doing the same things and blaming the same person for their failures as a couple. Ironically, my brother found a Love letter in her console, from someone else, two days before we left for the beach... But he was the one to blame for their marriage falling apart.

Painfully similar.

I did, however, smile when my ex agreed that his wife should call her so that she could tell her what life on the other side is like. Not life without me or my brother, but more of what life is like with the guy who swore he'd give her everything, and that I was bringing her down. She's still with him by the way.

I had said to her, a couple weeks ago when we talked, that her relationship should be in that blissful happy stage right now. Realistically they've only been in an actual relationship for under a year, and nothing should be wrong with it... Yet she was reading a book, "The Care and Feeding of Husbands", and it wasn't supposed to be a case study on what went wrong in our marriage - but that's what it turned into for her. She came to this realization that she had been wrong in blaming me and that she was to blame for our marriage deteriorating - not me. She found answers to the past while searching for answers to the present (disclaimer: I still maintain that I was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a perfect husband. If anyone knows someone who is, I'd like to meet him so I can take pointers. I just said that I was no where near that horrible husband and person that she made me out to be.)

Here's where people get into trouble reading books instead of seeing a professional.

She then believed because she had been such a "terrible person" in our marriage that she was still being a terrible person in their relationship too, and maybe she is... I don't know. I believe it's probably closer to this reality though. He's pretty much worthless. Don't take my word for it... ask his own mother. If your own mother has a problem with you... well you must have worked real hard to tick someone off.

He told my ex all these wonderful things, and she believed him. Now he's not coming through on his part. They got themselves pregnant and now she thinks that she's being the same person that she was when she was with me - and she very well may be.

The big difference is; before the problems were realistically out of our house. They came from the fact that my wife was not a strong willed person. She lacked self-esteem and with that came a certain sense of needing to feel accepted. So, she was a different person when she was away from the house. She smoked, and talked about problems that, realistically, were not problems at home. However, she complained about them incessantly to anyone who'd listen if I wasn't around. They were things blown completely out of proportion so she could fit in with the crowd around her; people who were miserable. It's actually scary to think, but she actually wanted to fit in with these people.

Now, the problems are in her face. They are there, on the couch, coming for their custodial visit, or living in the back yard. They are "No regrets" coming back to turn every day into misery, and they'll continue until they overwhelm her or turn her into the superwoman she needs to be to deal with them. In a situation like that there really are only those two options. The problems that she's created are not problems that will go away, they will only be dealt with in the best way possible or they'll get worse.





Had dinner Friday night with a beautiful girl at a great restaurant. It lasted three hours. The food was fantastic as was the conversation. I'm very fortunate to know the chef there. He is top notch. Don't know if you'll hear a whole lot more about her, but if there's anything else to say, I'll keep you posted.





Got a new phone. No more basic text messaging. I've got pictures, web access, and a cool carrying case. It's the Motorola V400. I like it so far, but I'm not thrilled how it organizes my contacts. I'm sure that's user error and something I need to fix myself.






The person I referred to last time apparently did have the worst week ever. I'm sorry. I hope that this week has gotten better. I'll be in touch. The game is les than a month away. It'll be a blast.




Everyone else... take care.


-Mo