Yers back I had convinced myself to write a novel...well it never did get past the first few chapters.. who knows maybe some day I will finish it. anyways for your pleasure or pain...here is chapter 1.
The Story Begins chapter 1
The leaves on the trees were changing from deep green to the sickly yellows and oranges of an early fall, soon winter would blanket the northern village of Brackhurst. Aaron D'vin sat atop the stone wall surrounding the small settlement. To his north lay his fathers tanning shop, to the south lay open fields, then forest,then the dream of a warmer climate. It was to the south the young mans attention was fixed. He had always dreamed of leaving the village, dreamed of adventure. The look on his face however was not one of dreams. The look on his face was that of resolve, someone who had their mind set and was ready to take the thought and put it into motion.
He didnt have a set course really, he knew their was a war to the south in the land of the humans. Where there were wars, there were mercenary units. Where there are mercenary units, there was need of a skilled swordsman. In the village of Brackhurst there was no finer swordsman then Aaron D'vin. This was not all togethor a tough feat, the village totalled a mere 323 people. Most of those people expected Aaron to join the local militia, help protect the villages borders from outside threats. In fact many hoped he would, as the militia was curently undermanned, due to a recent goblin raid. It was however this same goblin raid his mother had died in. Aaron did not mourn her death as most would think. He looked upon her death as "moving on to a better place" or "Finally out of that bastards reach". That bastard being Aarons father.
It was no big secret that his father was an abusive man, in fact the entire village knew. On two occasions people tried to intervene, The first of which was the local butcher. The butcher was a kind man by the name of Otus, a man with a big heart, but very little fighting skill. Aaron's father had left the man a bleeding mess by the end of the exchange. Suspecting his wife and son of haveing involvement, he punished both of them severely. The second attempt had been Aaron himself in his adolesence. That skirmish had left Aaron with three busted ribs, and bruises covering the vast majority of his body. The real damage however was dealt to his mother, who was bed ridden for a week with her injuries.
Ten years had passed since then, Aaron was now a man.
"WHELP, Get yer ass in here" came a loud voice from inside the tanning shop.
Aaron pretended not to hear.Let the bastard wait
"Aaron, Get yer ass in here now!" his father had moved to the door of the shop to issue this demand.
Aaron looked to the man in the door. "Coming" he stated evenly, no hint of emotion in his voice.
Aaron rolled off the side of the stone wall, landing in a crouch on the ground below. He then stood to his full height of six feet and began walking to the shop.
Seeing that Aaron had heard him and was on his way, his father turned and entered the shop. Aaron allowed a tight smile to cross his face "Yes I am coming" ,he thought to himself,"But you are not gonna like the reason."
As he entered the shop Aaron noticed a freshly stretched deer skin, but also ten feet from the skin, laid the rest of the deer.
"That idiot Vargas bags a deer," the older man started "but he don't know ass end from horn when it comes to skinning. Get yer lazy ass in motion, take that carcass to the butcher."
Aaron paused a second, then looked up to look the other man square in the eyes.
"Take it yourself." was his flat reply.
The older man took two steps forward and hit Aaron with his right hand. The blow was expected, Aaron took a step back and let his head roll with the punch, thus taking much of the impact out of it.
"You insolent lil shit, I gave you a job to do, I am still your father and you will obey me!"
Aarons faced turned back to stare directly into his fathers. He wore a smile on his freshly bleeding lip. "Nope!"
This one word answer infuriated his father, it was intended to. When he threw the second punch, Aaron this time did not stand still. A quick sidestep avoided the hit. His right hand shot up and caught the older mans wrist. His lefthand went up to his opponents shoulder and with one fluid motion he used the momentum of the punch to throw the man halfway across the room.
Aaron chuckled aloud "If only mother were here to see this."
The crumpled heap of a man was slow to rise. When he had finally regained his footing he turned to face Aaron, his face had lost all its color, the fall had apparently knocked the wind out of him. Reaching for his skinning knife from his apron he said, "That whore? I dont think she would like to see what I'm about to do to you."
Aaron stood un-moving. He didnt reach for the sword at his waist, nor for one of his numerous daggers fastened to his body. Of all the things this idiot could have said, he picked the worst out of all of them. Aaron knew the old man was trying to anger him into making the first mistake,knew he was trying to make Aaron make the first clumsy move. Anger Aaron, yes he succeded. The tight smile dropped from his face, replaced by a scowl. The anger in his eyes mirrored that scowl. Yet Aaron remained still. He may be angry, but when it came to a fight, he wasnt prepared to lose to his anger.
"I give you one warning old man." Aaron steadied his voice."you try and use that blade on me, I promise you it will be buried inside you not me."
The attack came quick but sloppy. A slice from the right at chest level. Once again Aaron took a step back, the attack passing harmlessly in front of him.
The smile was back on his face.make him miss a bit more, he thought to himself.
Three more attacks and three more evasions. Aaron chuckled, "Funny, I used to think you could hit hard, but soo far, I just find you amusing."
Amused, he actually was. Aaron knew how to fight, fighting wasnt about hitting. Fighting was about making your opponent miss, and then capitalizing on that miss.
Aaron dodged another attack, and countered with another round of words.
"Hmmm you know they say hitting isnt fighting and that any fool can hit." another chuckle. "guess you dont rank that high"
The older man was furious by this time, and the last statement pushed him over the top. He jumped at Aaron, fully expecting to skewer him with an overhand swing. It was the attack Aaron was waiting for. He waited till the last moment to side step. Getting his hands over top of his opponents, he added his weight and strength to the momentum of the swing, driving the blade deep into the older mans thigh. Aaron then immidietly stood upright using his legs to power a strike with the palm of his hand to the chin of the older D'vin. The old man went limp and collapsed to the floor unconcious.
Aaron stood there for a moment, admiring his handiwork. For a split second he thought of waiting there till the bastard woke up, only so he could knock him out again. He quickly decided against it, deeming it as only something a monster would do. In fact it was something that this monster at his feet had done, and that in itself was a good enough reason for Aaron not to.
Aaron walked to the front door. Then paused. He turned round and began searching. Finding what he was looking for was easy. He took the parchment , ink vial and pen, and wrote a short note. Dropping it on the floor in front of the unconcious man. He then turned around and strode out the door.
In the growing dimness of the setting sun, his features were hard to make out. A figure dressed in tight fitting hardened leather armor, long black hair blowing in the breeze, exposing his long pointed ears. A finely chiseled face which the females of his race found attractive, but as far as he was concerned, he was ugly. His eyes glowed red with the night vision that came natural to his race. His smile came back to him, showing one of the other traits only found in people of his race., over developed canines. He was high goblin, and now...a man. He had one more stop before he left this village behind, and he rushed to get there.
***********************************************************
The footsteps finally receded. The man on the floor let out a gasp. His hands shooting to the blade in his thigh. He had forced himself to be quiet, forced himself to remain still, feigned unconciousness.
"what was that lil shit doing that took him soo long to leave?"
He rolled over onto his knees. A very painful process, which almost resulted in him losing conciousness. Directly in front of him, on the ground, was a piece of parchment. It had been flipped over, so that the writing was face down. He crawled forward reached down and flipped it over. Three neatly written words were on the parchment. At that point he blacked out from his wound, but the words were burned into his dreams..
"I DISOWN YOU"
so endeth chapter one, I do have 5 more completed, but those i will save for another time.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
hmmm rant, rant...which rant to choose
Enter the rant.
My rant today is one that hits home with me and my girlfriend.
For years the government has been taking taxes off us folks to run the country. This is a necesarry thing, its like any businesss, it needs money to operate.
Out of these taxes there are things that are supposed to be paid for...ie: medical,welfare, unemployment, disability...etc.
Now Lisa, my loving girlfriend, has had since the day she was born a medical file larger than 90% of us will ever have in our lifetime. Last year when she tried to apply for disability, they declined her on the basis that I made too much money...huh...I just dont get this reasoning they are laying down.
I will save the numbers for the end..but let me get this straight, "I" made too much money. Not Lisa, me. Since when did this ever become about me. It is about a person who has disabilities. Not about their spouses, who if they were jerks could turn her and her daughter out on the streets without a dime to their name. (not that I would just a "for instance")
Well then the government could give her her disability through welfare. But this would take 6-8 weeks to process. Once again huh?
For years we have all seen people abuse the system, claiming disability when they are truly fit to work, or claiming ailments that cannot be medically proven both mental and physical, and able to live off the money they receive. When a true case comes up where someone can prove what they have, she gets declined on the basis that her spouse makes too much money.
To put this in perspective, at birth lisa was born with these problems.
-deformation, extra digit on left hand.... cosmetic surgery removed thumb and left the extra digit to service as a thumb but it does not have same muscle structure as thumb..try sorting papers using only your fingers, you may be able to do it...but it is a hell of a lot harder.
-imperforate anus... or in laymans terms, no opening from bowels to outside of body..or muscles to control them...surgery was done to create the opening but still nothing to control them.
-Recto-vaginal fistula- once again laymans terms, instead of deficating through the anus the bowels are excreted through the vagina-with above surgery this was corrected.
-fused vertibrae...in neck and where the spine connects to the pelvis..there is no surgery to correct this.
-3 holes in heart... one the size of a half dollar, one the size of a pencil eraser, and one the size of a needle...keep in mind this is on a newborn baby...their hearts are not soo big.
-superior vana-cava detour......meaning one of her major arteries takes a round about way of getting where it is supposed to...it still gets there , but it has to work a lot harder.
-Prolapsed mitral valve...a valve in the heart that normally would close to prevent backflow of blood, works like an old style saloon door...opens both ways... also not corrected to this date, we do not know if that was not an option or chose not to.
This is just the list of stuff she was born with...now on to the expaned list....
-at 13 months old she went into surgery to prolong her life so that she might survive the open heart surgery planned for her in the future.what this consisted of was to go in through the side of her chest and put a rubber band around the pulmonary artery to slow the flow of blood into the lungs, which were filling up.
-at 4 1/2 years old she died...while being checked into the hospital a few days early for her open heart surgery..she died..they resucitated..and bumped her surgery up to the next day.The operation was to go in and close the two largest holes in her heart, leaving the third one to close on its own. at 4 1/2 she had a surgery that has scarred her physically and emotionally for life. She to this day can not watch any scene in a show that has an autopsy being done or any cutting on a persons chest.. and has the Y incission of a john doe " her words".
-at the age of 15 diagnosed with..scoliosis...it went from 17 degrees to 47 degrees in 6 months, forcing an operation. This operation includes a complimentry two feet of stainless steel and 8 titanium hooks, permanently installed in your back.
-at the age of 17 diagnosed with asthma. no explanation needed here.
-at the age of 20 she gave birth via 'c' section, yet another operation...shortly there after she developed allergies and became lactose intollerant. Combine this with lack of sphincter control ( scroll to at birth issues, or if you need explaining the muscle that holds the poop in) and you get a large mess.( at this point IBS is diagnosed as well, but cannot be clinicaly proven as it is related to stress.
-at 25 went in for an angiogram..for those who dont know this is where they take a tube...and shove it up one of your major arteries all the way to your heart , inject die, and take pictures....while you are awake.if you thought getting a needle was bad...try something the size of your headphone wires ..not afraid of a lil ole needle anymore are ye?
-at the age of 27 carpal tunnel in both hands.quite ironically was diagnosed when she was taking a course for medical office assistant..get a career and a free set of carpal tunnel.
-at 30 ruptured a disc in her spine, pinching a nerve as well.
-at 32 she met me...worst disease of them all.
now if anyone can say they come close to theis list... you have my sympathies...no one should endure this much. for the rest of us however. try doing your job, realizing you have to go to the bathroom and 1/2 a second later realizing your too late. Try sorting your papers without a thumb.. and then 10 minutes later have your carpal tunnel kick in...try not doing physical labour because the doctors tell you your heart may not be able to take it. try to imagine sitting in a chair for an 8 hour shift with a spine that does not bend. Imagine being able to medically prove that you are unable to work and the government declines you on the fact that your husband or boyfriend makes too much money. Now imagine your boyfriend only pulled in 35,000 last year to support 3 people.
to quote a friend of mine.Justified or judgemental...you decide.
-
My rant today is one that hits home with me and my girlfriend.
For years the government has been taking taxes off us folks to run the country. This is a necesarry thing, its like any businesss, it needs money to operate.
Out of these taxes there are things that are supposed to be paid for...ie: medical,welfare, unemployment, disability...etc.
Now Lisa, my loving girlfriend, has had since the day she was born a medical file larger than 90% of us will ever have in our lifetime. Last year when she tried to apply for disability, they declined her on the basis that I made too much money...huh...I just dont get this reasoning they are laying down.
I will save the numbers for the end..but let me get this straight, "I" made too much money. Not Lisa, me. Since when did this ever become about me. It is about a person who has disabilities. Not about their spouses, who if they were jerks could turn her and her daughter out on the streets without a dime to their name. (not that I would just a "for instance")
Well then the government could give her her disability through welfare. But this would take 6-8 weeks to process. Once again huh?
For years we have all seen people abuse the system, claiming disability when they are truly fit to work, or claiming ailments that cannot be medically proven both mental and physical, and able to live off the money they receive. When a true case comes up where someone can prove what they have, she gets declined on the basis that her spouse makes too much money.
To put this in perspective, at birth lisa was born with these problems.
-deformation, extra digit on left hand.... cosmetic surgery removed thumb and left the extra digit to service as a thumb but it does not have same muscle structure as thumb..try sorting papers using only your fingers, you may be able to do it...but it is a hell of a lot harder.
-imperforate anus... or in laymans terms, no opening from bowels to outside of body..or muscles to control them...surgery was done to create the opening but still nothing to control them.
-Recto-vaginal fistula- once again laymans terms, instead of deficating through the anus the bowels are excreted through the vagina-with above surgery this was corrected.
-fused vertibrae...in neck and where the spine connects to the pelvis..there is no surgery to correct this.
-3 holes in heart... one the size of a half dollar, one the size of a pencil eraser, and one the size of a needle...keep in mind this is on a newborn baby...their hearts are not soo big.
-superior vana-cava detour......meaning one of her major arteries takes a round about way of getting where it is supposed to...it still gets there , but it has to work a lot harder.
-Prolapsed mitral valve...a valve in the heart that normally would close to prevent backflow of blood, works like an old style saloon door...opens both ways... also not corrected to this date, we do not know if that was not an option or chose not to.
This is just the list of stuff she was born with...now on to the expaned list....
-at 13 months old she went into surgery to prolong her life so that she might survive the open heart surgery planned for her in the future.what this consisted of was to go in through the side of her chest and put a rubber band around the pulmonary artery to slow the flow of blood into the lungs, which were filling up.
-at 4 1/2 years old she died...while being checked into the hospital a few days early for her open heart surgery..she died..they resucitated..and bumped her surgery up to the next day.The operation was to go in and close the two largest holes in her heart, leaving the third one to close on its own. at 4 1/2 she had a surgery that has scarred her physically and emotionally for life. She to this day can not watch any scene in a show that has an autopsy being done or any cutting on a persons chest.. and has the Y incission of a john doe " her words".
-at the age of 15 diagnosed with..scoliosis...it went from 17 degrees to 47 degrees in 6 months, forcing an operation. This operation includes a complimentry two feet of stainless steel and 8 titanium hooks, permanently installed in your back.
-at the age of 17 diagnosed with asthma. no explanation needed here.
-at the age of 20 she gave birth via 'c' section, yet another operation...shortly there after she developed allergies and became lactose intollerant. Combine this with lack of sphincter control ( scroll to at birth issues, or if you need explaining the muscle that holds the poop in) and you get a large mess.( at this point IBS is diagnosed as well, but cannot be clinicaly proven as it is related to stress.
-at 25 went in for an angiogram..for those who dont know this is where they take a tube...and shove it up one of your major arteries all the way to your heart , inject die, and take pictures....while you are awake.if you thought getting a needle was bad...try something the size of your headphone wires ..not afraid of a lil ole needle anymore are ye?
-at the age of 27 carpal tunnel in both hands.quite ironically was diagnosed when she was taking a course for medical office assistant..get a career and a free set of carpal tunnel.
-at 30 ruptured a disc in her spine, pinching a nerve as well.
-at 32 she met me...worst disease of them all.
now if anyone can say they come close to theis list... you have my sympathies...no one should endure this much. for the rest of us however. try doing your job, realizing you have to go to the bathroom and 1/2 a second later realizing your too late. Try sorting your papers without a thumb.. and then 10 minutes later have your carpal tunnel kick in...try not doing physical labour because the doctors tell you your heart may not be able to take it. try to imagine sitting in a chair for an 8 hour shift with a spine that does not bend. Imagine being able to medically prove that you are unable to work and the government declines you on the fact that your husband or boyfriend makes too much money. Now imagine your boyfriend only pulled in 35,000 last year to support 3 people.
to quote a friend of mine.Justified or judgemental...you decide.
-
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
and so it begins
How to start this... With quite possibly some of my biggest mistakes.
What i will tell you is my story, in hopes that there may be something in it that may help anyone avoid the pain this type of situation brings, to yourself and those around you.
in order to understand my story you must know a bit of my past..
at the age of 18 my ex wife and i had our son, at the age of 20 our daughter. At the age of 22 we married at the age of 24 we seperated and divorced it was not an amicable break up( very messy ).
and this is where we will start this story.
My ex and I had our first real fight of the marriage, which proved to be our only fight. I fought hard to try to hold us togethor but in the end, the reason we had broke up was quite simply she had allready found someone else and i found out from an outside source she had been sleeping with him for a month prior to breaking up with me.
At that point I lost all my will to fight, I was crushed. I gave her permission to move with the kids to a town hundreds of miles away. So not 10 days after we broke up she moved into this mans home.
I did not fight for custody of the children as it was a promise i had made to her when i was younger, that if we were to break up...the children should be with their mother.I was raised by a single mother so this made sense to my young mind.
at the time of our divorce I was not financially stable and my ex agreed to no child support, but if the kids were ever in need to contact me and I would find a way to make it happen.
I removed myself out of the childrens life.. partly because everytime i got to visit them, i would be a wreck for about a month after haveing to return them. Also they had a set of parents that they were living with, why confuse them even more with me in the picture.
last year (7 years after the divorce) I received a phone call telling me the children wanted her new man to adopt them. That it was the childrens idea and that since i had not paid any child support, which was now 28,000 in the rears it would be in my best interest to sign the adoption.
Basically all i heard was it was the childrens idea...and that was all i needed to hear.. If the children were pushing for this...then they will have it. I signed the adoption papers.
Last week my son contacted me on facebook. I knew he would eventually contact me...and he would have some serious questions. there was the small talk leading up to him trying to work up the nerve to ask the tough questions. and eventually the questions i had been dreading. " why did you leave like you did?" and "do you ever wonder what it would be like if you hadn't left?"
after i answered the first question honestly and the second question with a simple " yes , I do". he tells me the adoption was never their idea but the ex's husbands idea, they only agreed to it to make their mother happy. The topics became lighter and we chatted well into the night. The amount of joy i felt in that day was unreal.
The joy was short lived and turned to pure rage...two days later my ex contacts me via email...tells me that she has removed me from my sons facebook and will tell him when he gets home that nite, and that i have no right to speak to him or even be a friend to him.
I reply to the email, reminding her that I am putting myself through hell going without seeing my children so they as a family can go about a normal life. I confronted her by including my son as a recepient, as she was making choices for him without his consent(removing me without his knowledge being just the tip of the iceburg). I pulled no punches, I exposed every rotten thing she had done from the first part of our break up...to the falsified divorce papers so on and so forth, at the end i told her if i ever had to hear from her or her husband again, or they tried to intervene in the children contacting me..i would seek legal council. An adoption is a signing over of parental rights, and gaurdianship...it is not a restraining order.. and as I have never harmed the children in any way shape or form, the previous letter was a huge slap in the face.
she wrote a reply the next day, apologizing for the way she handled it..that she was wrong to remove me from his friends list. but then she went on to try and defend her lies, her cheating and her broken promises.
At this point i had , had enough. for 8 years I have been defending her...never said a bad word about her and would not let anyone do it either...I have been living without my children for 8 years, if she thinks its soo easy, and that I enjoy it, well maybe its time for her to find out for herself how difficult it is.
I print off the letters with full intentions of seeing a lawyer to discuss options. My thought being if I can prove that the divorce was filed under false pretenses rather than the true case of adultry, which could easily be proven simply by her having to provide her tax returns from that year if she claimed as a couple with her new man, or her having to provide proof of residence. But I instead decided to go to work...at least put in a half day, and discuss this with my buisness partner and best friend.
He was there sitting with his wife having coffee when i got there.. and i had them both read the letters.
I asked them their oppinions.. and they quite frankly told me, I was not going to like the answers.
I insisted.
so they told me.
I am not going to tell you what they told me but i am going to copy and paste the email i wrote that night when i returned home.
I have blanked out names. M*** is my ex wife, A**** her husband, and K*** is my son.
-----------------------------
I am going to finish this how it was started, as an email to both of you.
Firstly to M***, what I said and the way I handled myself in my first email was inexcuseable and unforgiveable. I took out my anger and frustrations over the past 8 years out on you, when truly it was myself that is to blame. If I would have taken my own advice and stepped back, I would have seen this.
Granted there are issues between us, but they should have remained just that...between us.
I don't deserve forgiveness, but i will ask for it.
Now on to the heart of the matter.
K**** you contacted me with some very real questions..and I knew they would eventually come.
Know that i did answer your questions honestly, but for the one question I did not elaborate on.
the question was " do you ever think about how things could have been?"
I answered "yes I do." while being the truth you are about to hear something you wont want to.
yes I do think of how it could have been, and there have been times I wish like hell I had not done the things I did. The truth of the matter is, if things would have been different, if i had stuck around. You would have turned out more like me. I want soo much more for you then that.
To fully understand this, I am not saying that I am a monster, or a bad guy. But Neither am I a good parent.
The lifestyle I live is not for anyone to look up to, I float through life with no ambitions or goals. I can't hold jobs because I can't make it to work on time. And while I seem to be doing ok now being self employed, the reason it seems that way is because I can make my own hours, and not have to stick to a schedule.
A father is someone who instills their children with everything they need to survive in life. I do not possess those skills.
In the end my decision to step out of your lives was the right one. You are allready twice the man I could ever be and you arent even out of school yet. And A****** and M**** instilled these work ethics in you.
All I am is a big kid, and perhaps by admitting this to myself I may be able to grow up a little bit, only time will tell.
Know that I have not nor will I ever stop loving you, and i do not write the next paragraph to hurt you, but this is the way it has to be.
I am incapable of being your father, or anyones for that matter. You are at the point in your life where you are pushing the boundaries, and pushing buttons. I cannot be a person to hide behind or run to anytime you think your mom and dad are being unfair. They are your parents, they are the ones who have made you who you are today. From what I can tell they have done an excellent job soo far and I will not interfere in this matter. So even though it would pain me to do it, I could not let you move in with me.
The best I can offer you is my friendship, and not the friendship where i take your side in eveything, but the type that tells you the truth.
As i said before my first letter was written out of anger and frustration and was meant to hurt..really not a very parental thing to do. and it was missdirected at your Mom where the blame lies with me.
In closing this is the last email I will initiate, I have allready caused more then enough trouble and for this I do apologize.
If your mom and dad agree to it, and you still want to talk to me, I would love to hear how you are doing.
I hope this clarifies some things.
M*** the threat I posted at the end of my letter, is gone... you decide where and when or even if you would like the children to speak to me. I was being very defensive about something that I had no right to be.
Once again you have my sincerest of apologies.
Lisa has said you two have talked, but i cut her off and sent her out with her daughter for coffee so that I would have no outside oppinions while i wrote this. I hope that I have not undone anything you two have discussed but this is the right thing to do, I know it is.
James
-------------------------------------------
After admitting to your own son that you are worthless, it makes you question yourself.and possibly admitting for the first time to yourself and believing it, knowing it too be true.
I now have a mission, for the first time in my life i have goals that i want to work towards. I want to be the guy my son points at and proudly says that is my father. Its going to take a lot of work and i know im gonna fall. But thats where my Girlfriend and friends come in to support me and tell me when im making mistakes...not just to blindly agree with whatever im saying.
I have bored you long enough..
as i said i hope something in this huge post will help you.
if nothing above is relevant to your problem take this one small piece of advice.
A true friend will never sit by and watch you make mistakes, they will tell you when you are being an idiot. They will not agree and hang off of every word you say.But even seeing your flaws they love you and want to be in your life and help you make your changes. A false friend will tell you there is nothing wrong with you that you are perfect the way you are, will make excuses for you, will lie for you and eventually lie to you.
What i will tell you is my story, in hopes that there may be something in it that may help anyone avoid the pain this type of situation brings, to yourself and those around you.
in order to understand my story you must know a bit of my past..
at the age of 18 my ex wife and i had our son, at the age of 20 our daughter. At the age of 22 we married at the age of 24 we seperated and divorced it was not an amicable break up( very messy ).
and this is where we will start this story.
My ex and I had our first real fight of the marriage, which proved to be our only fight. I fought hard to try to hold us togethor but in the end, the reason we had broke up was quite simply she had allready found someone else and i found out from an outside source she had been sleeping with him for a month prior to breaking up with me.
At that point I lost all my will to fight, I was crushed. I gave her permission to move with the kids to a town hundreds of miles away. So not 10 days after we broke up she moved into this mans home.
I did not fight for custody of the children as it was a promise i had made to her when i was younger, that if we were to break up...the children should be with their mother.I was raised by a single mother so this made sense to my young mind.
at the time of our divorce I was not financially stable and my ex agreed to no child support, but if the kids were ever in need to contact me and I would find a way to make it happen.
I removed myself out of the childrens life.. partly because everytime i got to visit them, i would be a wreck for about a month after haveing to return them. Also they had a set of parents that they were living with, why confuse them even more with me in the picture.
last year (7 years after the divorce) I received a phone call telling me the children wanted her new man to adopt them. That it was the childrens idea and that since i had not paid any child support, which was now 28,000 in the rears it would be in my best interest to sign the adoption.
Basically all i heard was it was the childrens idea...and that was all i needed to hear.. If the children were pushing for this...then they will have it. I signed the adoption papers.
Last week my son contacted me on facebook. I knew he would eventually contact me...and he would have some serious questions. there was the small talk leading up to him trying to work up the nerve to ask the tough questions. and eventually the questions i had been dreading. " why did you leave like you did?" and "do you ever wonder what it would be like if you hadn't left?"
after i answered the first question honestly and the second question with a simple " yes , I do". he tells me the adoption was never their idea but the ex's husbands idea, they only agreed to it to make their mother happy. The topics became lighter and we chatted well into the night. The amount of joy i felt in that day was unreal.
The joy was short lived and turned to pure rage...two days later my ex contacts me via email...tells me that she has removed me from my sons facebook and will tell him when he gets home that nite, and that i have no right to speak to him or even be a friend to him.
I reply to the email, reminding her that I am putting myself through hell going without seeing my children so they as a family can go about a normal life. I confronted her by including my son as a recepient, as she was making choices for him without his consent(removing me without his knowledge being just the tip of the iceburg). I pulled no punches, I exposed every rotten thing she had done from the first part of our break up...to the falsified divorce papers so on and so forth, at the end i told her if i ever had to hear from her or her husband again, or they tried to intervene in the children contacting me..i would seek legal council. An adoption is a signing over of parental rights, and gaurdianship...it is not a restraining order.. and as I have never harmed the children in any way shape or form, the previous letter was a huge slap in the face.
she wrote a reply the next day, apologizing for the way she handled it..that she was wrong to remove me from his friends list. but then she went on to try and defend her lies, her cheating and her broken promises.
At this point i had , had enough. for 8 years I have been defending her...never said a bad word about her and would not let anyone do it either...I have been living without my children for 8 years, if she thinks its soo easy, and that I enjoy it, well maybe its time for her to find out for herself how difficult it is.
I print off the letters with full intentions of seeing a lawyer to discuss options. My thought being if I can prove that the divorce was filed under false pretenses rather than the true case of adultry, which could easily be proven simply by her having to provide her tax returns from that year if she claimed as a couple with her new man, or her having to provide proof of residence. But I instead decided to go to work...at least put in a half day, and discuss this with my buisness partner and best friend.
He was there sitting with his wife having coffee when i got there.. and i had them both read the letters.
I asked them their oppinions.. and they quite frankly told me, I was not going to like the answers.
I insisted.
so they told me.
I am not going to tell you what they told me but i am going to copy and paste the email i wrote that night when i returned home.
I have blanked out names. M*** is my ex wife, A**** her husband, and K*** is my son.
-----------------------------
I am going to finish this how it was started, as an email to both of you.
Firstly to M***, what I said and the way I handled myself in my first email was inexcuseable and unforgiveable. I took out my anger and frustrations over the past 8 years out on you, when truly it was myself that is to blame. If I would have taken my own advice and stepped back, I would have seen this.
Granted there are issues between us, but they should have remained just that...between us.
I don't deserve forgiveness, but i will ask for it.
Now on to the heart of the matter.
K**** you contacted me with some very real questions..and I knew they would eventually come.
Know that i did answer your questions honestly, but for the one question I did not elaborate on.
the question was " do you ever think about how things could have been?"
I answered "yes I do." while being the truth you are about to hear something you wont want to.
yes I do think of how it could have been, and there have been times I wish like hell I had not done the things I did. The truth of the matter is, if things would have been different, if i had stuck around. You would have turned out more like me. I want soo much more for you then that.
To fully understand this, I am not saying that I am a monster, or a bad guy. But Neither am I a good parent.
The lifestyle I live is not for anyone to look up to, I float through life with no ambitions or goals. I can't hold jobs because I can't make it to work on time. And while I seem to be doing ok now being self employed, the reason it seems that way is because I can make my own hours, and not have to stick to a schedule.
A father is someone who instills their children with everything they need to survive in life. I do not possess those skills.
In the end my decision to step out of your lives was the right one. You are allready twice the man I could ever be and you arent even out of school yet. And A****** and M**** instilled these work ethics in you.
All I am is a big kid, and perhaps by admitting this to myself I may be able to grow up a little bit, only time will tell.
Know that I have not nor will I ever stop loving you, and i do not write the next paragraph to hurt you, but this is the way it has to be.
I am incapable of being your father, or anyones for that matter. You are at the point in your life where you are pushing the boundaries, and pushing buttons. I cannot be a person to hide behind or run to anytime you think your mom and dad are being unfair. They are your parents, they are the ones who have made you who you are today. From what I can tell they have done an excellent job soo far and I will not interfere in this matter. So even though it would pain me to do it, I could not let you move in with me.
The best I can offer you is my friendship, and not the friendship where i take your side in eveything, but the type that tells you the truth.
As i said before my first letter was written out of anger and frustration and was meant to hurt..really not a very parental thing to do. and it was missdirected at your Mom where the blame lies with me.
In closing this is the last email I will initiate, I have allready caused more then enough trouble and for this I do apologize.
If your mom and dad agree to it, and you still want to talk to me, I would love to hear how you are doing.
I hope this clarifies some things.
M*** the threat I posted at the end of my letter, is gone... you decide where and when or even if you would like the children to speak to me. I was being very defensive about something that I had no right to be.
Once again you have my sincerest of apologies.
Lisa has said you two have talked, but i cut her off and sent her out with her daughter for coffee so that I would have no outside oppinions while i wrote this. I hope that I have not undone anything you two have discussed but this is the right thing to do, I know it is.
James
-------------------------------------------
After admitting to your own son that you are worthless, it makes you question yourself.and possibly admitting for the first time to yourself and believing it, knowing it too be true.
I now have a mission, for the first time in my life i have goals that i want to work towards. I want to be the guy my son points at and proudly says that is my father. Its going to take a lot of work and i know im gonna fall. But thats where my Girlfriend and friends come in to support me and tell me when im making mistakes...not just to blindly agree with whatever im saying.
I have bored you long enough..
as i said i hope something in this huge post will help you.
if nothing above is relevant to your problem take this one small piece of advice.
A true friend will never sit by and watch you make mistakes, they will tell you when you are being an idiot. They will not agree and hang off of every word you say.But even seeing your flaws they love you and want to be in your life and help you make your changes. A false friend will tell you there is nothing wrong with you that you are perfect the way you are, will make excuses for you, will lie for you and eventually lie to you.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Day one, first post....who the hell am I
Why a blog?
An old friend started a blog just recently, in it he re-tells stories from his past, and relates current events in his life.
http://aspiredramblings.blogspot.com/
I thought to myself, you know maybe if I get all my ranting and raving out, that perhaps my mind would slow down enough to deal with what is important in life, living it.
I then thought, it would be a good spot to list the mistakes I have made in my life, that by actually taking the time to acknowledge them , I could then move past them.
If anyone can learn from anything I post, they may be able to live a fuller life without ever having to make those mistakes. This is why a blog, to help myself and possibly help anyone else who happens to read it.
So...who am I?
Well my name is James . I am a 33 year old male living in Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada.
I am your average Joe. With an average Job...and yes at times I can be an A-hole ( if anyone caught on to the song reference)
I have no post graduate education, hell I made it to grade 9. So by no means can I claim that I know a damned thing about psychiatry, or politics. I guarantee you however that there will be some rants and mistakes posted involving these subjects.
I live with my wonderful Girlfriend of 3 years Lisa and her 15 year old daughter Izabeau, who thinks I am Satan reincarnated.
I smoke , I drink , I have my vices....I am human.
Religion wise, I choose to believe in myself, rather than put my faith and trust into something that I cannot prove exists. But to each their own I suppose.
In closing, why should you read the following posts I am going to write? What makes this blog special?
Truthfully, I couldn't care less if you come back on a regular basis to read this blog. I am getting my feelings out in order to move past hurdles that have been put in my way...hurdles that I put there myself. If you don't come back, its no skin off my nose, I just hope those who can benefit from learning from my mistakes, or the folks who need a different point of view on a rant explained to them, will make use of what I write down.
An old friend started a blog just recently, in it he re-tells stories from his past, and relates current events in his life.
http://aspiredramblings.blogspot.com/
I thought to myself, you know maybe if I get all my ranting and raving out, that perhaps my mind would slow down enough to deal with what is important in life, living it.
I then thought, it would be a good spot to list the mistakes I have made in my life, that by actually taking the time to acknowledge them , I could then move past them.
If anyone can learn from anything I post, they may be able to live a fuller life without ever having to make those mistakes. This is why a blog, to help myself and possibly help anyone else who happens to read it.
So...who am I?
Well my name is James . I am a 33 year old male living in Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada.
I am your average Joe. With an average Job...and yes at times I can be an A-hole ( if anyone caught on to the song reference)
I have no post graduate education, hell I made it to grade 9. So by no means can I claim that I know a damned thing about psychiatry, or politics. I guarantee you however that there will be some rants and mistakes posted involving these subjects.
I live with my wonderful Girlfriend of 3 years Lisa and her 15 year old daughter Izabeau, who thinks I am Satan reincarnated.
I smoke , I drink , I have my vices....I am human.
Religion wise, I choose to believe in myself, rather than put my faith and trust into something that I cannot prove exists. But to each their own I suppose.
In closing, why should you read the following posts I am going to write? What makes this blog special?
Truthfully, I couldn't care less if you come back on a regular basis to read this blog. I am getting my feelings out in order to move past hurdles that have been put in my way...hurdles that I put there myself. If you don't come back, its no skin off my nose, I just hope those who can benefit from learning from my mistakes, or the folks who need a different point of view on a rant explained to them, will make use of what I write down.
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