The Emotional Forecast

“…And that’s why you should never mix gardening with nude acupuncture!  Ha ha!  Now let’s turn it over to Kevin for the 5 Day Emotional Forecast.  Kevin?”


“Thanks, Chip.  Well, folks, after a series of nice days, it looks like we’re in for a day or two of deep depression and why wondering.  After that, we’ll see a clearing of false hope followed by a bout of ‘I’ll never marry again.’” 



Ah, if only we could forecast our emotions like this.  Going through the cycle of being okay to depressed to really depressed to feeling pretty good can be exhausting.  If we knew it was coming we could at least be prepared for it.

Initially, my depression days were pretty much every day.  On a graphical representation of my moods, dark clouds with lightning bolts would have been heavily used for at least the ten day forecast, if not the extended one.  I don’t believe there was a sunshine icon used until a month or so after the decision to get a divorce.

Beyond then, it seemed like every other day was a down day and then that turned into every three days, then four, then weekly until finally I was at a point where I would have a morning of depression every couple weeks.  I chronicled the last one in The Healing Walk.  It was during that walk that I thought maybe there was a pattern to my emotions or maybe to everyone’s emotions.  If I could figure out how that pattern worked, document it and then publish that baby, I would make a quadzillion dollars in no time.

Initial analysis made me think that the emotional downbursts were a buildup of sadness over time.  At the start, there is so much sadness that it’s always raining.  Later, as the soul starts to heal, a weak acceptance high pressure system helps to block out the depression but that depression continues to build as its fueled by questions and memories of the good times until, at some point, it pushes out the system that is keeping you moderately sane and hits you like a tornado hitting a trailer park.  Then, like the tides, it ebbs away leaving clear skies of moderate happiness or at the very least, overcast skies but no rain.

The general pit in your stomach that pretty much doesn’t leave for a long while is kind of like the humidity of your pain.  It’s there and it’s bothersome but it doesn’t stop you from living your everyday life.  Unfortunately, that humidity is just the precursor to the sadness storm that’s coming.  I think until you get rid of that constant humidity, you are still in the depression cycle.

If I was more conscious of this while going through it, I would have logged my emotions each day or maybe several times a day just to see if there was a pattern.  It would have been hard to translate, though, since, just like the weather, my emotional state was fairly unpredictable.  I can’t tell you the number of times I felt somewhat normal only to see a picture or hear a song that brought on an emotional outbreak like an afternoon thunderstorm in the Spring.  Having a log may have helped me to track my emotional states so I could see when a downward spiral was coming and then I could batten down the hatches and put plywood up on the windows of my heart.  For me, that would have been putting on my walking shoes and shorts and hitting the pavement.  Walking turned the tumultuous storm into a steady rain and then to a sprinkle and then to complete sunshine.  The longer the walk, the better the outlook.

I’m sure there would be no way to accurately predict when the emotional bad weather would hit much like there’s no way to accurately predict the real weather.  There are, however, people getting paid big bucks to try to do it and they use a model to follow so why not me and the emotional forecast?  If I had an emotional forecast model, I could provide a personal service to help someone each morning predict just how crappy their day is going to be.  Wouldn't that be a nice service to have? 

"Back to you, Chip."

Next time:  Which came first? The marriage or the children?

And Now She's Gone

(Once again, I interrupt the regularly scheduled blog for something more "in the moment")

Yesterday, my wife moved out of our house.

Since they only moved a block away, the girls will probably bounce back and forth as they want until I move out 10 days from now but the person I thought I would be with until I died is now gone and I’m still alive (here’s hoping it stays that way for a while).

I thought this would end up being harder than it was. I thought an extended Healing Walk was going to be needed or fresh box of tissues or, at the very least, a big long hug from someone (although I probably would’ve needed to pay for that service…what’s the going rate for just a hug from a hot prostitute?  I say "hot" prostitute because, really...who wants a skanky one?).

I find myself, however, moderately okay. In Making the Spare Bedroom Your Bedroom, Spare I suggested against staying in the same house with your soon-to-be ex-spouse because it was/is extremely uncomfortable. I am tempted to rescind that piece of advice, though. Not the part about it being uncomfortable. Oh, it was uncomfortable. There was no getting around the built up tension between the two of us on some days. I’m talking about the living together post separation part being the advice I would rescind.

Having to stay with the woman I suddenly found out was no longer interested in keeping me as a husband became like an intense detoxifying program. I was constantly exposed to the reality that we would no longer be together. Day after day, I was slapped in the face with the reality of divorce. That kind of accelerated the healing process. That probably sounds a little weird, doesn’t it? I will try to explain but I was kind of surprised by it myself.

I believe that if I had moved out immediately and went into seclusion (which is what I initially told my wife I was going to do); I think it would have been a harder and a longer process to get over the relationship. My state of mind would have been frozen at the point of realization that my marriage was over and the love for my wife would have been trapped in emotional amber, not being able to dissolve itself. The buzzing of questions on “Why?” and “What happened?” would have taken longer to go away because I would have only been able to focus on those questions in that point of time, searching for those answers and nothing else. Since we were financially and thus physically bound to be together, however, the time made me continually face the fact that I was getting the divorce. Seeing my soon to be ex every day forced me to realize it was over and I found the love I had for her slowly draining away through tension, opened eyes and cold reality.  I had to confront the hard feelings and deal with them immediately. Sure, this meant a lot of depression, crying, and rendering of garments but now that we have reached this point where we are physically apart, I feel that I am emotionally apart as well.

Other than just facing up to the hardship, I also took a lot of deep breaths and counting to ten when I felt like blowing up at her. We had to live together along with our children so getting into a clash every time she left a pile of dirty dishes in the sink or when I thought about why she gave up on the marriage would have made a difficult situation completely unbearable. So, I swallowed my pride (and a fair amount of anger) and turned the other cheek…not always, but a lot. I think this helped me to accept the reality of the situation; to understand that there wasn’t anything I could say or action I could take to change the road we were on. The intersection that may have allowed that was long and far away in the rear view mirror.

Thus, I reached a point to where I simply didn’t care about answering those ever-buzzing questions. It was like I had become immune to the pain or more accurately, I no longer had the pain. I believe I reached that mindset much quicker by living with her than I would have by being alone.

Does this mean I’m completely healed? That I’m cured of this disease called “divorce?” No, I don’t think so. I’m sure there will be relapses and times where conflict will overcome the peace. Those times will most assuredly happen when my daughters come to visit and then leave but I think I’ll delve into that in a separate blog.

For now I will breathe in the silence and the emptiness of the house but feel that everything will be all right. I have already fought the battle of being alone by not being alone. Now was the time to live it.

My wife physically leaving isn't the end of the story.

It’s just the beginning.



Next time: What is the Emotional 5 Day Forecast?
_______________________________________________________________________________

Soul Music

When the problems with my marriage started to become more reality than paranoia, I began to get fearful that it would affect my music.  Weird statement? Perhaps, but read on, true believer…
I love music.  I love to listen to it.  I love to sing it.  Many a concert has been given for none but me in my living room.  I believe songs are the placeholders in our lives.  As we go through significant periods in our life, the music we listened to during those times become associated with the memories.  A sound track, if you will. 


For me, I’ll hear a song from the early 80’s and instantly be transported back to my high school days.  I think this probably happens to everyone.  You have songs associated with each girlfriend (or boyfriend), proms you went to, break-ups you’ve had, even new jobs. 


So I was afraid of two things:  new music I was listening to during my divorce becoming associated (and forever tainted) by the divorce and music I listened to when my wife and I were first falling in love becoming too painful to listen to now. 


For today’s music, that isn’t too hard because there have only been two new albums I’ve listened to since this started:  Counting Crows Underwater Sunshine and Train’s California 37.  I was more concerned about Train because that’s been a band both my wife and I have liked and listened to together quite often.   I guess only time will tell if I associate the songs from those albums with my divorce but there is one off California 37 that will probably touch me in the future,  When the Fog Rolls In:

I take a deep breath with my hand on the door
Afraid 'cause I'm not gonna see you anymore
These were our tender years, this was our street
All of our stoplights and all our concrete
Now it's all somebody else's to take
Until the fog rolls in

Oo oo oo and now we're through

I am happy to report that, so far, the songs I was listening to when my wife and I got together haven’t been impacted by the divorce…well, almost.  There are two songs that I cannot listen to yet but hope to in time.  One was our wedding song, Don Henley’s For My Wedding.  As I have expressed before, Don Henley is one of my all-time favorite artists and having to avoid something from his body of work will be a crime.  I’m sure I’ll be able to listen to it again as some point but for now, I’ll leave it as a blog quote (from Open Letter to My Niece).  

The second song I won’t name here but it was a special one my wife and I shared and I really don’t think I will ever be able to listen to that one again.  That’s sad because it’s a good song but there are too many memories wrapped up in it from the time we were falling in love.  The song even has lyrics that apply to our current situation, which taints it even more.  In some ways, I feel like I’m losing just a little bit of my soul by not having that song in my life anymore.  Yes, it held that much weight. 


There are others that make me pause when they start playing but I’ve been able to listen to them.  One I mentioned in The Discord of the Ring, The Heart of the Matter, also by Don Henley.  Since the divorce, I haven’t been able to get through that one without tearing up.  It’s been a while since it’s come back up on my shuffle playlist and I’m hoping I’ll be okay when it does rotate through again.


Even though I thought it would be tough to listen to my music for fear of dredging up sad emotions or tainting it, I forced myself to do it and I’m glad I did.  Albert Schweitzer wrote:  “The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats…”  I don’t own a cat (yet…potential blog topic, btw) but I do own music.  The music did help me escape and at the same time cope with what was going on. 


I’ll end this with yet another quote from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K Rowling : 

“Ah, music!  A magic far beyond all we do here!”


Magic indeed.

Next time: What’s the emotional 5 day forecast?

The Two of Me

For me,  the idea of divorce at first was a hope that the threat of it would bring out counseling and therapy to help save the marriage.  You see, I was the one who asked for the divorce, not my wife.  This may not have been clear in my previous blogs.  As I have written before (most notably in Why? and Relationship Update), I could tell she no longer loved me.  We already had one incident some months back where we said we would work on what we were doing wrong in the marriage.  From my perspective, that really turned out to be just me working on what I was doing wrong (working too much, traveling too much, not being there for her and the girls).  I’m not sure what she did during that time but truth is she was already gone by that point. 

Anyway, I popped the question of divorce hoping it would kind of slap her into the reality that she was letting her marriage slip away. 

By the way, you never see videos of people asking for a divorce.  Once again, we are inundated with videos of men asking their girlfriends to be their wife but I don’t remember seeing one where a couple is at a game and on the Jumbotron the husband asks his wife to not be that anymore (or vice versa).  Another service for the Divorce Shower, perhaps.

Back to me asking for the divorce:  Maybe if I had done it a year earlier, it would have helped, I really don’t know.  When I did ask, she was initially shocked but never fought it.  She basically said OK and off we went.  It was at this point, the “First Me” came out.

First Me was a sniveling, selfish, whiney, “Why me?” wreck of a man.  For the first two weeks after, there wasn’t a day he didn’t cry.  He spent time shouting at his wife wondering how she could have done this.  It wasn’t his fault they were where they were, it was hers.  There was one time First Me was on the phone with his wife and insisted she tell him what he did wrong even though she was with their youngest daughter at the time. “So what?” First Me shouted and was, rightly so, hung up on. 

First Me was also the one who came up with the brilliant idea to just move away.  Again, this was all the wife’s fault.  She didn’t want to work on the marriage so naturally, he had to move back to Texas where he used to live because he moved to NEPA for her and the girls and now that was all gone so why stay?  He had friends back in Texas.  He needed those friends.  He was leaving and it was her fault he would never see his kids again.

Sigh.

I deeply regret ever becoming First Me and I would apologize to my wife for the way I behaved but she has told me she doesn't read this blog, so instead, I will apologize to myself.

<Side Note>  If I knew my wife was writing a blog about her divorce experience, I would be reading every last word of that thing and trying to read in between the lines to find a hidden message.  I would even read it backwards to see if there was something subliminal in it just like they did back in the day with record albums. </Side Note>

I suppose, though, when faced with this type of life changing event, it’s somewhat natural to lash out.  Perhaps it’s even healthy to a point.  Still, it bothers me that I fell so low.  But when you reach such a low point, all you can do is go up and that’s when Second Me came out. 

Second Me was the much more thoughtful and reflective side of my post-divorce persona.  Second Me realized that while she had a fair share of blame, he also had responsibility for things getting as bad as they did.  The divorce wasn't this one thing or that one thing, it was a combination of different things that wrapped itself around the marriage until it choked the life out of it.

Second Me also spent time not as much wondering why but wondering what’s next?  The Second Me started this blog to help cope with what was going on in his head.  He tried to be as civil as he could when around his wife and also tried to spend as much time as he could with his children since he knew that time would end up being limited very soon.

Confident that his life wasn’t over was another trait of Second Me.  Finding a house, knowing that he will still be a father to his girls in the best possible way he could, and establishing a new life as a single man helped get Second Me through each day.

Unfortunately, there were times when First Me made an appearance and took down Second Me (one such time detailed in The Healing Walk).   I think back to the Incredible Hulk TV series from the late 70’s/early 80’s.  First Me was my Hulk and I needed to find a way to control the raging spirit that dwelled within me. 

So far, I think Second Me is maintaining control.  Even if First Me comes out, I know how to deal with it to put him back inside.  I don’t begrudge First Me.  He was a part of the process but he was the first part…I’m now in the second part and looking forward to the third, and hopefully last, part of the ordeal where First Me is but a memory, Second Me is a comforting friend and Third Me is the one the world sees. 

I look forward to meeting the Third Me.  Hope everyone else will too.

Next time:  I didn’t have to throw away my iPod

Packing It In

I really hate to pack.

If only I had come up with my Pre-Boxtial agreement (as described in Storage Wars: The Divorce) before we moved into our house.  The packing wouldn’t be so bad.  Alas, I did not so hand me that bubble wrap, would you?

Who came up with bubble wrap anyway?  I have this giant roll that I paid $15 for and once I’m done unpacking, I will no doubt throw it away (okay, maybe after I spend 45 minutes popping the bubbles).  Is that a good deal?  I guess if all of my stuff makes it over to my new place without being broken; it will be a good deal.  I think the items I am wrapping in the $15 bubble wrap are worth more than that…collectively at any rate.

When I bought the bubble wrap I was hit once again with the “consumer choice” dilemma:  Do I get the small bubbles or the big bubbles?  Do I buy the small roll or the big roll?  Do I want it clear or  green or blue or red?  Although now that I think of it, having the color coded bubble wrap would fit in nicely with having the husband’s stuff separated from the wife’s stuff.  I must make a note to update my legal document.

Armed with bubble wrap, boxes (which also aren’t cheap) and tape, I started taking down pictures, getting stuff out of closets and cabinets and drawers and from the various places we put stuff.  The late, great George Carlin once said: “A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.”  That is no more apparent than when packing your stuff.   We did a darn good job in going out and getting more stuff.  I wonder how many more times I can stuff the word “stuff” into this paragraph?

The other part of this particular packing event was the fact that I was only moving 20 minutes away.  My wife was moving less than 2 minutes away.  Did we really need to go crazy with all the packing?  Experience says yes.  My luck travels along the path of whatever can go wrong will go wrong…I think it’s like a law or something.  So while I may think I can stack up all my framed pictures, put them in the back of my truck and get to my new house without any problem, the truth is I will get to my new house with a million shards of class and ruined pictures.

Thinking I was making things easier, I got one of those tape dispensers that allows you to apply the tape in one deft motion across the box and then cuts the tape cleanly and quickly when you are done.  Yeah, right.  That works about once every three attempts.  Most of the time, the tape doesn’t cut and you have a rolled up, stuck together tail of tape hanging onto the side of the box.  Either that or the tape sticks to the metal guide.  And when I say “sticks” I mean bonds like a leech to the soft underbelly of one of the stars of “Swap People.” 

Since I’m not physically moving for another couple weeks, I have been storing my boxes and some of the furniture I’m taking in the garage.  This meant I parked my truck out on the driveway and my side of the garage slowly filled up with possessions being moved from one stage of my life to the next stage.  Actually, it’s interesting because a good portion of what I am taking away from the marriage is stuff I brought into this marriage. 

I guess that’s somewhat fitting, isn’t it?  I’m traveling this highway of life with certain possessions and even though I may take an exit that diverts me for a while, I return carrying much of the same stuff I had before. 

Except for the bubble wrap.  Always get new bubble wrap because if you don’t and it becomes a while in between exits, you’ll essentially have only wrap with no bubble.

Next time:  Two Face

Parents, Inc.

Parenting gets put into a different light when a divorce comes around.  Yes, once again, I have released news that has never been considered before.  I would say “Stop the presses” but that would technically mean shutting down the Internet .  I, however, am in the middle of a Words with Friends game and I need that connection to figure out how to spell a word with 4 E’s, 2 A’s, and a J.

Regardless of the newsworthiness of what I said in the previous paragraph, parenting plans are altered when the mother and father no longer want to live together.  The original plan was to raise the children as a byproduct of the parents love for each other and the desire to bring the kids up in that love (at least that’s what it was for me…we may explore this particular topic in a later blog).  Since that love no longer exists, the rules of parenting have to change.  Marriage is supposed to be this great partnership but when divorce happens and children are involved, the partnership still has to be there, but it must become more business-like.  And the business is raising your kids in the best possible manner despite the unusual circumstances.

Let’s take a look at the roles of this new partnership.  The kids are easy:  they are the product we want to put out into the world.  If we are successful with our planning, development, testing and implementation, we will have two finely tuned and environment ready people that will go into the world and hopefully be something even more than what we initially rolled out.

My wife (or the primary caregiver as she is referred to in all the legal documents produced from the divorce) also has a clearly defined role.  Hers is handling the everyday maintenance of the children: get them up, get them dressed, care for their teeth, hair and skin, properly feed them at the appropriate times, make sure they go to bed, also at the appropriate times, and, most importantly, love them.

Ongoing discipline for when the “product” misbehaves is also under her umbrella of responsibility.  When they talk back or get into fights or lie or cheat in Candy Land, she will need to take corrective action to ensure they don’t hit the streets as liars or cheaters or worse, both.

The mother has to run the project plan and make sure every minor and major milestone of the children’s development is met. 

For me, the divorced father or secondary care-giver … which has a less than desirable connotation to it … the role is a bit different.  Yes, I am still responsible for maintaining the proper development of the child in the same manner as the primary care-giver but since my time with them is limited (essentially, a little more than a third of a year), I’m playing more the role of a consultant.  I have this background in raising and loving my daughters but since I have a limited engagement with them, I need to pass on as much as I can in that short amount of time. 

I’ve heard the term “Disney Dad” which is a part time father who compensates on the time missed with his children by giving them what they want, taking them to all kinds of fun places and basically spoiling the heck out of them.  In reading the definition, I didn’t want to do that but I completely understood it.  The desire to show the kids that Daddy is the "Fun Parent" is incredibly strong and will be hard not to do when you only see them every other weekend.  Since I have such limited time with them I want to make the most of that time but not to the detriment of the child.  Spoiling them is not making them ready for the world … it’s putting them at a disadvantage. 

So what do I do? I don’t want them to come over for the weekend and then spend all the time watching TV while I mow the lawn which may have been a typical way we would spend a Saturday when we all lived under the same roof all the time.  But I also don’t want every weekend to be full of Chuck E Cheese and amusement part visits.  I want that to happen some of the time, but not all of the time.  I need to balance the fun stuff with the… well, with the what?   I think that’s the question. 

And unfortunately, it’s a question I do not currently have the answer to.  I need to spend more time in R&D developing the right combination of fun and time well spent.  I’ll need to conduct several SCRUM sessions to discover where I am in this process.  If I apply an agile methodology to my development process, I’ll be able to see the effects of my current plan, tinker as needed, and then reapply.  As I come up with my proof of concepts, I’ll report back here so you can provide some market analysis on my methods. 

Aw shoot.  I guess I could just love them.  That’s been a tried and true business model for developing people for a very long time.  Why mess with that?

Next time: I wrap about bubbles.

House Hunters: NEPA

Completely unwanted and definitely unprepared for, I found myself searching for a new house.   Neither my wife nor I could afford to stay in our existing house so we had to sell it and get new places for ourselves.  Truth is, even if I could have afforded to stay in our house, I would not have.  Walking through the hallways that was once filled with love, now brimming with the stark coldness of a failed marriage would be pretty depressing.  Just writing that sentence was pretty depressing.

In my quest for new living arrangements, I immediately discounted the notion of moving into an apartment.  When we moved into the Northeast Pennsylvania area (NEPA), we lived in an apartment for about a year while our house was being built.  I told myself that was the last time I would do that and even thrust into a situation I never expected to be in; I intended to remain true to that vow.

So, the search for my own house began.  I’ll explore the “Two of Me” that came out during the divorce in a later blog, but part of the “First Me” wanted to move back to Texas where we lived before moving to NEPA.  I figured getting a house there would be easy, I knew the area well, and I had friends and family there.  It was a natural fit.  It was also the stupidest idea I ever pondered.  I would have missed my daughters within ten minutes of setting foot on Texas soil.

And seriously, did I really want to experience 40+ days of 100+ degrees in the summer again?  No offense to my Texas brethren, but no thank you. In NEPA, a heat wave is two days in a row over 90 degrees.  The area experienced a definitive change in the seasons and I actually enjoyed snow, so why would I want to move away?  Just so I wouldn’t have the rare chance encounter with my ex-wife in a grocery store?  Ridiculous.  I loved the area and it was my new home.  Plus, my kids were here.  Did I really need any other reasons?  I think not.

So, the search for my own house began…wait…did I already say that?  I think I did but this time I mean it.  I knew I wanted to get something with woods around it.  I wanted to be closer to nature so I looked into houses in the more mountainous areas of NEPA, specifically the Poconos.  Unfortunately, that area was about an hour away from where my daughters would be living.  I didn’t want to be on top of them but I didn’t want to be too far either. 

Funny how I even considered moving to Texas, a 3 hour plane ride away, and here I was being bothered by an hour drive away.  I am an enigma wrapped in a mystery and deep fried in season 3 of Murder, She Wrote. 

Luckily, I discovered an area about 20 minutes away from my girls and was in a lake community.  This meant activities to help me get my new life started on the right foot.  There was hiking, an indoor pool, a beach by the lake, kayaking, racquetball (yes, racquetball…hey, the 1980’s called.  They want their sport back), and other things to keep me and my girls (when they were with me) occupied. 

I had found the perfect location as far as scenery and recreation but what about the homes?  Since it had been a while since I looked for a house, I forgot what a hassle it can be.  With listings online, you’d think it would be easier, but I don’t know how many houses I browsed that had very few pictures posted with the listing or had none at all.  Why would you even bother putting it on line if you are not going to add pictures?  I don’t believe it costs any extra. On the other hand, you can’t judge it solely on the pictures because a lot of times the room looks huge in the picture but when you go see it “live” you discover you almost thought about buying a house with a living room the size of Mr. Rogers' sweater closet.

Speaking of pictures, one thing that bothered me while looking through what felt like hundreds of houses on line: why, when taking pictures of the bedroom, is the camera mainly focused on the bed?  I’m not buying the bed, I’m buying the room it’s in.  I know it can be hard to get the whole room in a single shot but most of these shots had the bed centered in the photograph. Is the thought, “Look, we got a bed in here. What more do you want to know about the room?”

The other problem was that I had no idea what type of house I wanted.  Obviously not too big but not too small either.  Even though the wife will have primary custody of the girls, they were still going to come over and I wanted to have room for them to grow. I liked the looks of the chalet style house (think ski lodge) and there were plenty to choose from in the area I was looking in.  Unfortunately, they were either too old, too dirty, too hot (no A/C...we don't have days on days of extreme heat but we still need that conditioned air in mid-summer) or too boastful (one said it was a three bedroom but the third bedroom was a loft with a closet no wider than a hallway).  I was also very keen on the resale value.  I didn’t know what the future held (and history was telling me I never would) so I didn’t want to settle on something that would be hard to sell later. 

I finally found what I think is just about the perfect house.  It came with an empty lot next to it and nothing is behind me except for a slowly escalating slope with hiking trails.  There is plenty of room for me and the girls, the resale potential is great and … well, to be honest, I can’t wait to move in.  I believe this to be the greatest feature of this house:  the ability to see that there is still a life to be lived after divorce.  It’s not like I didn’t know that but it’s hard to get excited about something when you haven’t felt even remotely happy for the past few months.  Then something like this comes along and restores a little faith.

Maybe this should be part of the selling description:  "3 bedroom, two story house with office and hopes for a better tomorrow."  Then show a picture of the master bedroom but only show the bed.  That seems to be important as well.

Next time: The business of parenting