Christmas time 2024

Remembering the reason for the season isn't just a saying for me. It's a reminder. A reminder that there is good reason for me to suffer from a melancholy that lives inside of me. I'm 50% happy 50% sad at any given moment and I wouldn't want it to be any other way as it reminds me of the weight of losses I've had in my life. The family dynamic that went away some time ago when the matriarchs of our family passed away, the loss of a father that I will now never know, and a Mom who was my everything good that remained. While gone, the sadness and grief I feel today is a direct link to those people and I don't want to ever feel differently. 

I wrote about walking alone in this world years ago, and little did I know the depth of alone I would one day feel. Today, it's God who promises to never leave my side, and I am comforted by the belief that I will never walk completely alone in this life. 

The sounds of Christmas, the lights, the music, the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," all these things bring emotion that is equal parts sadness and light and that is the best I can do, the best I can hope for. 

Soon God willing, there will be a new year and a new beginning and an opportunity to do something for someone else which my Mom always told me was the key to coming out of a feeling of depression. She practiced all those bits of wisdom herself and we were all the better for it. I will try my best to stay strong enough to follow her lead and I will always look to heaven for his, and her approval. 

Until my time is over I will say prayers for those who also suffer from the loss of those who made such meaningful memories and who have now become memories themselves. May God bless all of us. 

 

the anti social, social club and the joys of divorce

 I recently became aware of someone else's story about divorce that had me reliving my own some 40-plus years ago. My divorce isn't a bash-the-ex story although some of what this guy is going through is very familiar to my own experience. 

The decision to divorce in my case was not mine. In fact, I had no say whatsoever because the decision was made by the time I was advised by a knock at the front door from a stranger (process server) that I had 10 days to move out of our house leaving my son and my wife, and everything other than some clothes behind. 

My divorce from Hindsight was the best thing in the world, for both of us. Probably for my son too but we'll never know that. Having zero experience with what a family acted like, getting married wasn't a well-thought-out thing in the first place. We were very young, and her parents did not want us to even see each other AND, we were pregnant and just hadn't had that confirmed just yet. In those days, the only option when pregnant was to marry and we did. 

My home life growing up consisted of arguments and fighting and then divorce several times. That's all I knew. Thank God I had a mother who loved me to pieces but the damage of seeing all that turmoil was being done without me realizing it. My wife, on the other hand, experienced a big loving family with a mom and dad who didn't fight and were together many decades. 

So I really don't think we had much of a chance for success to start with and we failed. My feelings about my divorce all those years ago is about the fact that I didn't have any say in it. I had a family, a great job to support us all, and a life albeit not the best in the world and it was decided without my input that all of it was to be taken away from me. I'm fairly sure I remember feeling I didn't really want to be married, but I wasn't at the point where divorce was on my mind. The depth of the pain I felt losing everything in my life at that time was indescribable and only known to me and my late mom at the time.   

The impact of divorce was so deep and severe that I vowed I would never again test my luck or risk failure on that level again and in 45 years or so I haven't been able to even consider it while my ex-wife has been married a half dozen times since then trying to find the right mix. I admire her unwillingness to give up as I did and ALL of my relationships since those days so long ago have been affected negatively by the experience.  

I'm told my son and his little family are doing well and my ex-wife seems to have found the right one (again) and I'm very grateful to God for all of that. But for me, I'm just not able to think about life at this stage as being anything other than alone. I've been able to focus on work and investing so I'm financially secure and have retired. I'm OK except for some health issues and I remain grateful for all the experiences I've gone through even the ones that didn't work out as planned.