I'm Still Standing
Trip down memory lane much? Haha. I just checked out all the journals of the important people I had on here (read: everybody except the people I had no clue who they were), just to see when the last time anyone updated was. Some from a few months ago, some almost a year, and then others like myself and a handful, more than two or three years. God, time flies when you don't think about writing it all down. :)
Where am I now?
Ashley and I had a bit of a rough patch over the past year and a half or two years. She wasn't happy because she was stuck at home and I wasn't paying her as much attention as she wanted. It was a mutual fault, really, I was keeping her locked away and she wasn't happy unless she was getting attention from her friends and fellow X-Box players online, and I wasn't happy with her settlement to her dilemma, so we both gradually distanced ourselves from each other until we finally made what we thought would be a permanent separation and she and the kids moved to New York to be with her friends.
I was okay...on the outside. Inside, I was screaming at the confines of my stoicism, trying to find a way to let in the good emotions and simultaneously repulse the bad ones. It was a very dark smudge in my life, capped with a week-long period where I was skirting the idea of suicide. I ultimately (as I'm here writing this) tore the idea apart with logical, considerate thinking, but the fact remains that I even touched the idea. That worries me, should something as terrible as losing not only my wife, but my two little girls ever happen again. We'll just hope it won't for now, though.
Ashley and I reunited, thankfully, after a few days of discussing it and realizing that we still felt for one another and missed one another. The moving back process took a fraction of the time it took to move up (not to mention a fraction of the cost as well). The two of us are very well now, with rekindled feelings and a mutual love for our two girls, Ariana and Erizona. It's wonderful to be back together with my family, and while the separation was not my idea of fun, it worked out for the best, because both Ashley and I know what needs to be done to prevent our relationship as husband and wife from going down that road.
In an interesting turn of events, Ashley and I are expecting a third child by August! We have names picked out for either sex, but we haven't told friends or family yet, simply because we want her to make it past the first trimester, so if you're reading this, don't spill the beans outside of here! Comments are welcome, though. :)
As I was before I stopped writing heavily in Livejournal, I'm with Cookout still. I moved up into management at the end of 2008, and I've been on somewhat of a company rollercoaster in terms of my level of management. I went from hourly manager in 2008 to salaried manager in the beginning of 2009. I was promoted to the General Manager of a store in 2011 for a couple of months, and then stepped down because I didn't feel capable of handling the expectations my boss had placed on me. I stayed a salaried assistant manager until the very end of 2012, when the new district manager decided to (in my eyes) poke holes in managers that had been in that region under the old district manager. He demoted me to an hourly manager and sent me to help open stores on one of the organization's fronts in Tennessee.
So here I sit in a hotel room typing all this. My family still lives in the house we've lived in since the end of 2008, which is about a 3 hour drive. I don't like it, but at least they have food to put on the table and a roof over their heads.
I just finished a closing shift, so my energy to type is drained for the night. If anyone's reading this, I'll try and update a little more within a day or two. I'm not bold enough to say I really missed Livejournal, but it's nice to be able to just pour out what I'm thinking into words onto a page, digital or not.
Where am I now?
Ashley and I had a bit of a rough patch over the past year and a half or two years. She wasn't happy because she was stuck at home and I wasn't paying her as much attention as she wanted. It was a mutual fault, really, I was keeping her locked away and she wasn't happy unless she was getting attention from her friends and fellow X-Box players online, and I wasn't happy with her settlement to her dilemma, so we both gradually distanced ourselves from each other until we finally made what we thought would be a permanent separation and she and the kids moved to New York to be with her friends.
I was okay...on the outside. Inside, I was screaming at the confines of my stoicism, trying to find a way to let in the good emotions and simultaneously repulse the bad ones. It was a very dark smudge in my life, capped with a week-long period where I was skirting the idea of suicide. I ultimately (as I'm here writing this) tore the idea apart with logical, considerate thinking, but the fact remains that I even touched the idea. That worries me, should something as terrible as losing not only my wife, but my two little girls ever happen again. We'll just hope it won't for now, though.
Ashley and I reunited, thankfully, after a few days of discussing it and realizing that we still felt for one another and missed one another. The moving back process took a fraction of the time it took to move up (not to mention a fraction of the cost as well). The two of us are very well now, with rekindled feelings and a mutual love for our two girls, Ariana and Erizona. It's wonderful to be back together with my family, and while the separation was not my idea of fun, it worked out for the best, because both Ashley and I know what needs to be done to prevent our relationship as husband and wife from going down that road.
In an interesting turn of events, Ashley and I are expecting a third child by August! We have names picked out for either sex, but we haven't told friends or family yet, simply because we want her to make it past the first trimester, so if you're reading this, don't spill the beans outside of here! Comments are welcome, though. :)
As I was before I stopped writing heavily in Livejournal, I'm with Cookout still. I moved up into management at the end of 2008, and I've been on somewhat of a company rollercoaster in terms of my level of management. I went from hourly manager in 2008 to salaried manager in the beginning of 2009. I was promoted to the General Manager of a store in 2011 for a couple of months, and then stepped down because I didn't feel capable of handling the expectations my boss had placed on me. I stayed a salaried assistant manager until the very end of 2012, when the new district manager decided to (in my eyes) poke holes in managers that had been in that region under the old district manager. He demoted me to an hourly manager and sent me to help open stores on one of the organization's fronts in Tennessee.
So here I sit in a hotel room typing all this. My family still lives in the house we've lived in since the end of 2008, which is about a 3 hour drive. I don't like it, but at least they have food to put on the table and a roof over their heads.
I just finished a closing shift, so my energy to type is drained for the night. If anyone's reading this, I'll try and update a little more within a day or two. I'm not bold enough to say I really missed Livejournal, but it's nice to be able to just pour out what I'm thinking into words onto a page, digital or not.