Baseball Gloves and Kitchen Knives

[ranagar]

My (soon to be ex-) wife moved out on Friday. She has primary physical custody of our two boys (Nicholas, 5yrs and Taylor, 18 mo).  They were with me most of the weekend as she was preparing the house, on Sunday she picked them up.  Watching them drive away was the most heart wrenching experience of my life - even though I know they only live 15

Comments

[tyratae]

beautiful, sugar. who the HELL taught you to quit screwing around w/that engineering shite long enough to turn into a writer?

[ranagar]

Thank you. I'm glad you like it. I'm more glad that it is true and that I captured it

[tyratae]

i remember the fast-enough-for-train-of-thought problem. i started to type "arguments," because what i really remember is you yelling about it when i tried to get you to write more. but that's entirely the wrong word, b/c we weren't arguing. you agreed w/me. you were just pissed it didn't work.

too bad i didn't know the difference between THOSE things ten years ago, or maybe even 3 or 4. would have spared myself an awful lot of angst!

i like the part where you actually called your dad best of all. but, then, you knew that. :) you were probably thinking "she's going to be so proud of me" when you wrote it down!

[ranagar]

I know - I called dad spontaneously. I wrote about it because I thought of you.

[burny_md]

Sorry to hear that you're having a tough time! I can really only imagine what you're going through, but even if I don't know exactly, I'm here...or somewhere...if you need something! Incase you hadn't heard, I'll be moving to Arizona the end of the summer, so if you need to get away. ;)

Hope to see you soon!

[ranagar]

Actually, there is something. I need a maid (no time for housework). Make it a live-in maid (I'm kinda lonely). One that's good with kids (that way I don't feel guilty when the kids are here and I have to do something else). Oh, and a nympho (no explanation necessary), a sexy one (my recent track record has been pretty good, why backslide). Oh, and while you're at it, ensure she's an illegal alien (so that she is completely motivated to be nice to me and not leave).

Arizona? What the hell is out there?

[burny_md]

Sorry, I found one, but I'm keeping her. ;) Atleast except for the illegal part, but I keep her around other ways. :) tee hee

So Arizona(which is where I am right now btw)... seerofkell, whom you met at the one true party last year, is going to cooking school in scottsdale(suburb of phoenix), so we're looking at buying a house and living here for the next few years. As for a more direct answer... not much except a lot of sunshine and heat. ;)

Speaking of the party, gonna be able to make it this year?

[ranagar]

She got a sister?

Met? Hell, I took, delivered and reviewed the pics that got posted! You're a lucky man.

So, you're buying a house in the middle of nowhere so your S.O. (God forbid I use the wrong title) can learn to cook and make you both fat because there's nothing else to do?!?

Cool! Like I said - she got a sister?

I'll be there with the kids. Hopefully there will be at least some lucky lady who's not off limits for one reason or another to help me live up to the theme of the party!

[reedrover]

That's really sweet.

One of my favorite movies is The Natural.

[cheshirrrecat]

"Maybe, just maybe, this broken home ain't so broken after all."

hold onto that. you are absolutely Right On.

sometimes, things are just the way they should be when they're "broken." my sister told me once she was never able to keep a mirror without it breaking. that she's just destined, apparently, to have shitty luck. for her 30th birthday, i gave her a mirror. that i'd broken and put back together and framed for her. and i wrote her a letter with it that explained that sometimes, we can find Perspective in places we least expected, and that if we learn to look at things with an Open mind, things quite often turn out to be More than we ever imagined possible. the Truth of a thing is in our Listening of it.

i Hope that followed. it made sense in my head.

take care of yourself, man. Power to You.

-becky

[ranagar]

Makes perfect sense. It's all about perspective and opening one's eyes to the real situation, not the assumed one.

I actually like to refer to it as "Context". Context is derived from the phrase "Context-Driven" that was coined by James Bach (Richard's son) to describe the way we approach our "geeky work stuff". I can't tell you how much I have learned from James. He has been a great friend to me. (I really should write a real post about my relationship with the Bach's)

Thanks.

glad it made sense

[cheshirrrecat]

yes, you should.

and youre welcome.

Re: glad it made sense

[ranagar]

In all honesty, it just makes me "all warm inside" to be getting supportive notes back from folks I haven't kept up with and who may or may not have agreed with some (or many) of my actions and decisions in the past.

Ok, Post pending on the Bach family - likely later this evening.

[bluemeg]

sorry things are rough now....
your home is what you make of it.
keep the bedroom set this time.

[ranagar]

It just took last night for it to really sink in that I don't have to be married to mom to still be dad. I kept having visions of the "favorite uncle who takes the kids to disney world and feeds them chocolate cake for breakfast every other weekend to trick them into wanting to come back that they happen to call dad".

Lost the bedroom set, recliner and the 52" TV, but I kept the dishes and silverware.

[bluemeg]

true enough. you're already dad. they'll wanna come back anyway. my aunt's route was chocolate pancakes (with peanut butter and M&Ms on top. ) peanut butter has protein at least! :)

you need to work on those negotiation skills! at least you got the silverware this time. oh and hurry up and buy your own bedroom set. don't wait until wife #3! *grin*

[ranagar]

Nah, this time I got exactly what I *really* wanted. Joint legal custody, no visitation restrictions and no lawyers. I was fully planning to give them the house and everything in it that I didn't have before we got together in exchange for both the documents and the kind of relationship with Shannen that would allow me to be the father that I have always wanted to be.

Well, here's my dilemma about #3. Do you believe in...

- 3rd time's the charm
- 3 strikes and you're out OR
- 3-fold retribution?

Scary thoughts, all.