#1994 To the day.
I have now been married for about a week and a half. Today would have been the eighth anniversary of my first marriage.
The divorce doesn't hurt anymore. It's kind of like a scar. Painless, but you know there was damage there once.
Even with the stress of just being married, and travel, and having Addison here, things are going well. I think I will see if Katie wants to break open a bottle of wine tonight to toast to lessons learned. Katie is such a wonderful wife that the stress of everything seems to melt away when I am with her.
Cynthia is happy, I assume, where she is. If she was not, I doubt she would have sacrificed her entire life here to be where she is. Connections with friends, her home, Addison being able to see the rest of her family easily, everything was burned (figuratively, of course) by her move to Iowa. I hope that she either has the reward she was looking for, or has learned from it. I was one of the things she gave up for the life she wanted. I was bitter for a long time, but now, I am merely saddened by it slightly.
If you compare who I was to who I am now, there are very few similarities. Before, I never danced. Now, I break out into dancing in public, even without music. I look at my wedding ring, and instead of the gold monstrosity that Cynthia for some reason, as yet unknown, dropped close to eight hundred dollars on, there is a classy, and very much more me, titanium ring adorning my left ring finger, the larger match to the one on Katie Springer's hand.
I am overjoyed at being married to Katie. Cynthia... well, I think I was more relieved that I was no longer alone. The saddest part is that the marriage to Cynthia only temporarily changed my loneliness. By the time I moved out of the house on Cornell, I was lonelier that I had ever been in my entire life.
I have not been lonely in a year, not even when I was alone.
Now, on the matter of Mike Given, my birth father:
There is a lot of history between us. To sum it up, I would have to say that there is a basic misunderstanding of how to be a father on his part. He is father in name only; even legally, he is merely someone who donated a little less than half of my genetic material. When he calls me his son, in my mind I always add, "well, yeah, technically..."
I am angry with him. Well, more disappointed. Yes, he bought me a computer. He sent me to a private school, one year.
I think the problem is that he expected, and, somewhat, expects, to have a good relationship with me, and that everything is fine. Well, everything is not fine. The things he did to me and my mom are not forgiven, nor forgotten. Yes, he is a very different person since his cancer. However, there are basic things about him that prevent me from ever having a good relationship with him.
First and foremost is his inability to take responsibility for his own actions when they hurt others. He has never and will never take responsibility for what happened in his marriage to my mother. He has never and will never take responsibility for his failure when I was in Seattle ten years ago. When I told him I forgave him when I got married to Cynthia, he seemed surprised that I had anything to forgive him for.
I am nearing thirty years old, and I have learned life lessons that he seems to be unable to learn. If you screw up, you try to make it right, and, if that doesn't work, you still try as hard as you can to make the situation at least a little better.
Second, his inability to see when others fail. Darlene, his step mother, was a intensely selfish person. She told him not to tell me where my grandfather's funeral was taking place so that I would not embarrass her. Hell, half of his family were kept in the dark. When I met with him for lunch on the honeymoon, he insisted that if I had called her, she would have helped me when I was homeless in Seattle in 1997-1998. That is like saying that Jerry Falwell would lead a coven meeting if you had just "given him a call." This is the woman who sued her dead husband's brother for money after her husband died from cancer that was caused by her unwillingness to quit smoking. Thank all that is holy that she got her karmic reward and died three years later from that same selfishness.
Mike lives in his own world, and filters everything in his life according to the way he wants it to be. We all do that, to some extent. Mike, however, has damaged me in ways he can never repair. I did forgive him for his failure to help me when I imposed myself on him ten years ago. I cannot, and most likely, will not ever forgive him for many other things.
In that way, he and Cynthia are very similar in that what happens to them and how they feel about me is no longer that important to me. Mike, however, is less important in my life due to Cynthia being Addison's mother.
I saw his face as Katie and I drove away from Hero House, where he volunteers. He knew I would not be coming back this trip. I don't know if I will ever see him again. I know I will not go out of my way to make peace with him, as he has never gone out of his way to make peace with me.
Next post, I will write about the honeymoon, promise.
The divorce doesn't hurt anymore. It's kind of like a scar. Painless, but you know there was damage there once.
Even with the stress of just being married, and travel, and having Addison here, things are going well. I think I will see if Katie wants to break open a bottle of wine tonight to toast to lessons learned. Katie is such a wonderful wife that the stress of everything seems to melt away when I am with her.
Cynthia is happy, I assume, where she is. If she was not, I doubt she would have sacrificed her entire life here to be where she is. Connections with friends, her home, Addison being able to see the rest of her family easily, everything was burned (figuratively, of course) by her move to Iowa. I hope that she either has the reward she was looking for, or has learned from it. I was one of the things she gave up for the life she wanted. I was bitter for a long time, but now, I am merely saddened by it slightly.
If you compare who I was to who I am now, there are very few similarities. Before, I never danced. Now, I break out into dancing in public, even without music. I look at my wedding ring, and instead of the gold monstrosity that Cynthia for some reason, as yet unknown, dropped close to eight hundred dollars on, there is a classy, and very much more me, titanium ring adorning my left ring finger, the larger match to the one on Katie Springer's hand.
I am overjoyed at being married to Katie. Cynthia... well, I think I was more relieved that I was no longer alone. The saddest part is that the marriage to Cynthia only temporarily changed my loneliness. By the time I moved out of the house on Cornell, I was lonelier that I had ever been in my entire life.
I have not been lonely in a year, not even when I was alone.
Now, on the matter of Mike Given, my birth father:
There is a lot of history between us. To sum it up, I would have to say that there is a basic misunderstanding of how to be a father on his part. He is father in name only; even legally, he is merely someone who donated a little less than half of my genetic material. When he calls me his son, in my mind I always add, "well, yeah, technically..."
I am angry with him. Well, more disappointed. Yes, he bought me a computer. He sent me to a private school, one year.
I think the problem is that he expected, and, somewhat, expects, to have a good relationship with me, and that everything is fine. Well, everything is not fine. The things he did to me and my mom are not forgiven, nor forgotten. Yes, he is a very different person since his cancer. However, there are basic things about him that prevent me from ever having a good relationship with him.
First and foremost is his inability to take responsibility for his own actions when they hurt others. He has never and will never take responsibility for what happened in his marriage to my mother. He has never and will never take responsibility for his failure when I was in Seattle ten years ago. When I told him I forgave him when I got married to Cynthia, he seemed surprised that I had anything to forgive him for.
I am nearing thirty years old, and I have learned life lessons that he seems to be unable to learn. If you screw up, you try to make it right, and, if that doesn't work, you still try as hard as you can to make the situation at least a little better.
Second, his inability to see when others fail. Darlene, his step mother, was a intensely selfish person. She told him not to tell me where my grandfather's funeral was taking place so that I would not embarrass her. Hell, half of his family were kept in the dark. When I met with him for lunch on the honeymoon, he insisted that if I had called her, she would have helped me when I was homeless in Seattle in 1997-1998. That is like saying that Jerry Falwell would lead a coven meeting if you had just "given him a call." This is the woman who sued her dead husband's brother for money after her husband died from cancer that was caused by her unwillingness to quit smoking. Thank all that is holy that she got her karmic reward and died three years later from that same selfishness.
Mike lives in his own world, and filters everything in his life according to the way he wants it to be. We all do that, to some extent. Mike, however, has damaged me in ways he can never repair. I did forgive him for his failure to help me when I imposed myself on him ten years ago. I cannot, and most likely, will not ever forgive him for many other things.
In that way, he and Cynthia are very similar in that what happens to them and how they feel about me is no longer that important to me. Mike, however, is less important in my life due to Cynthia being Addison's mother.
I saw his face as Katie and I drove away from Hero House, where he volunteers. He knew I would not be coming back this trip. I don't know if I will ever see him again. I know I will not go out of my way to make peace with him, as he has never gone out of his way to make peace with me.
Next post, I will write about the honeymoon, promise.