I have refrained from writing about my past or present love life on dingy blogs and certainly on social
media since these platforms are shitty forums to begin conversation.
Often we become abbreviated caricatures of who we want to be or how we want to be perceived.
But what is the best medium? A hard copy zine? An audoiobook? An autobiography would be nice had I the audience and the financial clout to do so.
Consider my life. My life is a story of some of the most beautiful, emotional, trans-formative, and devastating experiences that took in place in some of the most shitty or at least "unlikely" of places. I've heard bands as good as Led Zeppelin play in basements in rural Wisconsin. I've made fast friends for life at CBGB's, I've seen people healed of ailments and anxiety in the name of Christ in a VFW basement, and as a youth a caught a glimpse of heaven on earth with Nikki Rosenblum in the back of my dad's Dodge Charger.
One of my favorite jobs was a restaurant in a grandfathered building near Wrigley Field that still had hard wood floors in their their walkin fridge, and in their kitchen (oh, and they had rats). I've had some of the most intellectual conversations in the chair at Great Lakes Tattoo and the chair at Jose's Barber Shop.I teach math at a school that hasn't improved the decor since the 1980's but we give hundreds of inner city kids a good chance to thrive beyond the streets.
Yesterday, tears of love and humility filled up my eyes as my youngest son pointed to a brown industrial building in MKE puffing steam out from her stacks, and said,"Daddy,daddy, that's the cloud factory!"
My point is...this platform will do.
I have only been blocked on Facebook by one person: my wife.
I sat with my mom at a Starbucks and remembered a kid's birthday party my son was invited to. I tried to message my wife . Blocked.
What the fuck? I confronted her and she said, "I felt like you were harassing me." You see, occasionally I would post a picture of her looking happy and gorgeous or I would jot a few lines from a song I loved or a poem I wrote. I told her that if that is harassment then she married the wrong guy.
I grew up in the 80's thinking of divorce as a yuppy thing, a Hollywood thing, or something you get when a man hits you and such. A "necessary evil", if you will. About half of my friends had dad's who were Viet Nam Vets, and none of my friends had parents who were divorced.
As I got older and met more people my perspective broadened of course, but it was just kind of ingrained in me that this marriage deal was serious and the one commitment you pledge to keep until death.
Conveniently the woman I married shared this point of view. She had already been married before but she was quite young and the guy smoked crack. Although friends and acquaintances warned me I was like, "everybody does stupid things. It's in the past."
Our marriage was a model one. We even counseled couples whose weddings I had officiated. We had family and non family members of all kinds over all the time. Yet we still were managing to make simple precious time for ourselves.
We both did stupid things financially, even morally (too much drinking). But there were probably only a handful of times between 2005 and 2015 when we would walk anywhere and not hold hands. I treasured every love note she sent me, every picture she drew for me, and every time she told me she loved me.
We'd say "I love you" whether I was leaving for the grocery store, she was getting on a plane, or I was going to work. It was a lifestyle of love we created and I truly meant it every time I expressed it to her.
So in early 2016 when she wanted a divorce after a few months of refrain from physical and verbal affection (which I thought might just be a stage) I was in shock. My world view was shaken. Reality was questioned. What was illusion?
My head swam and the one accolade I give myself is I that held a job. Even being a waiter and a bartender was extremely hard as I was so upset that my focus on every drink I poured was a conscious and concerted effort. I had to detach.
She never gave me nor our counselor a concrete reason as to why she wanted a divorce. She did say, "I'm just over it." What the fuck?Are we 16? Also, "I feel like I've been awakened." Pray tell.
During our last session of marriage counseling the counselor pleaded for one reason why she wanted a divorce, "I don't feel safe with Jeff." To this the counselor responded, "that's all?" She had to be referring to some type of financial safety ( which doesn't exist) since I was so vocally critical of men who hit or even swore at women.
In Fall of 2015, the first sign of our union unraveling was when arguing about money ended in her crying, "I want nice things".
I felt bad. I said I'd get her the money for nice things. I've always been good at hustling. But she wanted a plan. That's all well and good but the truth is that she also wanted to see me more and unfortunately I did not know how to double my income just like that and not be working more.
By law (at least in WI) people do not need a reason to divorce. It's simple.
You do however need a reason to tell your parents and friend so you can go be free or get the new boyfriend or whatever your motivation is. In our case, she had nothing on me and never will.
I never or smoked, did drugs, and never was abusive, I served a a deacon in a church, and I never lied to her. So what was so bad about me? Why does she look at me with disgust? Why does she freeze up when I hug her? It makes no sense at all. So I started to believe her bullshit. "Maybe I am a loser."
I thought about a lot of things way too much! Maybe I was right to feel wrong when I was a little nervous kid and wondered why I was more interested in fashion than football. I felt alone. In ten years I had lost touch with many friends as I was focused on my family.
Suddenly I was in a living Hell.
Once, in early 2016 I took her shoe shopping in Chicago and brought our two children along. Yes, I'm a sadist. Our eldest boy was a the peak of this hitting stage he was going through. He hit me about 150 times that day and after dropping an occasional line from Mr. Rogers or Christ I started getting pissed. Besides there is no fun or food in women's shoe stores. At the car, after punch 151, I picked
my son up by his jacket and screamed in his face with the tone of my old football coach, "You do not ever hit your daddy!"
The next day she said that this was the last straw and considered my actions abusive. All bullshit. But she knew my sensitivity and how much I loved my kids. So even though we both knew she was full of shit it still bothered me. She knew how to get to me.
Now she could try to use my temper against me. Heaven forbid we include anger in the spectrum of emotions.
We were quickly divorced and I spent a lot of money on my lawyer because I needed someone to look at my situation objectively.
Somewhere inside her was a girl I knew, who loved me for me, who was in trouble and I wanted to help. I couldn't stop my hamster wheel of thoughts.
Weeks after the divorce, coincidentally she sent me a text that she was engaged to a guy she met at her work while we were married.
The speed, lack of transition and sneakiness was all so very confusing to me. What to speak of for my children? To be honest, they are more resilient than I. And I will never disrespect their mother before them.
I have been spending too much time alone and at home in books the last couple years. But the time has come to wear my heart on my sleeve again. To have hope. To not give a fuck what anyone thinks or says because I have nothing to hide and every word I say is true. The truth sets us free.
More than that I have things to offer my self, my kids, and the world. I'm an upstart. I'm a messenger.
