"No one is going to read this," I thought.
"I’m 43 years old. No one gives a damn about another middle-aged, divorced, white guy whining about life in general."
It’s February 15, 2015, and I’m staring at my Chromebook and the blinking cursor while those thoughts echo around in my head. After years of promising myself an outlet for the recurring doubts and crushing guilt that have plagued me since my divorce, I’m finally looking at the screen.
That stupid blinking vertical line keeps blinking.
Who blogs anymore? Didn’t that die out in the very first part of the 2000s? Haven’t the Boomers and the Millennials proclaimed that Generation X is just simply a footnote in history?
Perhaps it’s enough that this blog page is something for me alone. Maybe typing out my feelings will make sense of the last few years. Who knows…what I write here about what I’ve gone through will show up on a cosmic Google search for some other divorced loser searching for answers…and maybe that guy (or gal, hey, I’m not gender-biased) will have a laugh, feeling just the tiniest bit better from knowing that he (or she) isn’t alone.
Screw the Boomers and screw the Millennials. I speak for the rest of my generation when I say, “You guys don’t know everything so shut up for just one damn second.” I didn’t ask the rest of my generation to speak for them but I’m going to anyway. I’ve been serving others for far too long. Between the oppressive expectations forced upon us by our parents and grandparents and the lack of respect and consideration given to us by our children and grandchildren, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only middle-ager that is getting more than tired of getting walked on, pushed aside, punched in the face and kicked in the shins among other metaphors.
That came out as bitter and maybe I am a little. But that cursor is sure moving now.
Let me start by saying that divorce was no one’s fault but my own. Lots of should’ves here: Should’ve realized what I was getting into. Should’ve dated more…hell, I should’ve dated at ALL. Should’ve broken up with her in high school. Should’ve grown a spine and stood up for myself. There are many, many more. God, I handled it all wrong but who knows anything at that age?
But I’m the one that finally ended it after eighteen years; finally stabbed it through the heart and put it out of its misery like one should handle a ragged coyote hit by a Mack truck and is begging for the agonizing, incessant pain to end.
What do you do when you beg for your partner to reconnect and you’re told, “That’s YOUR problem.”?
It was MY decision to keep going with the marriage for as long as I did. My decision alone kept the blase existence on that Valley arterial, literally two minutes from where I grew up. Four blocks from her parents.
Dear LORD, what was I THINKING?
I was fourteen years old. FOURTEEN. Wanna go together? Because that’s how it starts when you’re young and ridiculously stupid and you have no idea where these feelings come from and your parents aren’t about to talk about sex and relationships. You go with it because she’s cute and nice and there’s no sign of the iron will being welded together from below, ready to take on the form of the most fascistly stubborn attitude imaginable, sucking the life from every corner of the living room. If you can really call it a “living” room.
Wow. Yeah, a little bitter.
Bitter because after 40-plus years of always doing the right thing, of always doing what was expected, of constantly looking out for others, I got ROOKED by the woman that was supposed to be my partner.
"That’s YOUR problem," she said. "This is ALL you. If we go down this road, I get the house."
And that was the very first conversation that grazed the subject of splitting up.
From there, she got the house. She also got half of my family, our church, a huge portion of my salary and the freedom to lie about the split including how I’ve apparently slept with most of the United States and half of Western Canada. News to me.
She also got all but four and a half days a month of our son.
Hm. That’s enough venom for now. After almost five years, it’s amazing that these feelings are still here. I’m hoping that this exercise will exorcise those demons at some point. Hopefully after many, many more posts of documenting the journey.
It may be that no one is going to read this but this wasn’t for you. This blog, as cliche as the format may be, is for me.
And I’ve got to admit: I DO feel a little better.
