Pride in my children

Well, one child, in this case. I'm proud of all three of them, but my son outdid himself last week.

His high school put on a production of "The Pajama Game" and he was cast as the salesman "Max". In addition, he was given other bit parts, including a factory worker. During the opening number, where the factory workers are all singing about working faster and getting it done, I was surprised to hear a very pleasant baritone that I didn't recognize. I was even more shocked that it was coming out of my son!

Further into the play, Max confronts the floor manager Heinz over the quality of the stitching in the pajama bottoms. My son is about 5'4" and the boy playing Heinz is well over 6' tall. I watched my son do a very good job of intimidating this huge boy by poking him in the chest and making him back up. All acting, of course, but he has the same booming voice as his father, when he wants to, and he put it to good use.

It's very satisfying to get this much pleasure out of a burgeoning talent in your children.

A new life begins

I finally, really close on my new house tomorrow. I'm absolutely over the moon and at the same time full of trepidations. Am I going to be able to afford this place in the long run? I have enough savings to keep me in a comfortable lifestyle for two years. Hopefully, by that time, my ex will have remarried and things will ease in that way.

I can't wait. A place of my own. I can close my door to any irritating person, be they ex wife or Jehovah's Witness. Of course, I will also be able to open said door to whom I choose. My kids, or even...the ladies. (Anyone else hear Barry White right now? Maybe some cheesy 70s guitar jazz?) One lives in hope.

I am considering starting to have myself weened off of the anti-depressants. I'm not depressed any more. My situation has changed and the black days are behind me. Hopefully. The doctor says that I may always be on, what he calls a "maintenance dose". I can deal with that, I suppose, but my druthers would be to come off them completely.

Deep sigh. Content. For now.

And....we're out

The gavel fell today. It's over. Next Friday, I will close on my new house and begin moving my things out of the house. A new beginning.

A beginning and an ending

Today was the day my 18 year relationship with the woman who was my wife ended. The divorce has not been processed yet, the gavel has not fallen, but all agreements are final and binding. It is over. It leaves me both happy and sad.

I'm happy that the light at the end of the tunnel wasn't a train. My life will continue from here. I am sad because, the woman I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with, won't be with me going forward. My children now, officially, come from a broken marriage.

I met her in college, the way quite a few marriages begin. We were in a play together, some horrible thing written by one of our English professors based on Dickens' "The Bells". She played my adult daughter. Anyway, doesn't matter. We became friends. We started dating about a year later. Most thought it wouldn't last 6 weeks, let alone 18 years. (Let me explain my counting here: I dated her for about a year. Lived with her for about a year. Was married to her for 16 years.)

She was very different from the norm in Northern Maine. An Italian-American girl in a sea of French Canadians. I thought she was very pretty. I thought she was smart too. So, we hit it off and fell in love. After I graduated from college, we moved and began our lives together.

Nothing is perfect. Nothing. She is a strong woman. I had no problems with that. In fact, I'm generally attracted to strong women. I'm a very strong personality myself and don't need, or want a dishrag. She was overly domineering, and my fault here was that I didn't put somewhat of a stop to that early and just let it go.

Anyway, one day, her personality changed. She started getting obsessed with things. Her mood would rapidly cycle. We didn't understand what was going on. Tried a couple things and talking to a couple doctors. All failures. Then, she found a doctor who diagnosed what it had been all along. She was bipolar. A light flashed in my head, it all made sense in that moment. I dedicated myself to seeing her through it, as well as I could.

I worked my butt off. It was a rough time professionally for me. The dot com era was coming to an end and the company I worked for was laying off people like a duck sheds water. I lasted three years, and the axe fell. I was fortunate, I found another job in six weeks, but at about 25% less pay, but it had benefits. So, it evened out.

My wife's condition worsened as they experimented with her "cocktail" finally finding something that worked for her. She started coming out of it. We were aware there were troubles in our relationship. Who wouldn't know? I was severely underpaid. My wife was sick. Money was tight. I won't bore you with all the details. Still, I worked and tried to keep it all together.

Depression is insidious. You don't realize you are sick until you are way past gone. My moment came when I was sitting at the kitchen table. Weeping. I couldn't stop. It was terrible. I started investigating what was going on with me and was diagnosed as a major depressive. This proved to be the beginning of the end.

Then came the day that I call my "WTF Moment". She and I were talking about the ongoing issues and she said "I can't trust you any more. You got sick." It was like a bomb going off. I had dedicated my life to making sure she was well. That she went on and she couldn't trust me. She. Couldn't. Trust. Me.

It was all downhill from there. Marriage counseling failed. Twice. The fights, while never physical, were vicious verbal battles as only two long married people can have. It all led to today. I'm happy and sad.

Hello, life. Goodbye life.

Zeke

Books as comfort food

Something that struck me today, when I'm tired or need some real stress relief, it's not that unusual for me to pick up a book I've read at least six times and read it again. It's kind of a Zen thing for me. Suffusing myself in the comfort of old friends or old foes, letting the stories wash over me. Taking me away from my troubles. I rarely, if ever, find that kind of comfort in new books. New books are, for me, new horizons to explore.

A day I've been working toward

Since I got my current job, I've been working toward the goal of moving them off their old, unreliable network to a brand-spanking new one. Today is the day. A year's worth of work, political maneuvering and sweat. I've got all the MPLS routers in place and working. I've got the new firewall in place and working. I've tested it and gotten all my addresses correct. The contracted company to do the work in one of our remote offices is ready to go. I'm ready.

The trepidation I've been feeling about the upcoming work is really strange. I'm nervous that, even though I've planned this out, it won't work. It becomes more difficult because the three locations are in three different states. I have contracted with a third party company to do the work in the most remote location (under my direction, of course) and I'll take care of the main office and the other one.

So, this afternoon at 4PM, I'll kick them all off all the systems. At 4:15, I'll make SURE they're all off the systems and shutdown the ERP server to keep them off. Me and the contractor will do the work on those two offices and make sure they're working. Then, I'll get in my car and drive 5 hours to the third location. Tomorrow, I'll get up early and do the work there. Depending on when I'm done, I'll either drive home or go back to the hotel.

When it's all done, I'll collapse in a happy heap and wait for the complaints on Monday. *laughs* It's inevitable that every problem in the company will be blamed on the new network. From a printer not working to a hangnail on the secretary's hand.

Wish me luck.

Motivation

Trouble getting motivated today. Not in a depressed kind of way, just can't be bothered to get off my butt to do things. Well, Zeke, you may ask, what kind of things do you have to accomplish?

Let's see, kitlings*:

1. Complete my plan for world domination.
2. Complete my plan for network migration.
3. Discover where my socks keep disappearing to.
4. Find out if my kid's cat really hates me as much as she appears to.
5. Explore the differences between men and women (Vive la différence! Note to self: Wait until divorce is over.)

*Kitlings - a word of affection offered to readers of "The Game Cat" from Jeff Noon's book "Vurt" a wonderful read.