Growing Up Dad

My love, I am very angry right now. I am working on dealing with my anger. I ask only that you help me.

There is a sense of normalcy creeping back into my life. A sense of comfort and stability that I, to be honest, thought had vanished. My wife and I have started connecting again. Oddly, we have been connecting through music. We have both heard each other play and sing, but in our eleven years of knowing each other we have never actually played together. Weird, huh? My wife got the idea of recording a bunch of songs she wrote back in college, and I have been playing bass along side her as she works out arrangements. It has been fun. It's not the kind of music I would typically play, but it's good to break out of my comfort zone. I still get to play my upright, and on occasion I have been breaking out my ukelele. We've been talking about the events that transpired, and I think the music is helping us rekindle those parts of ourselves that we thought we lost. Here's to a new chapter, and a clean slate.

Things have been getting better. My wife and I have been talking more, and reconnecting again. Meanwhile, I've dropped close to 30 pounds in 3 weeks. Not really healthy. I have been having recurring dreams where I have been basically reliving the events of a few weeks ago. Typically I can get past them; clear my mind and remember that things are okay. But every now and then I get inexplicably sad. The hurt from that time returns and overwhelms me. I feel the tear in my heart, and my lack of confidence begins to resurface. I just want to go back to before that. When we would call each other's name during our "alone time"; when we would worship each other with 100% of ourselves. I know it takes time, but right now is the time when I need to feel... well... worshiped. I need to feel special. Now, she has apologized, and so have I. I forgive her, but the words that were said still hurt. The thing is that I love her. I have never put conditions on her, and I don

This isn't something I do too often. That is to say, really relax. Oh I vegetate, but I don't really relax. I don't try to enjoy the calm and quiet around me. Instead I try to fill it up with noise and numb myself to the outside world. Tonight, I did some work, took a bath, read a little, listened to some Mozart, and now I am here... relaxed. Comfortable, waiting for my sweet to come home. Waiting for a kiss from my love. For now, I need to meditate and refocus myself.

On top of everything we have been going through, my wife and I have decided to stop smoking... again. We have been smoke free for about 6 years, but the last couple of weeks we have begun to cling to old vices. There are a bunch of great reasons not to do it (money, health, smell), but my anxieties are shooting through the roof. I am having a generally hard time coping with anything btcause my nerves are so raw. The funny thing is that we have always picked the wrong time to quit. First we quit at Christmas, another time was in the middle of finals, this time it's in the middle of marrital problems. Now, I am generally a pretty anxious person. I only play even kieled. Being the main bread winner keeps me grasping for straws as I try to make sure money is coming in, help clean the house, help take care of the kids, and maybe try to get more freelance business. The only problem is that this is all keeps me pretty much stretched thin. Add to that trying to find the right combina

The Good Lady Doctor, aka my wife, recently reminded me of something that filled me with hope for the day. She sent me Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.        If this be error and upon me proved,        I never writ, nor no man ever loved. I never really got this until now. I mean, I understood the sonnet intellectually. I just never felt it. I have never been in a situation where I was tested like this. I have never found myself this shaken before. But, I can&#

If there is one thing that I have a problem with, it's letting go and not trying to fix everything at once. I have a difficult time not trying to "fix" something, even though that something may need to fix itself in its own time. It is unbearable to me to see a problem that I can't solve, and I usually try to power through it as fast as possible. The sooner the problem is corrected, the less anxious I feel. However, as I am learning, not all problems can be solved over a few days. They still take work. They still take determination and persistence. However, they also take time. Time to heal, time to grieve, and time to calm. This is kind of what brought me here; my impatience with disorder. I want to go to my wife and tell her that everything is okay, that we will be fine, and that we will work through this, but in my heart I know that she has her own uneasiness to deal with. She has her own cross to bare, and try as I might to help I have to let her bare it. Al

It's not easy facing your worse fears. I recently experienced what I can only call the worst week of my life. My wife and I almost split up, and just the memory of what was said has shaken me to my core. I feel like my security in life, my faith in those around me was seriously tested. However as Nietzche said, "Whatever does not kill us, only makes us stronger." The funny thing is that right now I don't feel very strong. In fact, I feel quite the opposite. I feel weak, helpless, unsure of myself, and for the first time I am truly petrified of what the future might bring. I feel like the rug has been swept out from under me, and I am having a hard time catching myself on the dining room table. Without getting into too much detail, my wife and I had probably had the biggest fight of our lives. Now, we don't really fight. We never have. I tend to stray from conflict. Instead, I don the jester's cap and prance around the king like a damn fool. I hide behind