Post Christmas

It is some weeks since I last wrote. Life has happened. Much has been said and much is changed.

Ten days ago I had an encounter with my ex. She had wanted to "catch up'
as she tells people , with me for some time. I kept avoiding it.
Finally I was bailed up for an hour an a half.
The outcome left me feeling I was the cause of cancer, third world debt and climate change.

I could written here after the event but I was so angry and hurt I know I would have been far more incoherent than I am now.

I have used my time to reflect and to discuss with family and friends what happened. They have helped me to put all the shit that happened into perspective.

I know I do not handle it well. Like most people I do not like my past being racked up in front of me. It took me several minutes to realise that she was talking for the most part about events that occurred ten and more years ago.

I have a son, my youngest, who is developmentally delayed. He is a lovely boy who 20 yrs old. He lives with his mother and I fear for him a lot.

His mother attacked me for the role I take with him. I take him places. I take him out.
His mother wants him to learn to drive and for me to teach him. He has no co ordination. It is a hair raising time to be beside him in a car. I do not feel I have the where with all to carry out a prolonged period of teaching him to drive. I am willing to pay someone else to do it.

I am sick of the past being the only conversation I can have with her. usually its about all the wrongs I have done. Yes I have done wrongs but I have also done good.

My family and my friends all have a way of dealing with her and urge me constantly to tell her to fuck off. It always sounds so easy. But I fear if I do she will take it out on my son. So I take it to protect him. I hate myself for doing so but I do it.

My ex has no relationship with two of my children. They don't call her, they return her letters and gifts.

She has always been a person who wanted everything her way and took no responsibility for anything and all the credit when something went well.

I told her many years ago that the way she treated her children would leave her a lonely old woman as her children would want nothing to do with her. How true it is all becoming.

Your children will never do all things you think they should, but nevertheless you have to hang in there with them thru the thick and the thin. Mine are no different. But they are each wonderful individuals. I have maintained contact with them and have helped them out a lot over the years, tried to be there for them, have failed them and rescued them, supported them and lent them a shoulder.

I am a man, a human with failings, but I am fast believing I have much more positive happening in my life than negative. I know it is inner strength that will help me in all I set out to do. It is that strength that enables you to pick yourself up off the floor.

My Christmas was great. My kids and I celebrated Christmas on Monday PM and we had a good time, it was good to be together.
On Christmas day I spent the morning with my ex partner, we have maintained a strong friendship, and we were both alone Christmas morning. So a fry up later I went home, had a nap and then went to my sisters with my dad, my brother and my own kids, nieces and nephews. We had a good time. Again it was wonderful to be together.

Today was Boxing Day. No shops open round here, I took my son home then spent the day watching the Cricket...what more can a man ask for on Boxing Day.
Now I shall rest.

Thursday 7th Part 2

I forget that this site is not in tune with Australian time, so my last posting was also this evening Thursday.

I have been thinking about relationship. I have been asked a few times whether or not I am interested in going into another relationship.

I was married for 23 years and this ended in 1999. In 2002 I entered into a new relationship and this ended in April this year.
What have I learnt. For one thing I am pretty crap at this relationship thing. Nowadays the thought of such a thing scares me silly.

My marriage was over long before I was brave enough to call it a day. My last relationship was also over long before I again acted and did the honourable thing. I could have fallen on my sword but instead I left.

My counsellor I visited several times after both were over suggested this last time that if I ever consider another relationship I consult with him as my first two choices have been very ordinary.

I agree with him. I picked women whom I thought were ok. You always do. You go into these things with your eyes wide full of romantic expectation. And why not? We crave the company and love of a partner. Some men can't live without a woman in their lives. I thought that if they wanted stuff you gave it too them but you didn't want them intruding too much on the things you wanted to do. How wrong I was.
I have always struggled with the notion of balance in a relationship. Admittedly in my marriage I didn't know nor did I ever think about such things as I was always struggling to survive.
When I got married there were no such things as marriage preparation, or people you went to to talk about the perceived rigours of marriage. You entered blindly into it with the only samples you had to guide you were those provided to you by your parents. And not wishing to bag my parents in any way they didn't do a lot to prepare you for marriage. The model they showed you was based on the model their parents showed them. No wonder so many men face the prospect of marriage in such a fearful way.

So stumbled into it, with a women who was also stumbling into it with her own views based on those of her parents. The fact that both of us had screwed up lives doesn't enter into the mix until it was all too late. By that stage the glint has been erased from your eye to be replaced by a look puzzled amazement that you could be so stupid to have ever entered into a disastrous relationship like you found yourself in. You feel locked in, children arrive and you have this sense that there is nowhere to go, and you can't and wont go back home a admit failure. So you stay, for the good of the children. For the good of the family name. Never for your own good. You make the best of it. Then one day a child says to you dad why do you put up with this? And you know then that others know, there can be no more hiding, time has run out. You make a stand.

Its the moment that you are forced to make a stand that hurts you. For then you realise that the hiding is over. It's time to open the front door and step out.

In both my long term relationships that has taken far longer than it should have. I put off and put off until I could no more.
In doing so, in stepping away, a weight is lifted off your shoulders.

In recent times I have become much more aware of the impact I have had on my partner. I have been aware of her pain. I am more savvy about the role I have played and that I am not always the victim, but far too often the perpetrator. Being a passive person has had detrimental consequences upon those around me. This is something I will reflect on at a later date.

That is all for now. I like this, though I know I ramble, so what, its really only for me. But if I keep at it I will get better. Like most things in life.

Well today is another day and it has been busy as every day seems to be at this time of year. People think being the end of the school year that everything winds down. Far from it. It seems to wind up if anything. New programs to write in what might be said to be stating the bleeding obvious. But from a positive note I think having to say in words that you know what you Are doing from a purely academic point of view should make you all the better as a teacher. Tomorrow I have several hours put aside to put down a new program for teaching Year 9 Romeo and Juliet Year 9 !4 - 15 year olds.

I like the planning aspect of the task, I just dislike the tediousness of having to put it all down in some logical sense. We know what we are doing, we have done it for years, so why now go to all this fuss to record it all in academic educational jargon. Any way its all got to happen tomorrow!!

I met a man today who had a daughter in my school this year. This man was telling me his wife had left him one year ago today. In that time he has been through his own private hell and is beginning to come out the other side. He is still wracked by questions he doesn't know answers to and he still can't understand what happened. But to his credit he is moving on.

He has entered another relationship and is feeling good about it. He has some plans for his future and is moving carefully with all he does.

I haven't decided to tell you his life story but rather to pose the question of why people you know only as acquaintances can tell you all this in a supermarket. I think he finds me an ally in his pain. And I am. Its a bit of been there done that. And I do like to listen, especially when I sense his need to talk.

This is the second time this week this has happened to me. Earlier in thew week had a discussion with a lovely woman who came to talk with me about peer mediation. It wasn't long before I found myself listening to her tell me about a case she had been involved in. I was fascinated but realised this lady needed to talk about what was happening to her.

Am i to be flattered by this? I think it is a compliment that these people who know me only scantly can talk with me in this way. I don't mind. But I do feel somewhat a fraud when I think of the vast number of insecurities i have and the failures that I have perpetrated in my life.

But the sinners are maybe the best ones to deal with this.

The Third day

It is late here. I am home from working at my local theatre. I am directing a short ten minute piece for the local Rep Theatre. It is a week to go before performance and whilst I like the actors I have they are a limited bunch of people acting wise.
But then thats the point of local companies. Everyone gets a go. And they are making a fair fist of the piece. Like any performance you don't get who you want and you have to work generously with the ones you do.

I find it a little frustrating, I want the work to be good, to somehow stretch my performers abilities but for most of the girls this is a first time on stage for them. I think I may be a little harsh.

I need to relax and enjoy the experience rather than be threatened by it.

I do enjoy the time I spend there, though I have come in late and my idea of running a theatre group and their's is very different. They like to sit about for ages before beginning. I want to go there and then get out, do the rehearsal and then go home. I may have much to learn about all this. I guess it has something to do with me not being much of a people person.

People people are much happier around other people. They like people. They don't see them as a threat. I think thats the problem with me now. All people are threats. I know this is not good but at present its the way it is.
I worry that i may not get out of this state. That I have been so scarred that its going to be a default setting for me. It is easier to avoid than to engage.
I have two end of year work functions I can go to. One is a faculty one, the other a whole staff one. I am committed to the faculty one because I said I would go but the staff one I will avoid because I can easily think of plenty of excuses not to go.

So there. I said it. I made a decision./ Maybe I should write here more often if this is how I can make a decision.
Decisions are tough. To make one you are committing yourself to a course of action. You are stating a position and I don't like to do that so often as I feel I may have to back down and when I back down I don't feel so good about myself. It is a vicious circle.

I am wanting to work through a lot of stuff but as I said in my first entry I do ramble and this one is no different. But I do fell better having started to say stuff.