So This Is Where I Fell

So I moved in with my sister, in her attic basically. It's not terrible. The catch is due to her having an old house and a centrally located exposed oil furnace, her home owners insurance won't allow kids to "live" in her house. So on my weekends with the kids, I live with my parents. It's highly inconvenient, but it's the best that I can do given the circumstances. I'm not making do, I scraping the shreds together to piece meal something resembling an existence together.

I apply for jobs, still looking for work. Anything will do now. It seems futile though. For example, I apply for one job called "print production specialist." The ad made it sound like it was a graphic design or similar type job but nope. It's more of a print press operator type job. I bullshit my way through an hour and a half long interview. Then they have me take a written skills test on mechanical systems.  Since I was ill prepared for the interview, I leave feeling like I just wasted three hours on a job I don't particularly want, but sadly do need.

Divorce is proceeding forward. Usually the threat of a court date and hiring of lawyers is enough to come sort of compromise. All I want is her to be responsible for half our debt, do half the driving when we exchange kids and copies of all the digital family photos, since she took the hard drive with her that had them all. She wants more child support, spousal support, money for her student loans, me to take all the debt, to do all of the driving, and assortment or other random demands for money that border on nonsensical. Oh, and she wants half of the kids movies. She already took more than half of the kids movies, I for one can't even understand why you'd even waste the money paying the lawyer to listen to you talk about something of such low dollar value. My lawyer assures me that most of her demands are standard fair and are only included so she gave give them up during the negotiation process and appear as if she's compromising. I'm not so sure but he's getting paid to deal with her, so I don't have too.

The first of many court house meetings goes like this, I meet with my lawyer in one room, she meets with hers in another. Then our lawyers meet in the hallway and try to reach a compromise. If they don't reach one, we go to trial. My lawyer tells me this should be quick and easy, after being there five hours negotiating with her, it's obvious to him that this isn't going to be pretty.

Second go around is scheduled for middle of October. My ex tells me it's be cancelled. I don't believe her, so I call my lawyer, his secretary confirms the night before, that it is in fact cancelled, and that I should have received notice from the court by now. I have the kids over the weekend. The next Monday she calls me angry, "What did you tell our son?" "About what?" "Well our son told his teacher something and it just so happened to be the exact reason court was cancelled." "Well I don't know what that is, so I couldn't have said anything." "Well then, I guess you're lawyer isn't doing his job if he's not telling you."

What the fuck is going on? She won't tell me what it is, and I don't want to pay my lawyer to tell me something I'm going to find out anyway ... as soon as the letter shows up. I long ago learned I can't win her games, I can only attempt to not play. This could be anything, and she's enjoying taunting me with it. Is she trying to completely deny me access to the kids? Was there some legal angle she's exploring? Is she just making shit up? It takes a week or so, but the notice finally arrives.

Your pretrial hearing has been rescheduled for December 21, 2012 ... Great. The Mayan Apocalypse, how appropriate. ... due to the pregnancy of ... Oh crap. Really? It's bad enough you use my own kids to play games with me and now you just used your unborn child to play games with me?!? Do I care my ex-wife got herself knocked up? Emotionally, not in the slightest. Logistically, she just made this whole process more difficult. In this state, its a process to get divorced when the wife is pregnant.

The next time I call the kids she asks me if I got my letter yet. I tell her I had. Then she goes on to tell me that we can still move forward with the divorce but we all have to testify in open court that I'm not the father. And by we, I mean me, her and her baby daddy. Delightful. "If it makes you feel better" she decides to tell me, "you'll get to see your kids more than he'll get to see his. He's moving to another state with his wife next summer." Why she thinks I care in the slightest about any of that I don't know. I do however wonder if she still thinks her baby daddy's marriage is over though.

During this lengthy unemployment stretch, dating back to even before I moved. I made a new friend. unlike most of my new friends, she doesn't entirely live inside my computer monitor. I originally sent the Facebook friend request because FaceBook suggested her to me every damn day and I kinda sorta maybe remembered her from High School. Of course after we start talking I realize there's no possible way I remember her from High School because she's six years older. a single mom of three boys, the oldest of which is a certified rock star.

 As I get to know her I realize she's dealt with more trauma in her life than anyone I've ever met. Which says a lot, because that's how the people who know me best describe me. You can either own your experiences, or they can own you. She owns hers. I mean when she was about a day old, someone found her in the trashcan of gas station bathroom. She just wears that on her sleeve. Literally, she had the gas station's logo tattooed on her upper arm. I'm just in awe of that. I wish I could do that ... but If nothing else, I can't get the tattoo because selling blood has been my most reliable source of income for the past three years and a tattoo would make me ineligible to sell for the next year. Her ability to do this, to survive, to still be optimistic, to still believe the best in people even when they don't deserve it, to still believe the world is a good place is just amazing to me. I make no hesitation in telling her this on a very regular basis.

For one thing she gets the whole broke lifestyle. She's there too. She gets that sometimes you just have to spend money to be some sort of temporary happiness, and you need to be happy to keep pushing forward to get to a point where you can find it for real. I've been known to spend money I shouldn't have a few times, the wedding comes to mind. One thing usually happens when you do that though. Someone questions your logic "If you can afford to buy such and such, then why are you short on money for the things you need?" Then you feel like crap because you know they're right to question. Any positive feelings you have turn negative. But the answer is simple. We're human, and humans need to be happy.

Anyway the Rocker Chick is in this relationship with this ... idiot. It's like looking at my relationship with my ex-wife from the outside. He treats her like she treated me. The same manipulation. The same mind games. The same lack of trust. We talk about it. I try to point her in the direction I wish someone had pointed me. She gives me something else more important though. That personality that I lived with, that she's dealing with has a name, The Invalidator. They pull you in only to cut you down. Maybe a month after we bought the house my ex-wife told me she was unhappy there. She didn't want to live there, and never did. The only reason she agreed to live there was because I wanted it so much, and she wanted to make me happy. from then on out anything and everything that went wrong with the house, or vaguely because of where we lived was then my fault. My fault because she tried to make me happy, or so she would claim. You don't buy a house to make your partner happy. that how you decide where to go for dinner, or what movie to watch. Not a lifetime commitment.

It's a big break through for me to know my experience wasn't totally unique. That it didn't occur just in my head. Mostly though it opens my eyes and I finally know I'm not alone. I didn't cause her to be that way. I didn't cause it, I didn't create the monster. I simply tried to deal with it in the best way I knew how. I can't fix this relationship for her, but I can be there to remind her that she's not alone, and that someone treating you this way is not okay. It's cathartic to see it from the outside instead of living it. I give her advice and realize I should be taking it myself.  It takes months, but the relationship does finally end, and I'm there at her doorstep the next morning with a tub of Ben and Jerry's if for no other reason to remind her that not every man is a jerk.

A few days later I get the call. That job interview I thought was a complete waste of time, is offering me the job. I run printing equipment for a sheet music supplier to churches, a terrible assignment for this half Jew, but the pay is good. Still I feel like a bit of a sell out. I'm not one to take days off work ever, but I already have to take one off, the Mayan Apocalypse.

We do the whole dance of trying to negotiate an agreement again in our pre-trial hearing. It takes four hours and we resolve absolutely nothing. I give an inch, she wants a pound. The only forward motion we make is that she's put all the family photos into my cloud storage account. I verify this on my phone while in court. I also give her even more kids movies since what I called half wasn't half according to her, even though she can't recall which movies we did or did not have. After all this we still have to go in front of the judge and take care of this whole paternity thing. My lawyer preps me. It's going to be simple. Three questions to each of us, we answer correctly no problem. The questions are "Have you been intimate in the past 9 months? The past year? Past two years?" Great, I have to testify about my sex life. Because that's not humiliating. The lawyer then asks me to make sure that my answer to all those questions is "no." I think hard, it was the weekend before Christmas two years ago, so checking my calender on my phone that means it's been two years and one day exactly since we last fornicated.

We go into court. Her lawyer asks her those three questions, she answers no. Then the lawyer asks one more question "Did you ever have sex after you moved out?' she again answers no. Wait? What the hell? I'm livid. When she first moved out, our sex life actually improved. We definitely did the deed many times. I really could give a shit that she has decided to deny we were together after she moved out, but lying under oath?!? I thought I knew how low she would sink, but apparently I was wrong. I thought we were trying to reach some sort of fair resolution, and we just didn't agree what fair was. She doesn't give a shit about that though. Maybe I'm the one who keeps seeing the good in people when I shouldn't. This isn't even something that she has anything to gain from by lying about. More than two years ago we had sex. There's no way I could be the father. Why would she lie ... except maybe the fact her boyfriend is sitting there in court too.

Her baby daddy then takes the stand, the questions basically amount to "are you the father?" He answers in the affirmative, thankfully.

My turn to be a witness. My lawyer asks me "Do you hear the testimony given to hear by your ex-wife? Do you find it all to truthful and accurate?" Do I point out her lie that has no bearing on this paternity hearing? "Most of it" My lawyer's face shows a moment of panic, but he's not an idiot so he only asks me the three scripted questions. The judge rules and says I'm not the father. Court is dismissed. As we debrief afterwords I say to my lawyer "I can't believe she lied under oath" "Of course you two were together after she moved out!" He says, "You were together for twelve years!" Wow, didn't even have to tell him what the lie was, it was that obvious. Next court date is in spring. By the time I get home, she's deleted all the photos out of my cloud storage. It seems like spite, and she claims she never did it, despite the account telling me who and when deleted them. I take screen caps as evidence.

I started my job at the beginning of December so I have a few paychecks under my belt by the time the holidays roll around. I actually spend money on my kids this year. It takes the last dollar I have from my last paycheck before Christmas Eve, but I even manage to scrape up enough money to buy gifts for the Rocker Chick's boys, since she was going to go without this year. I figure I can pay it forward after years of being on the receiving end. I didn't give her a choice in the matter, and I gave them to her, so the boys didn't have to know she didn't buy them. I don't have much, but life is slowly, and in tiny increments moving in a not bad direction.

This is my life now.

Wake Me Up, When September Ends

It's been five months since I lost my job. Lost my job ... As if I misplaced it like a set of car keys.

That's where I started this whole thing. That's where I find myself again. The venue has changed, but I may be worse off than I was before. Financially anyway. It's a long drawn out process to foreclose on a home, its a quick an easy process to evict a tenant who isn't paying rent.  I did score a great deal on my rent though when I moved in, it's half off for the first six months when you sign a year long lease. A paltry $350 a month keeps my apartment. My unemployment check is $160 a week, $80 of which comes out for child support before I even lay eyes on it. I can opt to defer or even lower my payments while on unemployment but I don't because I want to take care of my kids. You don't even have to do the math to figure out I'm in trouble. How do I make ends meet? I don't to be honest. Every month, without asking I get a check from my Grandmother for rent.

The rest of my cash goes to phone, electric, internet and keeping gas in the car to go to interviews. The eight hours driving to get my kids, two hours to get them, another two to bring them back home, then the reverse trip there and back, has suddenly become a gigantic expense. There's a plasma donation center within walking distance. If I sell plasma four times between visits with the kids, the maximum amount legally I can, I can just barely afford the gas. I want to say it's a difficult decision to see my kids on my weekends. It's not, I always do. But it's still stressful, the actual act of making the decision. I can't maintain the car. Over the summer on three separate occasions I get flat tires, because I can't really afford to replace them unless I have to. So I wind up on the side on the road, putting the spare on. I'm late to get my kids once. Twice I'm late dropping them off because they were with me when I had the flat. Their mother seems to think I have some control over the situation and yells at me for it. But I don't. I don't have control over anything in my life.

The months pass. I never know if I'm leaving at the end of the month or not. I never asked my grandmother to pay my rent, never told her not to either. Sometimes the check shows up a week before rent is due. Some days a few days after the first of the month. Sometimes I'm glad to see it. Sometimes, I'm not. I go on interviews, some promising, some not. Time ticks by, slowly. It bends and warps at times. Not as bad as it did in the house when I was totally isolated. But still, sometimes a day feels like a week, sometimes a week feels like a day. Some days I eat five meals a day out of boredom and complete lack of concept of time. Sometimes I think I go days without eating.

I have few friends in this new city, but the handful I do have go out of their way to help. Some weeks the only time I venture from my apartment is to sell plasma twice and trivia night at the bar. If I'm lucky someone buys me a beer. I don't ask though. I'm tired of asking for help. I'm tired of being a mooch.  Sure I could go out an make new friends, but I try not to make any connections to people that might make it hard to leave when ... if ... it comes time. I do make new friends though. They just mostly live in my thirteen inch computer monitor. Someone who likes a sarcastic post I make to Facebook might as well be my best friend. New friends are good because they haven't heard me whine about the same damn thing 150 times before: "My life sucks, I have no job, I have no money, I miss my kids." Eventually I grow tired of hearing my self even say it. I'm tired of thinking it.

I sit alone in my apartment. I apply for jobs, I watch Netflix, the one luxury I afford myself, and it's $8 a month. It keeps me sane. It passes the time. I have to be careful what I wtch though. There are people in shows that have jobs, or are in relationships. I go to bed early. I sleep late. I take frequent naps. I eventually become so bored I decided to finish unpacking the apartment, something I didn't have time too do before I got laid off. I know I'll likely be repacking it all soon, but I'm so bored. The loneliness is unbearable at times. It's one thing to hurt emotionally, but it gets so bad it's becoming actual physical pain. It sounds like something people just say, but I lived it. I felt it. I cry often. It's something to do. If I had money, I'd drink the days and worries away. But I don't, I'm broke.

At least it's slightly better than when I was alone in the house. During that last month I attempted some plumbing repairs to the bathtub drain. I was in the crawlspace cutting the PVC pipe with my reciprocating saw (a power tool). I nicked a copper water line at water is spraying everywhere, It occurs to me that water and power tools are a bad combination and if I were to die at that moment, how long would it be until my body was found? No job, no significant other, no social obligations ... if I missed picking up the kids my ex would just leave me a a hundred nasty voice mails, but she'd never bother to express concern until maybe after a month of not seeing them. Maybe the police would come, they'd never find me in the crawl space. At least in my apartment if I died I have neighbors to smell my rotting corpse. I did eventually spring for a plumber to come out.

The calender has little meaning. I have kids every other weekend. Other than that ... nothing. Nothing I have to do, nothing that can't be moved. I try to spread out my twice a week plasma sells as evenly throughout the week as I can just to have something to look forward too. Yeah, looking forward to waiting hours just to be stuck with a needle. It's like my entire life is the second day of a three day weekend. It's too late to start anything you haven't already started, and if you don't already have plans for tomorrow odds are you're not going to be doing anything then either. For five months the only thing that happens to me that really marks the passage of time is I finally get divorce papers in the mail. After more than two years this should be a good thing, but all I can think is "How the hell am I going to afford a lawyer?"

Days tick by, turn into weeks and months. I see the end though. Not in a good way either. My move-in special expires soon, my rent doubles and I can't accept anymore money from my grandmother, not that I even know if it's coming.  I give myself an ultimatum, no job by September 21st and I'm leaving. That gives me until the end of the month to pack up, clean up and get the hell out of dodge.

The deadline passes. I pack up everything I just unpacked weeks ago. I sell anything and everything I have of value that I can afford to part with, clothes, DVD's, miscellaneous wedding crap I have no idea why I still own, on eBay just to afford the moving truck. I go to thrift shops, consignment shops and second hand stores to sell even more. I'm leaving the DVD resale shop and I see a homeless woman with a cardboard sign. I pull out some of my newly acquired cash and hand it out the window to her unwashed hands. I don't even count how many or how large the bills are. Call it believing in karma. Call it the golden rule. Call it investing in my future in case it's me holding the cardboard sign in the near future.

I took the biggest gamble of my life moving here. I lost.

This my life now.

I Don't Know Where I Belong

Three months ago I did the bravest and stupidest thing ever I've done my life. Turns out it was mostly stupid. Moved across the state for a job that laid me off after two months.

My life sucks and whatever mental challenges I'm facing seem like perfectly normal responses to a fucked up situation.  I'm doing better than I have in a long time mentally at least, I'm not down on my self about the situation. I take it well as much in stride as I can, I did nothing wrong. I refuse to find a job that's going to again just buy me time. I didn't move here to buy time. I moved here for a career, not a job. With no career I have no reason to be here in this city of strangers.

My time with the kids is great. The apartment complex has a pool so I take them swimming every weekend, and with no job and school out for summer, the weekends are often long. The friends I stayed with when I first moved here gave me a family zoo membership for my birthday, so we go almost every weekend. We're in my apartment. Mine, not the so called family home. A lot of the mental baggage of that horrible marriage never got packed and that's a hell of a load off. I don't know how long I'll be here though. With no job how long I can stay here. Sooner or later I'll have to move in with family.

My still legally, but not in any other sense of the word, wife asks me if we're getting a divorce or a dissolution. Divorce involves fighting, courts, lawyers and lots of money. A dissolution involves less money and agreeing on everything. My response "Are you willing to discuss you doing half the driving?" "No" "Then I guess it's a divorce."

The house finally sells. Back and forth with the bank for the short sale went on for six months. I go to sign the papers and they want money for closing costs. $250 dollars, and I don't have it. I have $53.24 in my bank account. I know what's fair is paying half, and my ex-wife paying half. But I have choice but to stick her with all of it. I figure we'll just settle that in divorce court, because what other choice do I have?

For the most part, I do my best to put the Librarian out of my mind. But on every trip back and forth to pick up and drop off the kids I pass her exit on the highway. Sometimes I toy with the idea of borrowing her daughter for the weekend because I miss her too, but I never quite get around to doing so because I'm selling blood to see my own kids every other weekend, how can I justify having another kid for the weekend? I try to avoid the temptation, but I bring up her Facebook page every now and then just to see what's going on with her. Doesn't really work though as she has her privacy settings set pretty tight, so except for the occasional profile picture and cover photo update there's next to nothing. There's a difference between "absolutely nothing" and "next to nothing." Next to nothing would be one single post that got through those filters somehow. It's not much just a link to her wedding registry.

This is my life now.

My Own Prison

Hole Lee Shit! So, I'm moving across the state for a job. It's in a city I've been to all of once and that was for the interview. Why am I going here again? Oh yeah because I'm broke and can't say no, and because of a girl. Yeah, chasing a girl was foolish. But if chasing her lead me to this awesome job, then I can accept that the outcome fate had planned for me. At least I didn't wind up in the same city as her, just a nearby suburb, so I'm not a total idiot. Do I really even have a choice here? I'm days away from having the electric shut off ... I have no other job prospects. So, No I don't ... I don't think so.

I got the job offer on Thursday, I'm to start on Tuesday. I have four days to figure out how to move across the state, where to live, what to do with the house, what to pack until I figure that all out and I got about $200 to do all this. Oh ... and I got the kids over the three day Presidents' day weekend leaving me one solid day to figure it out.

Let's start with a place to stay ... Do I even know anyone who lives in this city? I post that question to Facebook and the only response is some guy I'm not even sure I've ever had a conversation with but know, sort of, from a website we both frequented. He and his wife have a spare bedroom I can crash in for an unspecified amount of time. I have no better offers or any other offers. I pack a suitcase and other assorted things I might need.

My plan, if you can call it that, work during the week, live at my house on weekends to spend time with the kids and to pack up. I inform the ex-wife, like it or not, I'm not making another payment on the house. We can sell it, or the bank can take it. She agrees to the plan of selling it. The house is a disaster but I work with the Realtor to get it up for sale. It's up for (short) sale all of two days before we get an offer. We have to deal with the whole bank paperwork, but getting an offer was surprisingly easy.

I chris cross the state weekly. Home, work, home, work. I love the job. The pay is good and I find a cute little garden apartment to call my own. It takes a month to save up enough to make the deposit plus first month's rent. I pack up the house in a single weekend, the ex-wife takes anything she wants, which I've been telling her to do since she left, but for some reason she's refused to do despite having two years to do it. I sell other things I won't need or don't have room for, moving from a three bedroom house with a basement, two car garage and barn on an acre and a half, to a two bedroom apartment. Which is a lot of damn stuff. I will have more money this way too, to last until the first paycheck. Half of everything I own, gone, in two weeks. It's traumatic and liberating at the same time.

The U-Haul is packed. Off I go to my new life. But not before I have a complete emotional break down because Oh-My-God-This-Is-Happening-Fast-And-I-Haven't-Really-Had-A-Chance-To-Think-About-What-I'm-Doing-Only-Do-It.  

But still ... this was the house my kids were born in. There's the drawing my girl made on the wall with her crayons. Over there by the kool-aid stain on the carpet is where my boy took his first steps. Over there in the kitchen about three quarters of the way between the sink and the fridge, that's where I was standing when the Librarian kissed me for the first time. On the other hand over there by the front door is where the ex-wife and I fought, over there by the bathroom door is where we fought that other time, and over there was another fight, and over there, and over there, also over there, there and there. Now the house is empty, it looks like how I've spent most of the past few years feeling.

One month into my new life, and I have a place to live and a healthy paycheck. That's the start to everything I've been wanting and working for, right? The biggest downside to all this is my kids are now two hours away. I didn't think this would be a big deal because every time my ex moved, we'd meet halfway to exchange the offspring. Now that I'm the one who moved, I'm met with the excuse "They're your kids, if you wanna see them you come get them." I have to take them back too because if I don't, I'm threatened with kidnapping charges. 

I figure I'll tough out the eight hours on the road every other weekend for a few months till I can save up and end this marriage officially and legally, and have a judge tell her she has to meet me halfway. It's been two years. I want it done and over with and not to have to deal with her crazy anymore ... or as little as I can while still being involved in my children's lives.

I'm happy. My life is finally back on track, after I thought it was permanently derailed. Everything I've been working, battling for I have or is within reach. It's like I'd been trying to breathe with someone standing on my chest.

Work is good but it's uneasy. I'm paranoid. I've become so used to being unemployed that steady work is freaking me out. There's no criticism of my work, but every bit of indifference by co-workers make me feel like any day could be my last day. During my many job hunts I read anything and everything I could about how to find a job, the economy and anything else I can get my grubby little hands on employment related. 

One article comes to mind about the long term unemployed are having a hard time reintegrating in to the workforce again, social anxieties, paranoia and adjustment issues. It likens returning to the workforce after long term unemployment to be like a convict reentering society after imprisonment. Think of that old convict in Shawshank. Yeah, That sounds like me, only my prison was my big empty house.

So, I suck it up. I go to work everyday with a smile on my face and pretend like nothing is wrong, because odds are, nothing is wrong. No one's saying I'm doing anything wrong.  I go in early and stay late. I volunteer to take up extra work. I shove down the anxiety. I remember another article stating most firings and layoffs happen on Fridays at the end of the day. So Monday is fairly stress free with each day of the week getting more stressful. Friday feels like a heart attack waiting to happen. I decide it must be me. It's always me, always in my head.

The next week Monday is my boy's birthday. It's also one month to the day since I moved into my apartment. Having blown off all the stress over the weekend I'm relaxed and can't wait for the day to be over with so I can call him and tell him Happy Birthday. 

At 1:30pm my boss walks in and tells me "We're going to have to lay you off." That's it. No warm up. No flowery language. No compassion. Nothing. He goes on to tell me they decided to part ways with particular client, which results in a lost in work. Last in, first out. How do you quit working for a client, who pays you to do thier work? 1:30pm on a Monday. Not just any Monday, my son's 3rd birthday and exactly one month into a year long lease on an apartment in a city I don't know anyone in. They knew all this too, and didn't seem to have the slightest bit of empathy for me.

What the fuck just happened?!?

This is my life now.

This Is The End

I didn't fight her when it ended. I didn't try to talk her out of it. I just let the Librarian end it because she wanted to. I should have fought. Lord knows I didn't want it to end. So why didn't I? I guess cause I saw it coming. Not that feeling I had that she was going to hurt me that I had when I first saw her. But ... I was running low on money and while I knew at some point in the future I'd run out. That vague hazy day somewhere in the future was slowly finding its way to a specific date on the calendar. A long distance relationship wouldn't survive that, no matter how good it was.

It was good, good for me, but I guess not so much for her. Maybe she saw it coming just as much as I did. Maybe she knew I'd never be able to end it myself. I tell myself if I'm ever going to get her back I have to get my shit together first. Like a job with real money. So I guess that is my fight. I job hunt again. Something I should have been doing anyway, in reality.

About a week after the break up, she asks me via Facebook why I'm barely talking to her, because she can't help but feel like I'm mad at her. I pick up the phone almost instantaneously and call. She doesn't answer. I leave a voice mail telling her that I'm not mad. That was mostly the truth. I explained to her that I cared to much about her to just be friends. Not now. Maybe not ever. An hour later the phone rings, I see the caller ID, I don't answer, I don't want to fight. I check my messages. She tells me she understands. It doesn't make her happy, but ... she understands. I don't delete the message.

I don't know what to tell the kids about the break up either. I mean, they're too young to understand what dating is, but they do know they saw her and her daughter almost as often as they saw me. I don't tell them anything, except "not this weekend" anytime they ask if we're going visit this weekend. Part of me hopes that being as young as they are they'll eventually just forget. Doesn't appear to be working that way when in the middle of winter my girl decides to draw a picture of all of us at the beach at school.

I muddle through the holidays. I'd been unemployed or underemployed for two and half years and managed to never miss a bill. Sure I'd been late a few times, but I didn't miss any. Come January, I missed them all. I didn't pay a single bill. I couldn't. I'm out of money and I'm out of ideas. Having consulted with a Realtor about selling the house, I'm actually not terribly worried about missing the house payment. Apparently unless you miss a few payments, it's almost impossible to short sale the house. 

I've been toying with the idea for over a year of selling the house to avoid this very situation, I have no real plan of where to go after I do, but any mention of trying to do so is immediately vetoed by the ex-wife, until the divorce is final. Her name is on it, so I can't do it without her. The finality of the divorce is  quite a ways away since neither one of has actually filed since we're both broke.

What do I do? I'm depressed because I'm broke. I'm depressed because of the break up. I'm depressed because I hate my job and the work is below me and the pay is terrible. I'm depressed because I'm depressed. I'm stuck. I try to come up with some sort of solution but I've got nothing. The only thing I can think of to do since the whole find a better job thing isn't panning out, is ask my parents for help. I try to ask them, but it takes me two weeks to muster up the courage to do so but I finally pack up the kids and head down for the weekend.

I ask them for help. I'm not sure what I expected help to be but I thought it'd be more than just financial planning advice. Not that I didn't appreciate it, not that it wasn't helpful, but it was again just going to buy me more time, and not that much to be honest, a month or two tops.

I go into work feeling, half defeated with just a hint of optimism that maybe this plan could work and buy me the time I need. I'm met at the door by my boss "We need talk. This isn't working out." What's not working out? The business? I know you're struggling with the tech. Like last week you sat down at the computer yesterday and asked me how to "find the Google." Me? I'm not working out? Is this because I went to the bathroom during my first hour here the other week, because I heard that conversation through the door and really dude, I understand I'm pooping on the clock, and that's not what you pay me to do but ... really? Five minutes for a bowel movement? I guess I'm not terribly upset about losing this job, but don't exactly have a safety net, or any savings.

I go home up date my resume and apply to every thing I can think of. Odds are I'm going to lose the house anyway so suddenly geography isn't that much of a limiting factor. It's actually kind of liberating. I can stay in the city I'm in, I can move an hour north to be close to the kids, I can move and hour and a half south and be by my parents in the city I grew up in, or ... maybe I'll move two hours east, where the Librarian is. Yeah, I'm that stupid. 

I'm not going to bank on any of those choices, I'll just throw darts and let fate take me where it will. I have interviews north, south and east over the next month, but none in the same city I'm currently in. In between job hunts and interviews, I clean and pack aimlessly. I think I'm leaving, but I don't know when or where I'm going.

Valentine's Day eve, I get a call for a second interview, they want me to come in work two days on a trial basis. I can't say no. So ... I head east.

I head up the night before, Valentine's day. I crash at a friend's place. I'm literally two miles mile away from the Librarian and I'm temped to stop by but ... Valentine's Day. What if she's seeing someone and I stop by on Valentine's Day? Awkward, at best. So I pass, for now. I work one day, they seem to be happy with my work.

The next day I decide with nothing better to do that evening, and having fought the urge for a day already, I give in and go visit the Librarian. No agenda. No attempt to get back together, or clear up unresolved issues or anything. Just to see her face. We've barely spoken in the months since we parted ways. I drive over  I knock on the door.

It opens slowly and her face peers around the door. I can tell by her face I was the last person she expected to be knocking at her door, and really why would she expect me? I live on the other side of the state. "Hi" she barely whispers. Her daughter peeks her head around the door too. She sees me I'm tackled with hugs by her. "Down Dino, down! I'm glad to see you too kiddo" "Hi! Someone else lives here with us now" the child informs me innocently.

My eyes look up and meet her mother's. Her eyes tell me this wasn't some child misspeaking the facts, or a simple roommate to help pay the bills. I had mentally prepared myself for her to be seeing someone else as a near absolute certainly, but I had never even considered this. I realize that my plan to just visit, with no agenda is a failure. I'm not sure what I wanted to happen, but this for sure isn't it.

She invites me in. I accept because my brain is swimming trying to process this new information and nodding my head seems to be all I can manage to do. I go inside. We talk. We catch up. Her luck has been almost as good as mine. She's out of work too, no longer a Librarian, but money isn't a problem. Her "friend" as she politely puts it, makes a lot of money and she can now focus on being a full time student and mom. I'm sure this was intended to have the message that I need not worry about her, but the reality of it was that it just made me feel like crap for being the broke, unemployed loser that my ex-wife accused me of being. It made me feel like the feelings I had for her were meaningless, and money trumped that. I knew somewhere in my heart that wasn't what she was thinking, but it didn't stop me from feeling that way. Money, time, distance, these things aren't supposed to matter. They do though, and I know it and I hate it.
 
I said my goodbye to her, I tried to say goodbye to her daughter as well but she was having none of it. I felt like somehow she knew she'd never see me again, so if she didn't say it, then it's wasn't really goodbye. I left town the next day and a twice broken heart ... And a job.

This is my life now.