Just got back from our meeting. Went well, although sad. W asked if we could keep today's talk to just about the custody schedule. I said ok.
W agreed to 50/50 custody. She asked if we could have trust in each other that if one of the kids needs a little extra time with one of us, that we'd be agreeable to informal "flexing" of the schedule on a per child basis, as in ocassionally giving each other "solo" time with each of the kids. I said ok, but I said I wanted our agreement in writing. In fact, I said if we had an agreed upon written custody arrangement, I'd be MORE relaxed about the schedule, not less, because I'd know I could always fall back on our written agreement. She understood, and said if I wrote up what we verbally agreed on, she'd be fine with it.
She was sad during the whole talk, and I was too. I said I was tired of not having a set custody arrangement, and I was tired of us arguing and fighting about it. She defended us and said "We haven't been fighting or arguing. We've been doing well, up until you asked to change the schedule." She smiled and said "You just have bad timing."
There were long pregnant pauses, where each of us was avoiding talking about our R. We successfully avoided it. W asked if we could meet next week to talk about "us". We walked out together, and when we got to the cars, she reached out and hugged me long and hard. The hug just went on and on, almost stopping, then she'd grab hold again. I finally pulled back and ended it, we said goodbye and that was it. I'm glad we will hopefully be able to get a 50/50 custody arrangement in writing.
The good news is I was nervous today, but not only because of the meeting. A couple weeks ago I ran into a young guy I met at one of my open mic performances. He was very complimentary to me, and he asked if I'd like to play a few songs together. I said sure. We met over the weekend and threw around some ideas, then settled on three songs. We're scheduled to play at the open mic night together on Wednesday. I've got my work cut out for me preparing, and I'm nervous about it. Should be an extremely cool set if we can pull it off. We're schedule to play an old Bill Monroe bluegrass tune called "Love Please Come Home", a very cool Funkadelic song from the 70's called "Can You Get to That" (on two acoustic guitars, no less!), and "Mother" by Pink Floyd, which is beyond awesome. The kid is half my age, and he's into all this old music! Writes his own tunes as well, very good stuff. Word has gotten out, and like everyone I know is planning on going to watch. Not too much pressure! I was considering telling W about it today, but I decided not to.
Now I just need to remember all the words to "Mother". Do you think they'll drop the bomb?
