Grey Havens

[Zues126]

I can't believe it's been another three months. Time sure flies these days compared to right after BD!

Family. S14. I pretty much let the schooling go. He's going to do what he's going to do. I believe he'll graduate high school, and probably get shaky grades along the way. Based on the way things have played out there aren't a lot of alternatives I have that don't lead to bigger issues. I'm not prepared to go to war on this one, particularly when it might result in him running to mom's house where the war isn't being fought, causing me trouble in other ways, and making our last few years together hostile. It's his life and he's got to live it. And honestly I got horrible grades in school and my life went on. There were consequences to be sure, but I hated school and if I had to go through high school again I'm not even sure I could make it through at all. I'm sure if I had been a better student I could have done a better job earlier in my son's schooling, but I wasn't, I didn't, and from here I'm moving forward. The good news is I am working hard to establish a good continued relationship with him. I FINALLY found something we can do together. There is a computer game called Quern, it's basically a puzzle game where you explore an island and try to figure out how you got there and why. We've been playing an hour a day after he gets off school and on the weekends and we're really enjoying it. He's a smart darn kid, I forgot how much he's grown but I am working hard to contribute because he is a maniac at the game. Also, for his birthday I got him Paul McCartney tickets in WI. The Ringo concert was his favorite memory, the Beatles Tribute band was kind of meh, but Paul is something beyond priceless to him. Bottom line, I'm making sure the last few years we have living together are mostly pleasant and we spend some good time together. To me that's more important than grenading it all to make a point.

D12. She just turned 12! She's doing great. Really good kid. Smart, funny, joyful, and hard working. We continue to have a lot of fun together shooting pool and goofing around. For her birthday I am taking her to Philadelphia at the end of March for a pool tournament. There are two pro events, a 'pro-am' with some pros and some amateurs, and a junior event. She'll play the junior event, I'll play the pro-am. But the main point of taking her out there is we are going a day early and staying through the finals of the pro events. This way she will get to see the best players in the world from front row center. What prompted this was my trip to Louisville in January. I spent 8 days competing against the best in the world and it was so much fun. I just played, then watched matches, then played, then watched matches. I was a pig in mud. There is something so different about being there in the room, feeling the tension in the crowd, watching how they handle or fail to handle the pressure, seeing how well they really play. You just lose so much with a screen. I knew then and there I HAD to get her to a pro event, and lo and behold, I put it together. Of course on all of this I ask her if she wants to because I don't want to be the dad pushing her into stuff, but she always just lights up and says "That would be AWESOME" whether it's about going to PA or playing a local tournament or something. For the trip she has to miss two days of school, we will have a lot of fun together!

D8. D8 is on her way to growing out of baby mode. Still a bit of a struggle, but she's come a long ways. She's included in our nightly reading now (previously she sat out because the books we were tearing through were a bit beyond her) and is keeping up pretty well. Per family request we are re-reading Ender's Game because the other kids love it and wanted her to hear it. She didn't get into chess or cribbage, but I taught her backgammon and she loves it. We had been using some cheap fold out cardboard board with plastic checkers and it was miserable, so I got a nice backgammon set, big, with nice heavy checkers and a heavy duty board. We are now playing every day when she gets home from school.

So our daily routine is I pick S14 up from school and play Quern, then I play Backgammon with D8, then dinner together, then pool with D12, then our nightly show (Star Trek Next Generation currently), then I read, put them all to bed, and am exhausted! That's a lot of games, even for me! But I still try to make time to practice a bit afterwards before I surrender for the day.

Work. Meh. No change. I got my annual review. I'm not being pushed out for production yet. It's weird because I'm missing goals (80-90% consistently, it's not like I'm not showing up) which is normally a fast track to being terminated. But I believe the majority of the reps across the nation are missing goals by wider margins. So with my tenure (10 years in January), my professionalism, leadership, customer service, and steady nearly passable results, I guess they have bigger problems to worry about. And I'm still getting paid decent money, so who cares. I am still trying and need to keep grinding, but that's all it is at this point, a grind.

Pool. I'm hitting them well. I cashed in all three events in that pro tournament in January. Last month I played a tournament in Fargo, ND, finished 2nd and 3rd in the 9 ball/8 ball. Practicing a lot and feeling pretty solid. Put in an all-nighter last Friday and played from 8pm to 7am, just like when I was a kid. Can't get enough. I'll keep pushing. I've kind of given up on my dreams, but I still love the game so much I just want to keep going anyway. We'll see how I do in the PA event.

Oh, XW. I meant to tell you guys this. She broke up with her BF of 4 years. Not her first hook up post BD (or technically prior to BD), but the first one that took roots. Not sure all of the reasons, not really interested. She started pinging me a little bit, making comments that expressed a mix of remorse, regret, and affection. I was surprised by how meh I was. I realized I was not moved by any of this. Yes, I understand the spousal maintenance is up in May and finances will be a lot harder for her when she's on her own and paying off student loans. Yes, I know she's on her own now and dealing with the loss of the M that I went through years ago and she put off by medicating with another man. I get all of that. So I'm not particularly moved by the fact she feels regret when the marriage starts to look better than her current reality. I feel like she's basically saying "Now it looks like it would've worked out better for me to stay married, too bad I'm broke and single". Now if she spends a few years putting her life in order, financially, emotionally, etc, and everything is going great for her, and she expressed true remorse in destroying the M, even allowing for the fact there would be stretches when it wouldn't be convenient or easy, then I might take her words a bit more seriously. But I've come far enough to understand that expressing displeasure at consequences is trivial, and far enough to not have any of this even evoke an emotional response from me. It's pretty amazing. Oh, and no where in here did I talk about the possibility of R or what that would take. I was simple referring to what it would take for her words to carry any substance whatsoever with me. Whatever. I just thought you'd appreciate the update on that. There is a small part of me that feels a bit vindicated of course, but mostly I am just sad to watch her flounder, and slightly concerned about how she'll be able to provide for the kids and if it will impact them in any way.

Well, that's my life. About the same as last time which is all good with me. My kids won't be around forever so I'm going to live these days to the fullest. I have some fears about feeling empty and lonely when they move on, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I can always get a dog. Thanks for being around gang and talk soon!