(*) Another response

I wrote a long email to an old friend the other day, in response to the way I reacted to their not really appreciating the whole blog/email/chat thingy re. communicating your feelings that I've been using so much over the last period of time. He asked what happened between 'Ex' and I. Here's an extract from it. (Names and places have been changed to protect the flummerworten... lol)

" Please accept my most humble apologies for the generic emails of late - life's been a bit nutty about here recently (as if that's some kind of excuse). And yes, the language is changing viz. emails and blogging and chat etc etc, whether we like it or not. I've been communicating with people online for about five years now, and I'm just very comfortable with that form of interrelating. Well, that's just the way it is for me, right or wrong! I'm a Baby-Boomer/Baby-Buster mixing it up with Generation-Y! (I'm not writing to create art here, I'm just writing to put feelings down. If somebody reads and responds, that's nice. If not, that's nice too).

What happened to Ex and I? The easiest way to say it is that - I went mad, and she couldn't live with that, and decided to walk away rather than walk with me and help me through it. That's life - it's shitty, but that's the way things work out when you trust people to be there for you! She divorced me, I resigned from all ministry, I suffered through two nervous breakdowns, I was falsely accused and then wrongfully arrested in relation to child-related matters (since all cleared up), and to top it all off the local church decided gossip was a good means of disseminating versions of the truth. Needless to say, nowadays I loathe anything to do with Churchianity. If anyone tries to 'soothe me' with pat off-the-cuff Bible verses, the hairs on my neck rise. I don't go to a church anymore. Actually, a lot of people who were acting as my good friends when I was in full-time ministry both in and out of the church now totally ignore me. It's not like a paranoia thing either - over the period of three years I have been snubbed, had phone calls and messages not returned from people I expected a whole lot more from. But - people are just people, like it or lump it. So, I've been forced to walk away from a whole way of living (that I know realise was totally false and empty - the church-stuff, that is).

Ex and I didn't have a huge fight nor did things get really messy or bitter - nothing like that. At first we decided and agreed together (with a marriage counsellor) that we needed some time apart to sort through our issues. When I did approach her to keep working things through with her, she'd already made up her mind that she didn't want to, and that "our relationship is finished." Easy as that. I had no say in the matter. Ex's a good woman, but as stubborn as a mule when she gets it into her head - when she sets her mind one way, there's absolutely no way to alter that mindset. And, so it was. There was nothing I could do to make her change her mind or see things in any other light - her mind was already closed. Within 6 months of our separation, she was already seeing another bloke. And now she's marrying him.

The boys think he's a nice guy (he seems to be), and I think it's great that they're all happy together. Ex is very possessive of the boys - there's no legal hassles or custody issues - nothing like that at all between us. I can see the boys whenever I want - technically. Although in practise it's only when it suits her, which drives me absolutely nutty. The boys miss me terribly, but Exs' stubbornness does not allow me the right to see the boys at their place at any time! Something has to always be 'organised' at a certain time and place, just so the boys and I can just hang out together! The spontaneity that we have always loved as being a unique part of ourselves has now to be a planned event. It's not the best, but it's what is happening, and I'll take what I can get. Hopefully when she settles down from her wedding and stuff, things might settle down a bit as well. Her husband doesn't have an issue with me (as such) being the boys' father... except that Ex's protectiveness prohibits me from actually meeting him! Isn't that ridiculous? He's met and even had meals with my mum and my brother, but not with me! Crazy $#ite! Well, that's just life. (Not as we know it, Jim... not as we know it...).

I moved to the Central Coast in the middle of 2002, because I was getting frozen-out of too many friendships here. People walking on the other side of the street and whispering behind hands - that sort of thing. But when I'd ring and try to talk to these same people, they'd say there's nothing wrong, and let's catch up sometime. When I'd try to arrange a time and place to do that with them, they'd beg off with some excuse. Once - I understand. But over and over again? It got too chilly to live in the same town with self-righteous a$$holes like that - I was still trying to recover from my second breakdown. The lies and gossip that went around I can actually trace to one church elder, who flatly denies it, but I know it was him. ^%$#@. Anyway, the 'grand experiment' of living away from 'here' lasted 12 months. Basically - I missed the boys too much. It's always about the boys. If I was shitty father (which even Ex acknowledges I am not!), I'd just piss off and live in Greece! But it's about the boys - I love them too much. They are an indivisible part of my life, and being physically separated from them is one of the main reasons my mental and physical health is sliding downhill at an alarming rate.

I'm just talking here, OK? I'm not looking for answers, I'm just talking and seeking a listening ear. This has been a lot of the way I've been communicating with some very good friends over the last few years, is by writing - just talking, letting off some steam, thinking as I talk as I write - however it comes out. These people I've known well now understand and appreciate that, and can see thru the smoke enough to see what's just huff and what's really elemental with me. That's fine. blah blah blah.

I mean, what I miss most in all of this is not having anyone 'here' to just hang out with. Someone to just bounce ideas off with, to laugh with, to hang out with. That's one of the hardest parts. Just having someone physically around to listen, not give answers, but just 'be there' to listen. That's all I wanted. But after Ex divorced me (in December 2002), that really ripped out my confidence in trusting other people too closely again. So, in many regards, that's one of the reasons why I write 'generic emails', because it's a way of not getting too close to people! hahahaa! Does that make it a bit clearer? " (nb. Italics are mine!)

It's interesting reading that again after a day or two of having sent it. That final paragraph sums it up in a nice way for me, I think. I always dreamed of having someone to grow old with. But now I'm not sure I have the inner self confidence to be able to trust someone that closely again! That scares me, too, feeling like that.

On This Day...
Births: Romulus, founder of Rome
Deaths: Jim Croce (1973)
Soundtrack: The White Album (Beatles); local AM radio.

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Cyalayta
Mal :o)
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train." (Robert Lowell)
"The Lord survives the rainbow of His will." (Robert Lowell )