All You Need Is Love?

You all know what I want more than anything.  I loved being married and I want kind of a partnership again.  I want to be with my partner all the time.  I want to come home to him every night.  I want to have to separate our socks on laundry day.  I want to make dinner for him and for him to make dinner for me.  I want to have to check with him before I accept an invitation to a party or make a large purchase. I want to get in bed at the end of the day each night and talk about our day as we drift off to sleep.  I want to make up in the night and see him laying next to me. I want to go grocery shopping with him. I want him to be so connected to me that when either of us goes somewhere alone, people ask where the other is. I want to wake up every morning next to him.  I want him to be involved with my family and I want to be involved with his.  I want him to be my husband.

I want to share all of my life with my partner.

You know I love T.  I love him with all my heart.  I am deeply IN love with him.  My love for him is unconditional and permanent.  I know his love for me is the same.  I am a lucky man to have a man love me the way he does.  I've lost some hair since I've know him.  I put on some weight (and lost some) in the time I have known him and he loves me just the same.

I don't want just any man to be my partner.  I want T and no other.  I want the man I love above all others.

You know that T and I do not live together.  T lives with his elderly parents and two younger sisters and that is not likely to change. His parents are old fashioned and while they accept him as gay, and they (sort of) accept me as his boyfriend (even thought they don't talk about it).  His sisters have their own issues and he cannot bear to see then left alone. He does not like to see my alone either, but not quite as much.

So where does that leave me? I spend a good deal of time with my kids at K's house, but when that is over I head home back to my house... Alone.  I eat a snack alone.  I fold my laundry, without having to separate  socks.  I put on MSNBC because I want to.  I don't have to admit it's okay because I am there alone. 

The is not alone. He has dinner with his family.  The talk about the day they had.  They talk about the garden or the problem with the landscaper.   They tell jokes to each other and laugh together at the funny ones.  The work together to clear the table. After dinner the spread out and each do their own thing, but they are still all together.

I know this family togetherness does not replace the his desire to be with the man he loves.  I know in his heart, T wants the same thing I want.  The problem is, if he is together with me, it would upset his whole family apple cart. He's just not willing to do that.  Being with me would simply turn his whole world upside down.  It would impact his whole family.  He is not willing to do that for me.

Maybe it is not fair for me to ask that.  It probably isn't.  Especially when you consider that in his very first email communication, the VERY first one, he told me he could not ever live with anyone.   Over the years he has been consistent and clear. Every time I whined about it, he told me that he could not promise to be with me.  He told me over and over again.  Get each time I allowed myself to believe, that my love would change him.  I dreamed that his love for me would overcome the fear he had of upsetting his family.

But lately, as I have been spending more and more time alone, I am starting to see that, he is not going to change.  He is not going to be with me.  As much as we love each other, in order for us to stay a couple, I will have to get used to being alone.  I am not sure that I can do that.  The more lonely I get, the more frustrated I feel.  I could do it for a while. I could do it if I knew there was light at the end of the tunnel. But I have no idea how long the tunnel is

T is very perceptive.  He has noticed my frustration.

On Thursday, After texting back and forth for a while, I decided that I needed to see him. I drove down to his house.  It was late, with me arriving about 10:00.  We both knew what was going to happen.  Neither of were happy about it.  He met me at the door with a huge and a kiss.  We went up to his room and and sat on his bed.  We held each other. We cried.  We sobbed.  We blew noses and wiped our eyes.

"Is this then end of us?" he asked me.

We both knew the answer.  I was offering him a life with me and he was unable to accept it. We promised each other we would remain part of each others lives.

I will never stop loving him, but I just cannot stand to be alone most of the time forever. 

So, What's next?  I really don't know.  I read how some of my fellow bloggers have trouble in the gay dating world and I am not eager to deal with that.  I am older, fatter, and balder that I think most guys would be attracted to.  Hell, I'm not attracted to guys who look like me.

I really don't know what to do next.  I am scared.  I'm still lonely.

Missing You...

Every Rose Has A Thorn

Last Saturday, T came to my house after work.  We planned ahead.  His office will be closed for Labor day.  He will be staying with me for the weekend.

Yes.  He will be sleeping in my bed for 2 nights!  IN A ROW!!!  I am so happy, I can hardly stand it.  He told me he will have to bring homework with him.  He has things he just has to get caught up on over the weekend.  "Of course." I told him.  As long as he is with me, I don't care if he brings a little paperwork.

He showed up after work, we went out for a nice dinner.  We have a lot of nice dinners together, but this one was different.  After this dinner we were going home together.

When we got back home (my home) we took a shower and got ready for bed.  We got into bed...together... and settled in for the night.  We watched a movie that I had on the DVR.

The next morning we stayed in bed a little longer than I usually would.   I offered to make him breakfast, but he decided to wait until lunch.  He worked on some paperwork and I introduced him to "Blazing Saddles".

I made lunch and we ate together... at my kitchen table.  Just us.  I wanted him to see what life with me might be like.  And I was getting a taste of what life with him would be like.  I allowed myself, for a moment, to believe the dream of a life where we are together.

Later that day, we took my kids to dinner and then my daughter to the movies. (The other kids were invited, but only she wanted to go.) After the movie, he headed back to my house while I brought my daughter back to K's house.  

As I drove from K's house, in the car alone, heading home, I was almost giddy.  I was not going home to an empty house.  I was going home to T.  My man was home waiting for me.

When I got there he was on the couch with papers all around.  He has a stack he needed to get through before bed.

I sat on the floor leaning against the couch while he worked.  We watch "Storage Wars".  When he was finished working for the night, he laid down on the couch and dozed while we watched TV.  His arm wrapped around as he absently rubbed my chest.

When the episode we were watching (well, I was watching because he fell asleep), I turned, kissed him gently and said, "Come to bed, honey."  That was something I had been waiting to say to him for more than 4 years

As we headed up to bed, I was thinking about how normal this was.  It was the life I had always dreamed about.  My man was here will me and we were heading to bed together for the night. We did not do that much stuff.  We did not have non-stop sex.  We did spend time together.  It was simple and wonderful.


But I knew that it was going to come to an end.  The next morning he was going to leave.  He was going to go home and I was going to be alone.  I put that out of my mind for the night and we had a great night together.  I usually wake several times during the night and it was so nice to wake up and have him in the bed next to me.

The next morning, we got up.  Despite the holiday, I had to work.  T had to go home, and then to an event that he had planned a long time ago.

The time I was not letting myself think about was here.

As he kissed me goodbye, I held back the tears.  I knew I was going to be alone most of the day, and I was going to miss him terribly.  I always feel the most lonely, just after I see him.

Connection Points

Peasant woman "Getting into trouble again aren't we Aladdin." 

Aladdin: "Trouble, heh you're only in trouble when you get caught" 

Palace Guard: "Gotcha" 

Aladdin: "I'm in trouble"

I was talking to a friend the other night about connections.  He and his partner who have been together a relatively short time, are getting married soon.   It is clear they are very much in love and they have an strong connection.  I told him, what they have now was only going to get better.  The connection a couple forges over time, that get stronger over time, is really something magic.  Something beautiful.  Something they cannot truly appreciate now.  And the really cool thing is, it happens almost automatically, the more time they spend together.

When K and I first moved in together, about 6 months before we for got married, we had no money.  We rented a small one bedroom apartment.  We had almost no furniture.  We could not afford cable TV and because it was an downstairs apartment.  What we has was a small TV, K used to have in her dorm, a VCR and a much of tapes.  (My younger readers can click here if they are unsure what a "VCR" is.)  One of the tapes we had, and watched a lot was Disney's "Aladdin"  If you have seen the movie, you know the scene above is pretty funny.  Between K and I, "I'm in trouble" said like the character in the movie is a thing between us, a connection point.  And it has been for nearly 20 years.

We have a thousand other connection points like this that have developed over the years.  These connection points develop when two things are present.  A lot of time past and a lot of time together.  My K and AJ do not have a lot of these yet.  My friend and his partner don't have as many as they will.  T and I don't have as many as I want for use to have.

K & AJ and my friend & his partner, have not been together long enough.  T and I have, but we have not spent enough time together.

T and I have a plan to spend the weekend together next week.  His office will be closed for Labor day.  We will get together on Saturday when he is done with work and stay together until late on Monday afternoon.  I know it's only 48 hours, but for us it's almost spending a lifetime together.  I don't know what we will do, but I don't really care as long as we are together.

He knows I have been frustrated with the amount of time I have been spending alone and I think this weekend will give us a chance to re-connect and discuss where we see our future going.

Yeah, He Told Me So

A month of so ago I wrote about how I was thinking about letting an 18 year old kid move in with me. (here)  At the time I thought it was a good idea, but T did not.  K was not thrilled when I told her either.


So here I am a month later, kicking his ass out.

I am not going to get into the list of things he did to piss me off, but if I had listened to T in the beginning I would not be here today.

This Thing Called Love

T came as scheduled last night.  We had dinner at my house and then we went up stairs.  My roommate has been away for several days and was not there last night, so we had the house to ourselves.

It was just so nice to be together with him.  Even though I am lonely a lot of the time, when he is here with me, I forget all about that and I melt into him.  When he holds me I just forget my problems and all stresses.  There is just me and him and I am happy.

Home But Not Alone, Not Tonight Anyway.

Time is at a premium for me these days.  Having just come back from vacation, then having my middle son in the hospital for 2 days (He's fully recovered.) and then finding out about a re-org at work has been pretty stressful.  I have found out my boss's contract was not renewed.  I got along really well with him.  He was the kind of boss that tells you the goals you have to achieve and then goes away until you tell him you're done.  My new boss has a reputation as a micro-manager, but since he is based 4000 miles and 5 time zones away, I am hoping micro-managing will be difficult for him and he will just give up.  I am not a task monkey.  I am a highly, skilled professional with almost 20 years of experience in my field.  They are paying me a lot of that experience too.  If he will leave me alone, he will get the results the company wants.

But tonight I am not worried about that.  Tonight T is coming to my house.  He will come right after work, we will have dinner at my house (Yikes, what will I make???) and then he will stay the night.  

He does not come nearly enough, but I live for these all night visits.  I love having him sleeping beside me (even though for a small guy he snores like a buzz saw).  Just having him there will me makes me so happy.  We don't even have to have sex.  I mean sex is nice, but if I had to choose between having a few hours of sex and then going home, or spending all night cuddled next to him, I would take the cuddling any day of the week.

Lonely at Home

I got home from my trip Tuesday, but I will not be seeing T any time soon.  Yes, he is totally swamped at work.  He thought he had hired some help, but he had to fire the guy after 4 days because he was not a knowledgeable in real life as he was in the interview.   He worked late tonight, (well past 8:30pm) so I didn't think I could get to him tonight, but I was hoping for tomorrow.

He has to have a root canal tomorrow and I know he won't be in the mood to do much after that.   I wanted to come and just be with him.  I know he will have to work while I am there, but just being there with him is nice.  But that is not going to happen.

He has company visiting.  He told me who, but I can't remember.  It is a relative or family from Vietnam, but since this person does not know T is gay, I am not welcome at his house while his company is there.  For me to come would cause stress for his mother.  Despite increasing the loneliness and hurt I will feel, it is more important to him that he not upset his mother's apple cart. If he has to disappoint one of us, I am always the one that gets thrown under the bus  (I know this sounds shitty, but I am really hurt tonight and I feel really shitty.)

His sister is having a birthday part on Saturday.  I am not sure if I am still invited to that or not.    If I am and I do go, I don't know who I will be.  Maybe her friend?  Certainly not the target of one man's love.  Even if I am invited, I am not sure that I will go.

I will get to see him next Wednesday.  He has promised to come to my house and stay the night.  Of course I am delighted he is coming, but it's 7 days away.  I did not see him before I left for my trip because I was so sick, and then I was gone for 11 days.  Now I have to wait another 7 days to hold the man I love.  That's almost a month since I have been held by the man I love.

I am lonely.

I am sad.

I am heartbroken.

Back from the Wilderness & Lessons

Yesterday, the kids and I drove back home.  All together we logged just over 2,500 miles in 11 days, but we all had a great time.  This was my favorite view of the whole trip.  I could not get enough of being on the water on our pond in the middle of nowhere.

When ever I go to camp, I have time to think about stuff.  I often think about things differently when I am there.  Here are some observations.

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The first night we were there, after I got the kids tucked into the tent, went an sat by the fire.  I was there by myself since my sister and her husband had gone to bed wit their kids.  There was an empty chair next to me.  I was missing T terribly.  I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair.  I had almost convinced myself that I could reach over and hold his hand.  But, of course, he was not there.

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A kayak is a metaphor for life.  Especially if you are a child.  This trip, my daughter learned to paddle her own kayak.  She was very excited about it.  I launched mine first and my mother helped my daughter launch hers.  As she drifted away from the shore she was not sure what what to do.  She knew how to paddle, since I had taught her before with her sitting in my kayak. This time, she was on her own.  I was not far away, but the truth is I could not help her move that boat.  If that boat was going to get where she wanted it, she was going to have to do it herself.  

"Where do you want to go?" I asked her.  

She thought a moment and said, "Let's go to the dam."  There is a small dam on the southern end of the lake.

"OK.  You lead the way." I told her.  She picked up her paddle, turned her kayak around and headed south.  On the way she explored Lilly pads and and the other shallow areas on that end of the pond.  She was the captain of her little ship and she made it go where she wanted it to go.

I think it is a good lesson for life.  You need to be the captain of your little ship and if you want it to go in a certain direction, you need to make it go where you want it.

Going Off the Grid

I am still sick.  Whatever this thing is, it's has stuck with me like I just can't believe.  I have never been this run down for this long ever in my life.  I am making some improvements and I have made it back to work, but it's really hard.  

This picture is from August 2009, shortly after I started writing.  I took a family trip with the kids to Maine where my parents own some land on a lake.  This is my 3 boys kayaking with me.  My youngest on the left was only 7 and driving his kayak on his own like a champ.


On Saturday, me and the kids are going back.  It will be the first time we have ever gone there without my dad.  It was one of his favorite places to be.  I have always loved it too, it's just that's it's so far away that it's hard to get there all the time.   We will be there with my mother, sister and her husband and their 2 kids.  It's all my kids can think about all week.  There were very scared my illness was going to sideline the trip.  I am really thinking about it as a pilgrimage.  Sort of like a victory tour for my dad and the stuff he worked hard to leave for us. 


When we go, there is limited electricity.  There is no internet service and only occasionally will I get service on by Blackberry.  Once of the nice things about being there is that you are out of touch for a while.  I will keep my phone in my pocket like I always do, but only because it's also my camera.  I will get lot's of pictures. 


I very much need this time away.  I have any anything in over a year.  I with T would be coming with me, but with his work, it's not even realistic to ask.


I will let you know how the trip goes when I get back.


Take care everyone.  And if someone could feed my fish, I'd really appreciate it.

Sick

Since last Tuesday I have been sick. I would usually feel OK in the morning, and then deteriorate throughout the day.  Last night was the worst.  It was so bad it drove me to the doctor.  And not just any doctor, the Urgent Care doctor.  T was giving me a hard time about me not wanting to go.  Then I had K giving me a hard time too.  So I went.  Mostly to get them to shut up.

After hanging around a long time I finally got to see the doctor.  I am not exactly sure what I was waiting for, since as far as I could tell there were no other patients in the whole place.


After running several tests he did not know what was wrong with me, but guessed it was some kind of infection.  He gave me some antibiotics and sent me on my way.


I was really feeling awful and alone.  T offered to come up and be with me.  I thought that was a very nice offer.  While I would have been delighted to see him I knew 2 things.  He has a shit load of work to do and he would get none of done at my house.  I was going to be asleep by the time he got here and I was not going go be good company at all.  Another thing... I did not want him to get what I have.  He does not have time to be sick and I would hate for him to get it.


I love that he was going to come and I love him very much.


Today I have felt crappy, but at 6:30 pm, I don't feel as bad as I did yesterday at the same time. I am taking that as a good sign.  I have to teach classes all day for the next 5 days.  Because I work for a very small company, there is no one else who can teach it for me.  Because I have vacation planned for next week, I can't reschedule the classes.


Even writing this has been exhausting.  I'm going back to bed.

You Just Never Know

As I was reading my new blogger friend Vinny's blog, it became clear that he and his partner Craig, have a Dominant/submissive kind of relationship.  There is one post that describes an intimate session where Craig is handcuffed in an uncomfortable position and Vinny is doing his thing while pulling Craig's hair.   Craig seems to enjoy being manhandles and Vinny likes to do it.


Reading a little more, it is clear these 2 guys are completely in love with each other.  Based on that description of that session, I made assumptions about their relationship and the dynamic between them.   Vinny has been kind enough to talk to me about it at length, revealing many details that are both personal and sensitive.  I will not get into the details here, but suffice it to say, that he is giving me quite an education.  Both about the hardcore DOM/sub culture in general and the very personal relationship between these 2 guys.


To further my education he told me about a website I could check out.  It's kind of like a ManHunt for fetishes.  So I went to check it out.


As part of their free tour, I was able to search within my state for people online now.  I was not able to open any profiles or read them unless I created an online account.  The header page assured me it was free and only take 60 seconds.  They were right.


So I created an account and filled in the minimum amount of information so I could get to what I wanted to see.  It made me put of a picture so I found one of T in his doctor outfit and said I want to make a house call and give someone a rectal exam...  (just kidding T  :) ) 


But seriously.  In the name of research, I poked around the profiles for Charlotte  There were not that many.  Just a couple of pages worth.  What I found scared me.  There were people into all kinds of thing and I did not think this was the kind of thing I wanted to get involved with.  (Even if I was not already in a committed relationship.)


I was just about to close it down when one of the profile pictures caught my eye.  It was familiar. I looked again.  I clicked on the profile.


It was someone I knew.  It was someone I know to be "straight" and married.  I think it is highly unlikely that his wife knows he is here looking around, but there he is.  He posted the same picture on this fetish site that he uses on his Facebook profile.  He was looking for someone to do some very painful sounding things to his ass.   I am not going to list them here.  It's not that I find it offensive, per se.  It's just I have tried to kept this blog in a condition suitable so mother can read it (and she does) so I will keep it that way for now.


Anyway, logged out of the site and closed my browser. It is unlikely I will ever go back.  


Now, I am not completely sure what to do with this bit of information I have.  I have no desire to ruin this guys family.  Maybe I should reach out to him privately and let him know he should be more careful.  Maybe I should do nothing and mind my own business.

New Friends, Kid Time, and Love

Over the past few weeks I have made 2 new friends.  One local and one far away, both quite a bit younger than me.

I met a guy I will call "Cody" a few weeks ago.  He is 23, gay and trying to work his way through school.  In some ways he is more mature than I would have expected.  His thoughts around how to relate to others are pretty mature and compassionate.  He has had a interesting and difficult life for someone his age.  I am not going to share the detail here, but that he has gotten through to this point earns him some respect from me.

On the other hand, he has some immature tendencies too.   He is looking for work now and he landed a temp temp job that could lead to more work.  The job requires him to work in a retail store and they want him to wear a name tag that, admittedly, is not very stylish.  He plans to refuse to wear it, because it's ugly.  Not a smart idea, I suggested.  If he is looking for something more regular, he should just do it for the few hours they are paying him.  It's not like it will kill him.   He didn't want to hear about it and was going to refuse.   

The other, I will call "Vinny".  He is a blogger who stumbled across my blog and wrote to me.  I will not share his blog's name, since it's private, but it's an interesting read.  Vinny lives about a 1000 miles away from me.  He is in his 20's and lives with his partner (soon to be husband) who is also in his 20's.  Both both Vinny and his partner have interesting, yet very different pasts.  The more I read of his blog, I am struck by how drastically different they are, but how well they compliment each other.  If you believe in soul-mates, then these guys are it.

Vinny and I have been trading email for a few days now and last night I was up WAY too late, chatting with him on Yahoo messenger.  We had an interesting and wide ranging conversation.  He made me think about some stuff, that I will write about another time.  I need to think about it more before I do.

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Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with my kids.  It was actually my oldest son who floated the idea of taking all the kids to the movies to see the new Ice Age movie.  We saw the 3D version and it was a lot of fun.  I didn't really like the movie, but they all did, which is all I care about anyway.

We (me and the kids) talked about our upcoming trip to my families camp in Maine.  We will be leaving 2 weeks from yesterday and will be gone for a week and a half.  I will be offline during that time.  For this trip, we will kind of split the kids.  I will drive up with them, go to camp and then meet K and AJ in Connecticut.  We will hang out there as a big family for a few days, and then I will leave for home alone and K will take the kids to AJ's family for a few days before she brings them all home.

I can't wait for this trip.  It will be the first time we have been to camp without my dad.  It was one of his most favorite places in earth and even when he was not feeling well, he always perked up when it was time to go to camp. Since we live so far away, we do not go as often as I want to and when we do, I can't stay as long as I want to.  This trip will be something like a pilgrimage. I guess you could call it a tribute to my dad.

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After the movie, I headed to T's house.  His mother made this wonderful beef and noodle soup that I had been looking forward to all day.  It was just as good as I thought.  His mother was particularly friendly last night.  She is always nice and polite, but last night she went out of her way to engage me in some limited conversation.   I say limited, because her English is not very good, so we have never had a real conversation.  That's not really important, what is important, is that she made the effort.

After dinner we went up to T's room...

Closed the door...

Got on the bed...

and he pulled out...

... a huge box of paperwork he had brought home from the office.

I hung out there for several hours, where we would exchange some smooches in between charts and lab reports.  

My poor overworked baby... 

Unsure and Second Guessing

I often make decisions with my heart rather than my head.  I do it all the time.  Sometimes it has paid off for me and other times it has not.  But I have never been really hurt by making a bad decision.


If you have followed my blog over the past few years you probably already know this is true.  My whole saga of divorcing K coming out at a gay man was lead by my heart.  If I only listened to my head, I would have probably done things quicker, but I think I might have done more damage in the long run.


Other times, I have had to be told my someone that I was doing the wrong thing.  T often fills that role for me.  He is analytic in his thinking and he is not shy about telling me when he thinks I am on the wrong track.


Today might be one of those days.  


A few weeks ago, my roommate announced he was moving out at the end of August.  I could pay my expenses without his help, but I have gotten used to the extra income.  I have not yet posted an ad on Craigslist, but I have been looking through the "housing wanted" ads.  I wrote to some and have had 2 people come and look.  


One of them is a 18 year old kid.  He has graduated high school and he has a job, but not a great one.  He was living at home, but when his parents caught him with another boy, they started giving him a really hard time and he felt the need to move out.  He is staying with friends now and looking for a place to live.  He tells me he mostly likes girls and has only fooled around around a couple of guys.


I have a large room for rent, but I also have 2 smaller rooms that I have not been renting, but I could.  He cannot pay want I want for the large room, but I think I would be willing to rent one of the smaller rooms to him for what he can afford.  He showed me his pay stubs and said he could pay the first month up front.  I will run a criminal background check.  At his age I don't expect to find much, but I will check anyway.

I feel like I am doing my part to help out a queer kid that needs it.  This kid could have been me a number of years ago, but for the Grace of God.


I told T about it.  He has a bad feeling.  He did not say specifically why, but he thinks I caution is in order.  I was so sure I was doing the right thing, but now I am not so sure.  I will have to think about it more.

Time For Us

T and I are both busy with our work.  We have not had much time to be together as much as we would like.  I know he wants to see me as much as I want to see him.  Even when we talk on the phone, one or both of is tired or has homework to do.


I wish we were living together.  We would still be busy and tired, but at least we would have our nights together.  In each other's arms.  I know he wants that too. 

Really? Another one?

I have been missing blogging.  I just have not had time.  After several months of not that much to do at work, I have been swamped for the last month and will be for the the next month at least.  I want to write more often, I just need to make more time.


The big news lately... K is knocked up!!


I am not surprised.  Ever since our daughter was born, I have known K wanted another child.  At the time I told her no.  We had 4 and that was enough for me.  


When it became clear that we were not going to stay married, she considered having one on her own.  She held off because she met AJ and less than 6 months after getting married, she was knocked up.


Both her and AJ are pretty happy about the idea.  I was there when they told the kids and they were pretty happy too.  My youngest son was disappointed that K was not having a boy. 


I am pretty indifferent really.  Her having a baby or not is not really my concern.  It does not effect me that much, though T is certain I will be changing diapers for her.  I don't think I will.

The reason I am taking time to write about this, is about freedom.  My freedom not to be hamstrung by the nutty things that K like to do, usually without thinking about it.  She is very stressed all the time and frequently stressed out with the kids.  I am not sure how she will deal with another one.  Not only that, this kid will be born in January, just when she is due to start her final semester of nursing school.  The kid will be too young for daycare so she will have skip school.  Because of the structured program she is part of, she will probably have to wait until the following January to finish school, delaying her getting a job for a year.


Why didn't she wait 6 months and plan the birth for when she will be out of school?  Because that's the way she is.  I have always been frustrated by that, but not anymore.  It's not my problem anymore and I really could not be happier about it.

Was it Gay Day?

Wednesday night T and I had a date night.   I picked him up at his office and then we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant.  


As we walked in, I saw a tall, young and attractive black man behind the counter.  The hostess handed him our menus and he led us to our table.  I noticed the way his hips moved and thought he might be gay.  As he sat us he spoke and listening to his voice confirmed my suspicion.  I know that I may have been playing into a stereotype, but stereotypes don't come from no where, right?


We had our meal, which was just OK and then we went into the mall.  I had ordered a new pair of glasses and they were ready for me to pick them up.  As we headed there, we notices these 2 guys walking on the other side of the walk way, heading the other direction.  T noticed them too because as they passed he looked at me and I knew what he was thinking.  Gay.

After we got my glasses we walked out of the glasses store and we saw another 2 guys walking together.  One was hugely muscular and wearing a string tank to show them off.  The other was big, but fatter.  They walked faster than us and caught up to us and then passed us.  We could hear them talking.  T looked at me again.  I look at him.  Gay.


Then we went into a big department store.  T was looking for something for his mother.  After wondering around there for a while, we headed out, passing through the mens department. I noticed yet another gay couple shopping together.  This couple was older, like us, but they were clearly together.


We kept asking ourselves what was going on.  I mean sometimes we see a gay couple when we are out.  Not every time, but sometimes.  And never this many in one night, in one place.  


I guess since we don't go to the gay meeting, we didn't get the memo.

Who Was That?

Last night I was getting my daughter ready for bed.  She had just gotten out of the shower and I was toweling her hair dry when the phone rang.  It was T.


Me: Hello?
T: I just wanted to call and tell you I love you.
Me:  I love you too.  Let me finish here and I'll call you back.
T: OK. Talk to you later.


After I hung up the phone, my daughter asked me who was calling.  I told her it was T.


"How come you told him 'I love you'?" she asked.
"Well, T is very special to me." I answered. (she is 7)
"I've heard a boy tell a girl 'I love you' or a girl tell a boy, but never a boy tell a boy." She continued.


Without getting into too much detail with her, I told her that sometimes boys like other boys and girls like other girls and that's OK.  She seemed to accept that answer and went on to the next thing,


Almost a year ago, K and I sat down the 3 boys and we told them I am gay and T is my boyfriend.  We did not tell my daughter because we figured she was too young.  But we always said if she asked questions we would tell her the truth.  


Today I did.

Divorced Daddy Day

Yes, I know today is Mother's day, but but I have a father story tonight.


Yesterday I was hanging around my house for the morning while the Dish Network guy came and installed a new dish on my roof.  I am finally upgrading to HD.  K had some errands to run and the  younger kids wanted to hang out at my house for the morning.  I was delighted to have them over.


They came over and, as usual, they asked to go to their friends house to play.  Of course I let them go since I want their visits to be enjoyable.  I was glad for the time I got to spend.


After a while they came back with their friend asking to go the a local park to play there.  They each had a Light Saber and they wanted to use the stuff at the playground as their Death Star.  What could be more fun than that?


So we end up at the playground, and it really is a cool one.  It's was build at the local YMCA and open to the whole community.  The kids had a blast.  Even thought I had other things to do, I really liked that they were having a good time.  While they played, I spent tome watching the other people there.  I not the other kids so much, but the adults.  There were a few moms that seemed to be there alone.  There were several men there too, but all of them seemed to be there with their wives.  As far as I could tell I was the only divorced dad at the park that day.


This was the not the first time I was at the park with the kids since my divorce.  But this was the first time I gave it much thought.  I remember taking my kids places and thinking that people might think I was a divorced dad.  At that time I wasn't and I remember thinking how lucky I was to have a rock solid marriage with K.  Today that is not the case.  


I don't think I was troubled exactly just because I am divorced,  I am more thinking about how things change.  I am thinking about how important it is that I keep a close relationship with my children.  I was glad I brought them there to play.


I am glad that they asked to come over to my house.  


I am glad I am still connected with my kids.

Fight For Me?

Since I have been an adult, No one has ever fought for me.  Never has there been a time when someone stood up, got in front of me and said, "No!  He's mine and you're not going to hurt him!".


Even as I wrote that I makes me feel a little uncomfortable.  After all I am a man and I should be able to take care of myself.  And I can.  But sometimes, I want someone to stand up for me.  To say that I am the most important thing in his life and no one is going to get between us.  Even if others may not like it right away.  Even if it causes some temporary conflict, I want him to hold me and tell me everything will be okay.  That come hell or high water we, together, is the most important thing in his life.


Maybe I'm just being a big drama queen.

Fighting for Love

One of the traits I inherited from my father is a disdain for confrontation.  I tend to avoid confrontation whenever possible.  This trait has actually caused me a lot of problems over the years in both my personal and professional life.


Occasionally however, I have felt so strongly about something that I have been forced to push back, even against people I care about.


Shortly after K and I got married there was something about her that my father did not like.  He told me about it.  A bunch of times, in fact.  Finally I had to tell him to stop.  I had to remind him that K was my wife and I loved her.  I heard what he said and I didn't want to hear about it any more.  This was not a nice, pleasant conversation.  It was highly animated.  There was a lot of yelling and I ended the conversation my walking away from my father grabbing K and heading for my car.  


I felt strongly that my dad was wrong.  I felt strongly I had to defend my wife.  And we had a confrontation.  He never mentioned it again.


The next time I have to have an ugly confrontation on K's behalf, was during the planning of her sister's wedding.  Again, I am not going to get into all the details, but suffice it to say that it was bad enough that I was compelled to go alone to her parents house to confront both her parents and her sister.  Again, it was not pretty.  It was not a pleasant conversation.  There was a lot of yelling, mostly me yelling at her family.  


I felt strongly they were wrong.  I had to find a way to make them stop doing what they were doing to make my wife miserable.  Weeks later I found out K's father told her that he was impressed with how I stood up to him for her.


I would never advocate confrontation for the sake of confrontation.  I still like to avoid it when I can, but sometimes, there are things worth fighting for.

Happiness in His Arms

I have been thinking about the times lately when I am the happiest.  There is one time that sticks out in my mind.


It's the times I am with T.  We don't have to be doing anything cook or fun, just being with him fills my heart with happiness that I find difficult to describe.


This past weekend I went to see T.  After a dinner with his family, we went back to his house.  We headed straight up to his room and closed the door.  He took a quick shower and came out hearing these thin lounge pants that I bought him for Christmas the year before.  He looked so good, especially since he was free-balling and it showed.


I love just being with him.  I am so comfortable, so at ease and so safe.  I just can't think of any place I would rather be.


Spend most of the evening, laying between his leg with my head in his lap... sleeping.  I dozed off on him and he let me sleep almost 2 hours.  He could not have been that conformable with me laying on him, but he didn't complain and didn't disturb me, but let me sleep.  


I really love him.


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I spend a lot of time alone... even when I am not alone.   I spend a lot of time at K's house.  I spend a lot of time with my kids.  Except when I am working, I have people I love around me a lot of the time.  Even these times I am lonely.  It's not because there are no people around.  It's because there is one specific person NOT around.


I know he is SWAMPED at work.  I know he is trying his hardest to be less swamped and is not having a lot of luck.  I know all that but I still find myself lonely a lot of the time.