Heart of Darkness

And just when things were going fairly well, too.

As part of the divorce proceedings, I've cashed out part of my retirement to pay off some bills, mine and hers and ours. The money came through and I spent the morning working out what got paid and how much she gets, and I also did some legwork to see how to get the cars titled in our individual names. When all was ready, I called her, and we had a pleasant conversation and agreed to meet at a local tag agent to exchange paperwork and give her a check and deal with the cars. We did so, and then while standing in line things got sour and...well, quite frankly, I just blew up at her and stalked out.

Right in front of the fourteen-year-old son with whom I am trying to reforge a relationship.

Yes, the one that is still steamed that our Hawthore Heights trip didn't pan out.

The son with whom I was going to get to spend a long weekend with in Texas but who (no surprise) decided to back out and stay with his mom instead.

We got it together and finished our business (and I apologized, repeatedly) but any goodwill that I've managed to build up with my soon-to-be-ex is gone, gone, gone. And my son, who didn't have that high an opinion of me to start with, is now utterly certain that I'm the scum of the earth and everything that's gone wrong in the past fourteen years really is my fault.

After we were done I fled to a good friend / counselor who is a trained Stephen Minister and cried on her shoulder for a couple of hours. Indeed, that was her advice - I haven't cried nearly enough, and still have all of this bottled-up sadness and grief and regret (and yes, love) and when that's not released it comes out as anger. My soon-to-be-ex had said many times that I was always angry with her. Maybe she was right. There was no reason - no reason at all - for me to erupt the way I did. Maybe I was like that during much of our marriage. I hope not. That's certainly not the man I want to be. But it was the man I was today.

Soon-to-be-ex, I don't know if you read this blog or not. I hope you do and that you know just how much I regret what happened today. I don't know any way to make it up to you other than to just say: I'm sorry.