DEAFENED BY THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING

It has been way too long since I have updated this blog, and given what is going on with me health-wise I am making a promise that I will be updating this more frequently. This first post in a while is probably not the ideal way to resume, but it is important and I need to get it out of my system so I/we can move on, and because there will be a time when I am not around, and whether you know it or believe it now or not, there will be things in this post that you need to hear- and if they don't register with you now, I am hopeful that they will someday.

There will be no attempt at being poetic here babe- this is just pure heart to heart and I will seperate this into what I want to tell you as purely a friend, and then address things as they pertain to me as your lover and how they effect our relationship.

I am not angry about anything that follows sweetie, I have been spending almost all of my free time thinking these things through, and anger fell away from the equation a while ago. And I am not writing this to reopen a sore subject just for the sake of doing it. I am doing this solely because I love and care for you and I am hopeful that my words and thoughts here will have more weight down the road then they have recently, because for all my faults and emotions regarding some of these things, I can tell you that from a purely logical standpoint what I have to say to you is worth listening to (and I am not being conceited here babe- I KNOW that the things I have to say here will benefit you someday).

So here goes.

First, purely from a concerned friend standpoint: I am worried for you in a way I haven't been in a while. The way you handled this latest situation has made me reevalute some of your other decisions and the way you have handled some other things, and I am troubled by the fact that you seem to be repeating some of the same patterns that led to your wanting to be divorced in the first place. When you should be defining a new life with your children, with new priorities and a new way of looking at life, you are making decisions that are just continuing or recreating the same circumstances that have defined yours and their lives. You have to stop letting others define your life and you need to start making decisions based upon what is right, not what leads to the least amount of conflict or what is easiest. Part of being a responsible parent means having the strength to say no, and to be willing to make decisions that will anger them. I am not going to list here all the things you said prior to reversing yourself, but they were all reasoned, logical, and RIGHT. You seem to think that you are doing right by them by reversing yourself, but you didn't Liliana, all you did was essentially draw a line in the sand on principle, and then you erased the line at the first sign of conflict. This marginalizes you and makes it appear that your Ex's priorities are yours, and you are better and smarter than that.

I am being intentionally harsh and blunt here babe, because in this case I think you need a shock to the system. Plain and simple: I know how much you love and care for your children, but you are doing them and yourself more harm than good by the way you have been handling some things. You are being irresponsible by letting your Ex and your children set and define the rules. There is absolutely no structure or rules that define their lives, and at a time when you should be seperating yourself as much as possible from your Ex, you have just been reinforcing the impression that he controls you.

I am not going to go on and on here, but you need to stop letting others manage you, and you need to start managing them. Otherwise everything you have gone through up to this point is meaningless, and all you will end up with are 4 junior Jerry's who think that they can muddle their way through life by behaving badly and expecting others to cater to their every whim. And you will end up looking back and regretting that when you had the chance to make a real difference, you took the easy way instead of the right way. Start saying no, start truly punishing bad behavior, make the right decisions instead of the popular ones, and for Gods sake stop letting the idiot boy define or influence anything you do- you allow him entirely too much influence on yours and their lives. When you have your kids make sure that you truly have them- this is not the time to be allowing him more time and influence over them. Remember that sometimes it is not just the deals we make, but who we make them with that defines us. Start thinking through all of your decisions more carefully for all the potential ramifications. If part of the reason you got divorced was for the sake of your children, than the way you live your life and the way they live their lives should be starting to change from the way things used to be, not essentially remain the same except for the living arrangements.

That ends the lecture, and I am sure you disagree with most of it and think I am wrong and that you are angry with most of the above, and I am sorry about that. But at some point you will start to realize that I am right about these things, and I don't want that realization to come when it is too late. And I am only being this harsh and blunt because I love and care for you in the strongest way, and i can't think of any other way to get through to you.

Now for the part regarding us. I would give anything right now, especially given what is going on with me, to speed up the process of us being together. But because of the way you have been handling things I am left with no other option than to have to take a wait and see approach. It doesn't make sense for me to insert myself into a household and the lives of people where the primary focus is on letting everyone do whatever they feel like. I am going to need to be sure that you have the strength and the judgement to manage your children and your ex and that they arent managing you, and right now that isn't the case. At a time when I am probably going to need help and support, I am not going to be able to get it in a houshold where the primary focus is making sure everyone else gets to do whatever they want, and when the Ex has entirely too much influence over everything. Again, he should be becoming less and less of a factor in the life you are building, and the reality is he is as involved in your lives as much as he has ever been, with the exception of all of you sleeping under the same roof together. I dont say this with anger, it is just the way it is right now, and I guess you have what you think are good reasons for allowing things to be the way they are, but as I said above, unless you start making some changes you are just going to be looking at 7 or 8 more years of him getting away with influencing your life in a negative way.

None of what I have said changes what I want babe- I am being intentionally harsh, but I love you and treasure you and desperately want us to have a life together. But that life needs to be OURS, with you and I in control of it. I never want you to make decisions based upon you wanting to please me, but I am also not going to sit back and enable or encourage you to avoid doing the hard things when it comes to dealing with him or them.

Having said all of the above, I want you to know that I will work and fight for the chance for us to have that life, and the only reason I am being as hard on you as I am is not so much for right now, but for down the road as well. You need to know that I cared for you enough that I am willing to piss you off no matter what the consequences to ensure that you dont end up regretting anything you have done or how you handled your kids, your Ex, and even me.

And now for the last thing- I want to get all the "bad" or unpleasant stuff out in this post so the rest of them can be focused on the more important things- like the love and feelings I have for you. I know that you lied to or hid something from me when I was in Hawaii, You gave yourself away innocently enough by contradicting yourself several times about where you were and what you were doing and my antenna went up immediately and things just didnt add up and I got my little vibe thing going. I wasnt sure what to do about it at the time, and figured I would discuss it with you when I got back, but then I had my little episode over there and then you reversed yourself with the activity thing and I just didnt want to deal with it given everything else and the way I was feeling, but it has been bugging me so I will get it off my chest. I dont know what it is or was, I imagine either you were doing something with or for your Ex that you didnt want me to know about, or you were hooking up with Dale or Odell or someone or doing something that you preferred not to tell me about- but whatever it was it was real and I am not imagining it, and I guess it just made me kind of sad and melancholy that you were keeping something from me. It doesnt really matter anymore I guess- I am not your parent or jailer and you dont need my permission or approval for anything you do- but it has been bugging me and I just wanted to get it off my chest, and combined with the way things went with the Ex and the activity stuff and my health it has left me feeling a bit discombobulated and has contributed to my sadness and funk and uncertainty as to where you stand on some things and what you really truly want. Anyhow- it is what it is, and I have no anger over this anymore either.

OK- everything out in one post- the ones to come you can actually look forward to reading, I promise. I love you Liliana, and hope that you take this post for the intentions it was written for: sharing my concerns and trying to do whatever I can to make sure we actually communicate with each other regarding everything good, bad, or indifferent.

Please, at some point down the road, re-read this and maybe weigh the words carefully. Right now I sometimes feel like my words are like the sound of one hand clapping- unheard and unheeded, but I hope that in time they will deafen you with their honesty and care.

I Love YOU