Todays is Punkin's birthday.
The cat woke me up early as usual. Some days I don't heed his alarm but today I had an additional mission to handle: I had a birthday song to sing. There was the hour difference for starters, then there's there was the bus she has to catch at eight, her time. Little girls are slow to move in the mornings but the bus waits for no one.
So we talked on the phone a moment ago, exchanged greetings and I wished the best of the day. I figured I didn't need another cake around here so I plan to bake the next best thing: a pan of biscuits. That little girl is mad for biscuits.
While I waiting here in Port Orchard for Punkin to wake up in Boise I flashed on a very significant truth: the key reason why we got involved that long ago summer of 2005 was all because of emotional physics. It was due in part to the loneliness factor that you endured on your end but also due to the immense love vacuum that happened here in this house. When the Estranged One left with the kids on August 5th I breathed a sigh of relief. We were fighting all the time and we needed a break. The tension snapped like a rubber band when I saw that van go down the alley and leave for what I thought was a two week visit. But things changed fast that August. It wasn't more than ten days later when I found out that she had enrolled the kids in school in Boise. "Just to try it out".
You know and I know that those kids mean all the world to me. That they were and are the biggest reasons for living. We both know and understand the non-negotiable status of our children, that they are the reasons why we do the things we do. You took your commitment to this code to a higher level. I may love my children but when I said I loved you, that erased all others before you. You, in turn, untook a bigger, grander option: to love God and place no man before him.
There you go. Kids or no kids there was no arguing with you over that one.
But back to that summer. After I cleaned and straightened up the house I knew one thing for certain, and that was without them this house was empty. Sure, it had furniture and knick-knacks, movies and books and cooking gear, all that, but was lacking it's soul. It felt as if the heart of the house was gone. Where was the noise of little bodies in motion? Where was the shrill jubulation of living? The atomic power of their laughter? I would come home after work, after a turn at the track and wonder what the hell happened. I knew that wearing the black hat meant a lot of things, but marooning me in this house without my kids was not supposed to be one of them.
Then, you came by for coffee.
Was that cup of coffee you brought over from Starbucks that Saturday the speck of planetary dust that started the shift, that knocked all the planets in my universe out of alignment? Or was it your follow up visit, the one where you offered to take me along with you to Silverdale to look at lighting, the one I so graciously backed out of because I was hungover? Or was it our rendevous in Tukwila, the one that took in IKEA and beyond..was that the day that finally put the cart in motion? I know that I've always loved you but what, really, was the catalyst that put the match to the fuse, the one that lit and burned rapidly all the way to the bomb that went up in my face?
Today is Punkins birthday and I will always feel glad for our connection, but equally sad for our long distance relationship. I know that when she and her siblings left my heart went with them. I made a vain attempt to fill that hole in my heart with the love we shared. Somehow the time spent with you became the saving grace of my life. Without you that time apart from my children might have gone differently, would have been more self destructive, less insightful, less of a learning, rebuilding, reinventing period.
And yet because I used that love you shared with me to bondo the holes in my heart this heart of mine could never again belong an other. So be it. You filled the vacuum and others, especially the one who ran away, never had a chance to love me after that, no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise.
I woke up this morning knowing it would be a bittersweet day. Every day in this house has been, ever since the kids have gone. Ever since your love decamped.
Such is life. We endure and move forward the best we can.
Happy Birthday, Punkin. Good morning, M.
Your WHMB
The cat woke me up early as usual. Some days I don't heed his alarm but today I had an additional mission to handle: I had a birthday song to sing. There was the hour difference for starters, then there's there was the bus she has to catch at eight, her time. Little girls are slow to move in the mornings but the bus waits for no one.
So we talked on the phone a moment ago, exchanged greetings and I wished the best of the day. I figured I didn't need another cake around here so I plan to bake the next best thing: a pan of biscuits. That little girl is mad for biscuits.
While I waiting here in Port Orchard for Punkin to wake up in Boise I flashed on a very significant truth: the key reason why we got involved that long ago summer of 2005 was all because of emotional physics. It was due in part to the loneliness factor that you endured on your end but also due to the immense love vacuum that happened here in this house. When the Estranged One left with the kids on August 5th I breathed a sigh of relief. We were fighting all the time and we needed a break. The tension snapped like a rubber band when I saw that van go down the alley and leave for what I thought was a two week visit. But things changed fast that August. It wasn't more than ten days later when I found out that she had enrolled the kids in school in Boise. "Just to try it out".
You know and I know that those kids mean all the world to me. That they were and are the biggest reasons for living. We both know and understand the non-negotiable status of our children, that they are the reasons why we do the things we do. You took your commitment to this code to a higher level. I may love my children but when I said I loved you, that erased all others before you. You, in turn, untook a bigger, grander option: to love God and place no man before him.
There you go. Kids or no kids there was no arguing with you over that one.
But back to that summer. After I cleaned and straightened up the house I knew one thing for certain, and that was without them this house was empty. Sure, it had furniture and knick-knacks, movies and books and cooking gear, all that, but was lacking it's soul. It felt as if the heart of the house was gone. Where was the noise of little bodies in motion? Where was the shrill jubulation of living? The atomic power of their laughter? I would come home after work, after a turn at the track and wonder what the hell happened. I knew that wearing the black hat meant a lot of things, but marooning me in this house without my kids was not supposed to be one of them.
Then, you came by for coffee.
Was that cup of coffee you brought over from Starbucks that Saturday the speck of planetary dust that started the shift, that knocked all the planets in my universe out of alignment? Or was it your follow up visit, the one where you offered to take me along with you to Silverdale to look at lighting, the one I so graciously backed out of because I was hungover? Or was it our rendevous in Tukwila, the one that took in IKEA and beyond..was that the day that finally put the cart in motion? I know that I've always loved you but what, really, was the catalyst that put the match to the fuse, the one that lit and burned rapidly all the way to the bomb that went up in my face?
Today is Punkins birthday and I will always feel glad for our connection, but equally sad for our long distance relationship. I know that when she and her siblings left my heart went with them. I made a vain attempt to fill that hole in my heart with the love we shared. Somehow the time spent with you became the saving grace of my life. Without you that time apart from my children might have gone differently, would have been more self destructive, less insightful, less of a learning, rebuilding, reinventing period.
And yet because I used that love you shared with me to bondo the holes in my heart this heart of mine could never again belong an other. So be it. You filled the vacuum and others, especially the one who ran away, never had a chance to love me after that, no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise.
I woke up this morning knowing it would be a bittersweet day. Every day in this house has been, ever since the kids have gone. Ever since your love decamped.
Such is life. We endure and move forward the best we can.
Happy Birthday, Punkin. Good morning, M.
Your WHMB
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