Worse before it gets better
I haven't blogged in a long time. A lot has happened since July.
I went to GENCON in August, which was awesome. I saw a lot of friends, made new friends, played a lot of games and just had an awesome time.
Immediately after GENCON, I moved out of my house. I had told Rosie that I was leaving before that time, but that's when I actually moved out. Telling my daughter Colleen that I was leaving, and her crying and begging me to not move out and telling me I was the best daddy in the whole world, was the most gut-wrenching painful experience of my entire life. I had put off splitting up for a lot of reasons and breaking Colleen's heart was one that I was sure would be painful. It was by far the worst. Everything between Rosie and me is between two adults who have equal footing and can handle ourselves. Hurting any child, especially my own precious wonderful daughter who has my nose and my feet... I died a little that night.
I moved into the spare bedroom of my friend Rott's house. I have a futon, a recliner and a nice big closet. It's simple, quiet and peaceful. I owe Rott a huge debt of gratitude. He has been super... he opened his home up to me without a moment's hesitation and is being very, very gracious in charging me rent. Part of the reason I didn't move out sooner was that I couldn't afford an apartment, but the stress level at home was getting worse and worse (as you can imagine) so Rott is a real lifesaver.
Around the end of September I took a new job at the same company. I went from the support department to a product manager. It's a very serious and "grownup" job and I'm trusted with steering the software product for the coolest software company in Indiana. We had a gigantic product release on Nov 2, so the last 6 weeks or so have been CRAZY busy getting ready for it. Work has taken up a huge percentage of my time even though I barely know what I'm doing in this new role. There's just so much to do and I'm trying to volunteer for everything that I can do (which is not much yet.) Overall, I love the new position and I love ExactTarget. Both are really good for me.
I've been seeing Colleen 2-4 nights a week and even spending the night with her when Rosie is out of town. I have been very worried about how Colleen is taking all the changes but she seems OK. She has made several comments that make me believe she is handling it all in stride, or at least as much as possible. She told me that she was sad I don't live with them anymore, but that it's better now that she and I actually go out and "do stuff." She told me two weeks ago that I don't live there but it seems like she sees me every day. She also told me that if I remarry that she wants me to have twins or triplets so she can have little brothers and sisters. Not to pretend that all is perfect. Colleen has had some trouble concentrating at school lately and she seems to be gaining weight pretty fast. Rosie and I discussed it and it's pretty clearly the fact that she has been eating really bad food lately. So we're working on that. Colleen is trying to eat vegetables every day between now and New Years and I'm taking her to Chuck E. Cheez every couple of weeks to reward her for helping with chores and extra work, like helping me shop for groceries. We certainly are no Norman Rockwell painting, but it's not as bad as I had feared it would be.
And Rosie and I are communicating fairly effectively. She and I both are feeling a lot less stressed and healthier. We do have a lot of credit card debt from the last year and all the medical stuff. It's hard to believe that we had virtually NO credit card debt when she was diagnosed and now we're up to almost $18,000.00. It's incredibly frustrating, but what can you do? The bad news is that we need to figure out how to carve it all up in a "fair" way to allow us to get divorced.
And speaking of divorce, Rosie told me she has started consulting with a lawyer so now I have to get a lawyer also. I had really hoped that we wouldn't pull lawyers into this, and we actually said we wouldn't, but I guess that's how it's going to go. So, I'm sure it will get worse before it gets better.
I went to GENCON in August, which was awesome. I saw a lot of friends, made new friends, played a lot of games and just had an awesome time.
Immediately after GENCON, I moved out of my house. I had told Rosie that I was leaving before that time, but that's when I actually moved out. Telling my daughter Colleen that I was leaving, and her crying and begging me to not move out and telling me I was the best daddy in the whole world, was the most gut-wrenching painful experience of my entire life. I had put off splitting up for a lot of reasons and breaking Colleen's heart was one that I was sure would be painful. It was by far the worst. Everything between Rosie and me is between two adults who have equal footing and can handle ourselves. Hurting any child, especially my own precious wonderful daughter who has my nose and my feet... I died a little that night.
I moved into the spare bedroom of my friend Rott's house. I have a futon, a recliner and a nice big closet. It's simple, quiet and peaceful. I owe Rott a huge debt of gratitude. He has been super... he opened his home up to me without a moment's hesitation and is being very, very gracious in charging me rent. Part of the reason I didn't move out sooner was that I couldn't afford an apartment, but the stress level at home was getting worse and worse (as you can imagine) so Rott is a real lifesaver.
Around the end of September I took a new job at the same company. I went from the support department to a product manager. It's a very serious and "grownup" job and I'm trusted with steering the software product for the coolest software company in Indiana. We had a gigantic product release on Nov 2, so the last 6 weeks or so have been CRAZY busy getting ready for it. Work has taken up a huge percentage of my time even though I barely know what I'm doing in this new role. There's just so much to do and I'm trying to volunteer for everything that I can do (which is not much yet.) Overall, I love the new position and I love ExactTarget. Both are really good for me.
I've been seeing Colleen 2-4 nights a week and even spending the night with her when Rosie is out of town. I have been very worried about how Colleen is taking all the changes but she seems OK. She has made several comments that make me believe she is handling it all in stride, or at least as much as possible. She told me that she was sad I don't live with them anymore, but that it's better now that she and I actually go out and "do stuff." She told me two weeks ago that I don't live there but it seems like she sees me every day. She also told me that if I remarry that she wants me to have twins or triplets so she can have little brothers and sisters. Not to pretend that all is perfect. Colleen has had some trouble concentrating at school lately and she seems to be gaining weight pretty fast. Rosie and I discussed it and it's pretty clearly the fact that she has been eating really bad food lately. So we're working on that. Colleen is trying to eat vegetables every day between now and New Years and I'm taking her to Chuck E. Cheez every couple of weeks to reward her for helping with chores and extra work, like helping me shop for groceries. We certainly are no Norman Rockwell painting, but it's not as bad as I had feared it would be.
And Rosie and I are communicating fairly effectively. She and I both are feeling a lot less stressed and healthier. We do have a lot of credit card debt from the last year and all the medical stuff. It's hard to believe that we had virtually NO credit card debt when she was diagnosed and now we're up to almost $18,000.00. It's incredibly frustrating, but what can you do? The bad news is that we need to figure out how to carve it all up in a "fair" way to allow us to get divorced.
And speaking of divorce, Rosie told me she has started consulting with a lawyer so now I have to get a lawyer also. I had really hoped that we wouldn't pull lawyers into this, and we actually said we wouldn't, but I guess that's how it's going to go. So, I'm sure it will get worse before it gets better.
posted by Bif | 11/14/2007 11:53:00 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks for writing this.
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