“Each bears his own guilt, his own anxiety, his own dying.” Helmut Thielicke, Out of the depths

I was informed I have posted something on this site 100 days straight…

6:15am Having kids is the most difficult thing to experience.

The loss of freedom. Flexibility. Financial stability. So many things change when children enter the picture.

I was thinking on the walk how the first 13 years of being a parent feels surreal. I disassociated. There were two years I had a good job. I felt finically secure. there was balance at home and work. Otherwise I personally write off those years. I cherish the time with my daughter. But every other relationship was compromised. All other responsibilities were relegated. On many levels the individual me was in hibernation. Now as my daughter grows older I am re learning who I am. She is becoming a responsible young adult. The remainder of my life and the beginning of hers revolve around similar questions. “Who will I be?” “What will I accomplish?” “Where will I live?” “Who will I love?” As a parent it is scary beautiful to see her answering those questions for the first time. As a human being it is just as hopeful intimidating to be asking them for a second time.

I can’t love again. Like a broken wire the energy won’t flow. If I think about intimacy with anyone other than the WIL my heart recoils. In those moments all I see are memories of us together. I don’t have the circuitry to connect with another woman. Trying hurts me. And would disappoint the other person.

On good days I interpret that as a testament to the love we share. We are still simpatico. She loves me as much as I love her. She misses me. She thinks about me as often as I think about her. She holds a hope we will be together again. On those days I have high resolve. I will wait for eternity to be with her.

When it is a bad day I am in despair. I feel abandoned. She is happy without me. she doesn’t think about me. Those days are torture. I am clinging to the past. She breezed forward to a future without encumbrance.

Often I vacillate between the good and bad throughout the day. I am left to guess what she is feeling. Silence kills me.

8:24pm laying in bed. My biggest fear is the WIL reading this blog and rejecting me. But hasn’t she already? Perhaps it would be best. Face my fear. Suffer my fate. If she tells me to fuck off at least I would be free.

8:17pm I want to write a million words in one night. I am screaming to be known. To be heard.

8:07pm spent a half hour on the phone with my daughter. She was playing an online game. we just bantered. I was working on posts. Listening to song “Low Key in Love” The Struts/Paris Jackson

I put my name and the word hospice in a search. It came up with my time in Modesto. The blog also came up because I mention being a hospice chaplain in posts. I am going 100mph yet I keep my foot on the gas. I have put my failings on display. I am exposed and terrified. Yet I don’t stop.

5:56pm just walked in the door to home. Furniture didn’t come. Of course. Today felt the most like Utah 2003-2008 in a long time. Awash in good feelings and happy memories. I miss the WIL so bad I could cry. I think about her every second.

8:09am at work, on a sales meeting conference call…Arizona is where I am supposed to be. I work hard here. I am appreciated here. I am valued here.

“While realizing ten years ago I didn’t have the faintest idea I would end up where I now am, I still like to keep up the illusion that I am in control of my own life.” -Henri J.M. Nouwen

California, Arizona, Utah (Wyoming), even Nevada. My mind was racing this morning on my walk. Where will I end up in five years? Where should I be? What does it means to be alone? What do I lose/gain to have my wife and daughter with me? To have my mom live with me? To be a good employee? I didn’t have the faintest idea four months ago I would be in Arizona. Funny, I think I can figure out where I will be five years from now. It is a distraction more than a plan.