I just finished a book. It was fun and informative. Really quite the good summer read, and it took me most of the summer to finish it. Perfect really.
The one thing I didn't realize though, was that I'd started in the middle of a series. Or at least I didn't realize it until I started reading. Have you ever done that? Bought the fourth book in a series and gone, "Aw crap!" Then run back to the bookstore to figure out what you'd missed in the first three. Usually, that's when you find the second book is out of print.
Luckily for me I didn't have to do that. Nope. My book came with a summery of the previous books. It made everything else make sense.
"In the last book, we learned that the small hand was secretly the hour hand. Then we learned why the second was called the second hand even though it was the third. In this installment we'll find out why it runs so fast."
"Oh boy!" I love books like this! Action, adventure, and mystery!
That got me thinking though, "Why doesn't life have a quick summary?" I mean, somebody found my blog confusing the other day. Now there's nothing unusual about that. When I compare Dick and Jane to MacBeth, people are bound to run off with their heads in their hands, trying to tear out what the think they've read with each strand of hair.
"See Spot Run"
"Out, out damn spot."
Still, it made me realize. Much like Baby's first Biological Clock, some people need to know what's happened already. As impossible as it seems, my blog makes even less sense without knowing what's gone before.
So, here goes, back to before.
I started this blog two years ago. I needed an outlet. My wife of seven years had decided that seven was as much Rob luck as she wanted. There are lots of bitter quips I could make about her timing, and her reasons, but the reality is that those are just blog tools to make me feel justified in a failed marriage. Besides. I think I've already used them all in previous blogs. It's a little self-indulgent when I start quoting myself.
Sure, that hasn't stopped me from being self-indulgent before, but I'm trying to be good. This synopsis is for you, not for me. I'm well aware of what happened in my marriage. I just don't know why it ended.
I do know that there are treasure loads of blame to be passed around and we both walked away with our fair share of booty. I blame her. Yup, I still do…but only for pulling the plug. The poor quality programming? That was as much about me as anything else. Things were like a bad mixed metaphor about pirate's treasure and TV programming: It just made no sense.
Was she right? Yes. Not because I agree with her, though. She was right because a marriage is about two people making things work as best they can. When one person decides that they can't do that, then it's time to let go. I don't agree with her choice, but I know she didn't make it lightly. She was done. When she's done. We're done.
After that, all that was left was to decide whether we wanted to draw lawyers at twenty paces or slap each other with three day old fish. We opted for the fish; it smelled better.
There wasn't enough Captain and Tennille love to keep us together, but we squeezed what we could to make bitter margarita's of a friendly divorce. We lived together in the same house, and slept in the same bed for six months while we put things in order to move apart.
I kept the house, but only because the mortgage was in my name. There weren't any real power plays when it came to splitting the material things. There were too many exposed nerves. Neither of us wanted to become a minefield casualty. Keeping it friendly was as much about self defense as it was about keeping dignity.
She moved out. Almost a year later we were divorced.
I spent the time during my divorce alone. I didn't date. I just concentrated on being me. Even after that, it took a few months before I could look at a woman without growling, and no, not in a good way. I did heal though, and I started dating. I had a few good dates and a few bad, but nothing serious until recently.
Now I'm dating a woman I call the Pirate Queen. Why? Because she needed a nickname and it sounded cool. Because we became friends while she was writing her own D360 blog. She stopped writing, and we became more. Still, I wanted her to have her space, even on D360.
Since then, we've grown closer. We've both been through divorces, and we're both a little skittish. It's like starting over again as a kid, but not being nearly as invulnerable. It's like learning to tie your shoes again after having your laces replaced by barbed wire. It's like finding out you can't trust a clock, because his second hand is really his third…
That's the summary. It's like a really good book, and I can't put it down no matter how scares me.
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