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About this blog

I have found blogging to be useful to me in the past. I get to write what I would write in a journal; anonymous people get to read and comment; everyone is happy.

Entries in this blog

It's a Support Community!

So, it sometimes seems as if we lose track of what this place is here for. So I thought I'd define my view of it, for you. This is a Support Community What does that mean? First, the purpose is to support each other. That means that we try to help each other, in a certain particular way. Second, it's a community. That is, it's a bunch of people gathered in one place for a similar purpose, in this case, support. So, what the heck is support, anyway? Well, sometimes it's information. Some of
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Goodbyes

This won't be long, or well-reasoned {so, it's a lot like the others, really}, but if someone calls me on it, I can blame the Beatles ... "I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello-oo-o-oo-o."
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Wishdom

I wish I had wisdom, for you, today. I just have a hodge-podge of thoughts, and the urge to post, I'm afraid. Let's see where that takes us, shall we? I want to be free, and I don't know how. My wife's newest idea, in the quest to find an agreement, is to ask me for copies of my paystubs and other financial information, all of which she already knows. This is precisely the information she vehemently objected giving to me about herself, back when my lawyer started to attempt what they call "di
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Safety

The missing post from a few days ago; apologies if it's a little flat now, after all this time ... Safety -- it doesn't exist. Now, we all spent a fair amount of our childhood absorbing parental advice along the lines of "Look both ways." And we needed that, because kids do need to learn to be careful. Moment to moment, it makes sense to take care of yourself and not risk unnecessary injury. But for me, at least, all of that input got translated into a belief that absolute safety actually exi
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Lost Day

Well, I had a really significant entry half-completed when I lost it, not with the usual timeout issue but simply by unplugging my machine by mistake. :-) Yep, I already knew the computer wouldn't work unless it was plugged in ... So, instead, you get this: a simple request, to everyone I know who's suffering, to hang in there. Nothing lasts forever, and that includes pain. There is another side, and for all you know, it's close. And then you'll be through, out in the sunshine on the other
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T<ri>/<ir>ed

Couldn't decide: I tried, and now I'm tired. I had hoped to begin doing things a little differently, this morning. Put a little regularity back into my life, but without regimentation, just because some regularity would be nice. But I resisted, and it didn't happen. I guess the only thing to do is to try again tomorrow. :-)
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Options

When I was a little boy, I used to love going to the beach, but I didn't really like the beach. The sand, I mean. It was rough on my feet, and it was hot. I used to wonder why there was such an annoying barrier to cross before I could plunge into the cool, moving seawater. And again on the way back, sand clinging to any wet spot it could reach, to be removed only by brushing it off as lightly as possible to keep from being scraped. Well, the first thing you'll notice is the self-centeredness
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Something To Put In Here

It's really kind of funny: I used to have a problem with excessive discipline. I rarely had to be punished, as a kid. I was always the goody two-shoes sort, automatically well-behaved, the kind of kid teachers would point out in class, why can't the rest of you be more like him {and oh yes, that does wonders for your image with your peers.} I've gradually developed what you might call self-discipline fatigue. Some things I openly resist, no matter how important they may be to me, such as pay
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Therapy Day

Well, things are a jumble this week. Trying to put them in some sort of order for my every-other-week therapy session. There's how work makes me feel. There's only being able to be gentle and patient online. There's me being stationary on anything to do with getting rid of my wife. There's the determination to hide, the letting life go by, the boredom and fear and fatigue. I hope it's a long session. ;-)
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The Fairy Godfather Heads Out

Once upon a time, there was a man who found a pair of ruby slippers and a wand in the mail. With the slippers on, he could fly, and when he waved the wand, the people around him felt a surge of happiness. So, almost against his will, he became ... the Fairy Godfather. And it was not always easy. This is the story of one of those times. The godfather landed on the gravel path that led to his front door, bending his knees from long practice, to avoid the heels pitching him forward on his face.
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Peace

There's a question on the boards, right now, about whether one can love others before they love themselves. A corollary is whether one can spread peace, without being able to feel it themselves. To me, both love and peace are feelings we achieve when we connect with the Something Greater inside of us, whatever you want to call it {and it has many names.} Nature can be a reminder of that Something, but the Something is present inside of us, too, if we know where to look. We're all a part of th
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Sorta better

Well, I've been having some rough days. I felt it particularly at work, but it's really the same feeling, radiating into everything I do. The feeling is that if I were to make too much of a fuss about wanting to be needed, people might finally tell me that, in fact, I'm not needed. At work, I'm isolated by being an introvert, by not speaking the same language as many of my co-workers, who are from India or China, most of them, and by the fact that I don't care much about my work, any more. A b
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Clusters

I guess it's normal for bad days to come in clusters, a reflection possibly of filtering the actual day through one's own moods. You know, one trouble with a completely typewritten medium is how easy it makes it for me to just detach completely and to write as if it were an exercise in composition. Well, for one thing, I'm good at composition, and not so good at moods and emotions. Unfortunately, it's a form of dissociation; one which is more acceptable to society, but still leaves me split b
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But Why Am I Here, Really?

Okay, I feel like we've had some rough times here, lately, so I'm compelled to ask again, Why am I here, really? 1) To help -- I have only my own experiences to draw on. "Training", or my lack of it, is just another aspect of experience. I quite definitely have problems of my own. I can't actually do anything, on a web site; just talk. I can't be sure that I've understood what I've heard; I can't be sure that my response is "right"; I can't be sure that even a "right" response will be he
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Good behavior?

Hey all, Just thought I'd warn you that I'll be off from Friday through Monday. Let's call it time off for good behavior? I finally managed to write an e-mail to the wife to warn her that I'm giving up on negotiating with her, and will be starting the court filing. It was very difficult: I've spent a year trying, only to realize, recently, that even if she gave in on everything, I still wouldn't trust her to follow through. Add to that the fact that there's really very little incentive for h
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15

Similarity

Well, progress for today? I talked to the lawyer, about intending to file for divorce. She didn't mind, but thought I should re-establish a retainer of, oh, about $2500 ... I talked to my brother, and his wife is recovering well from the surgery that she had. That and the kids are growing up, as always. It's what kids do when you're not looking. :-) And, as if the Universe heard me procrastinating about the divorce filing (I've been putting it off until my wife gets back from her trip, becau
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Productivity

No, that's not the quantity of work per day done by a professional air duct cleaner. That's what I was over the weekend. It's remarkable what you can get done when, instead of carefully considering each task you encounter to see whether it's the next one on the priority list, you just do it. Sooo many things that have been sitting there since I have been in the apartment got organized by that simple principle. Too, I might have progressed to the point where some things that were too painful
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Titular Material

Well, the bulk of the therapy session last night focused on my on-going delusionality ... Okay, that's a bit strong, but still not entirely inaccurate. At the very least, it's a form of denial. See, I've kept on negotiating with my wife, in the hopes of some day reaching a settlement of our finances that doesn't completely ruin either of us. Well, mostly me, because I can't foresee her agreeing to something that would ruin her, but I have no special desire to do so, anyway. To do that, I've
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How!

To follow up on a thought from yesterday, how do you transfer an idea that has helped you, to someone else? You can try to explain it, but that often comes across as a lecture, especially if you have to search out what you mean to say, as you write it. Only after several repetitions do you usually get it distilled into something short and pithy, and by then it feel cliché. Or you can try to tell a story, and let people read your point between the lines. Sometimes, though, the point gets lost c
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Feeling Pithy

Heh, I'll let y'all decide whether I was just faking a lithp ... Yet, one thing conversation in this place does for a person is to put their problems into perspective. Maybe it's just childish that I wish things could be different, as in, easier. They are what they are, and my only hope for progress is to get busy doing them. And isn't that something valuable enough to learn?
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When the Going Gets Tough ...

... do the tough get constipated? I don't guess so. Sometimes, it may seem as if nothing you try works. Certainly, it seemed like that, to me, yesterday. I thought I was doing so well, eloquently setting out what I thought should be done ... and my timing was completely off. I may even have done more harm than good. And that made me pause and think, today. I've been reading a book by an ancient Chinese philosopher named Chuang Tzu (Master Chuang), one of the three great Taoist writers. It
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Distracting?

I seem to be starting all of these with a distraction, lately, but ... hey look, I put some photos from my last hike in an album! :-) Anyway, another reminder that you can't hit 'em all out of the park ... You'd think I'd know what humility was, by now. "Those who know the Way, don't speak."
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A Thing for the Day

There's not really much to say. I sleep at night, and have complex, realistic, vivid dreams I only partially remember when I wake up. I'm not sure whether they interfere with my sleep, or I'm apneic, or what, but I'm tired in the morning, without any other symptoms of real depression. I go through my day in well-defined patterns, commuting at about the same time every day, doing the same nothing at work every day, going home about the same time every day, eating the same kinds of dinners every
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New Glasses!

Okay, that's not really a blog topic, but it does explain my new profile pic. Less glare off my lenses allows me to look straight at the camera, so that my dome isn't quite so visible ... Anyway, this is me; hello. :-) My actual topic is the meeting with my wife on Saturday. It only lasted about three hours, but it left me so irritated that I'm still processing through it. It bothers me a great deal that I don't seem to be able to get through a meeting with her without getting so angry that
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Perception

Our perceptions, other people's perceptions. Is there such a thing as an independent reality? Okay, philosophy majors, don't answer that; I'm just setting the scene. Several people I've talked to, recently, have had difficulties with perception. One, in particular, is afraid everyone hates her, just because she does. Another thought it was okay to say something harsh, simply because people frequently speak that way to her. The perception of the person on the receiving end was discounted, ent
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