2023 - Week 41 - Moving Forward, Reflecting Back

Posted on:October 14, 2023 at 12:05 PM

Moving Forward, Reflecting Back

When your wife leaves you, it really makes you stop and think.

I’ve spent the last week reflecting, being introspective, and trying to make sense of things since I announced to the world at large that my wife has left me. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I can recall of the last 42 years I’ve been on this planet. I’ve thought about the last 23 years I’ve been a parent. I’ve thought about the last nearly 15 years I’ve been with Lou, and the last nearly 13 we’ve been married. I’ve thought a lot about the last 3 years we’ve lived in Washington.

To that end I’ve spent time re-reading old journal entries, listening to old recordings, and generally getting in touch with my history.

I love the life we’ve built, the family we’ve raised, the experiences we’ve had.

I’ve loved the adventure Lou and I have shared. Recalling the many road trips we’ve shared, the hours we’ve spent together talking about our past, present, and future, is just happy memory on happy memory. We’ve spent so many hours travelling across Minnesota and the country.

I love Lou still.

I’ve spent a lot of my time talking with folks, trying to gain perspective. I mentioned to someone that she’s still my friend, and they asked: “is she really though?“. It was a valid question, but the answer is: yes.

She still loves me, and I still love her.

It’s hard to believe that it’s over.

For a lot of reasons.

But the fact is that we shouldn’t be married.

I’m not sure that it’s that we shouldn’t be married to each other or simply just not be married.

We’ve both spent a significant amount of our lives together and, over the years, we’ve both been through a lot. As I mentioned last week, it seems we’ve both lost ourselves in our marriage due to the challenge of our journey.

We’ve actually grown together a great deal, but we’ve not much had the opportunity to grow on our own. We’ve neither of us really had much time on our own in our lives and perhaps that’s exactly what we need now, for the time being.

I’m looking for the bright side.

We’ve been struggling together for a while, both of us seem to come back to the same conclusion that we need space, a little bit of distance.

We still love each other, and, I don’t want to speak for Lou, but I know that I’m still in love with her. Love, however, isn’t enough right now.

I think it’s going to be good for us.

But it still hurts like hell.

Above all, though, I know that it will be okay.

I have hope

Meanwhile, I’m going to recap the last week as I do in these posts.

Sunday

Sunday was a bit of a quiet day, overall. I spent some of the day doing some cleaning, some relaxing, some reflecting, etc.

There was, however, no notable events worth mentioning.

Monday

Monday saw my kiddos coming to visit for a dinner. Tris and Momo came over, we had pumpkin chili and pumpkin bread that Tris brought over with her.

It was a nice little visit. :)

Tuesday

Another quieter day, mostly. More self-reflection.

Wednesday

Not a lot happened personally on Wednesday but me and “the boys” got together for another Infinity RPG session. It went long because were in a groove. It was a ton of fun and a good time was had by all!

I continue to find myself struggling a bit to remember all the rules and nuances. I keep saying it but I think this game would be excellent as a video game with a menu driven interface. The add-on for Roll20 is pretty good, though. I just wish there was something a little more robust out there, or that I had a much better memory with more time to learn the system.

In other news that makes me very happy: Lou was offered the job she interviewed for last week! I’m so happy for her, it sounds like it will be a great job for her as well doing something good in the community with a lot wonderful flexibility! 😊

Thursday

I finally “100%‘d” Newberry Hill Heritage Park (on GaiaGPS).

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I set out to accomplish this goal some time back, and, for the record, I accomplished hiking the all the trails in the park, of which there are about 13 miles. You could hike the whole park in a single day if you were motivated enough, but it’s spread out in way that makes that a little difficult and, due to my preference of hiking from the southern and eastern portions of the park (due to its proximity to Bremerton), I’ve put off hiking the last few trails in the northwestern portion of the park for a while like Bobcat Run, Beaver Loop, and Big Cedar.

But, this week, I finally finished mapping in GaiaGPS. If I’d remembered to turn it on for a couple of hikes last year, I would have been done with this a long time ago, but, I’m super happy to have finished completed this goal. It’s nice to see the trails all covered.

Now I have to decide which park to complete next. 🤔

A taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors

  • Walden

Another fun thing about Thursday was that Momo came over and we made a tasty little stir fry with yakisoba noodles for dinner and together watched the latest episode of Bob’s Burgers (S14E2) entitled: The Amazing Rudy. It was a Rudy episode and it had me crying like a baby. It was oddly topical to my own life as Rudy navigates living as the child of divorce. 😭

Friday

Friday the 13th! How wonderful to have a Friday the 13th in October since it hasn’t happened since 2006.

There will be another in 5 years in 2028!

For Friday the 13th I ran the original Paramount Friday the 13th movies - made it through parts 1 through 5.

I might run the last 3 before the month is out.

Saturday, today

Liz and I are hanging out today. I’m actually eager to wrap this post up so that she and I can spend some quality time together.

I think she’s doing pretty well, all things considered, given that Lou and I have separated.

I’m sure it helps that it’s not a contentious separation and that we’re working hard, together, to make sure that Liz is loved, supported, and heard throughout the process.

We’ve a lot of experience with co-parenting, and we’re both pretty solidly on the same page.

Liz has long wanted a split household because she watched all of her sibling switching back and forth between and thought it would be great. Of course she’s also been told by all of her siblings that it’s not great and that they were “jealous” of her for having a stable household with two parents. Greener grass, and all that.

It’s almost lunch time though, so I’m going to get this posted and put a pizza in the oven and then Liz and I will carry on with the rest of our Saturday!

Have a great day and I’ll see you again real soon!

P.S - Horror Movie Month for Week 41: