my careless contagion

This is the time and space where I'm supposed to talk about what I learned in the three years running this blog. I'm supposed to say how much I've grown (groan) or whatever. So, I guess we'll do that. I'd like to say a lot changed, but that never seems to be the case. I should have moved quickly in any given direction, but I felt God was telling me to wait. Instead, I got bogged down in a morass of self-pity. Maybe it was necessary to stand still and heal, but with blood in the water, it was an open invitation to the sharks that swam around me. Unfortunately, I learned how cruel, pathetic, and unsympathetic people can be when one is trying to heal. I also learned they will blame you for something you didn't do just because. It makes me wonder if it does any good to try to live an upright life if I'm just going to be treated like a criminal. But that's not me. That's my disillusionment talking. Prepare for a long read.  This blog is pedagogical in nat...

Today, Feb. 8, marks two years since I divorced the woman with whom I spent more than 20 years of my life. That's hard to fathom. I once read that most people who divorce remarry within two years. That's even harder to fathom, though I admit it probably would have been a healthier path for me. Two years ago, I got to find out what it was like to destroy the person who meant the most to me in my pitiful life. It was about as much fun as it sounds.  Clearly, I misjudged myself going into my divorce. Someone with my particular psychology and background should not move ahead with a divorce without more support than what I had. My baseline state is so much lower than most people, I simply could not bounce back from my divorce. I don't have the same chemicals in my brain that most people have. It's like I started 6 feet underground and then went further down, all the while trying to get back to the same level that most inhabit aboveground. My divorce was extraordinarily...

  December 16, 2016, was the day she came back into my life. In the following two years, I've seen a whirlwind of changes. I was so happy she was back in my life. As of this writing, she is not in my life anymore. Of all the changes I've seen in the last two years, this is the saddest. I thought once we started talking she would never be out of my life. It's okay, though. My life has taught me to live with the lack of things. And it was too good to be true anyway.   There was a change that took place in me on a recent Sunday. I sat alone in my apartment and something broke in me. It was a giving up. It was a letting go. Whatever you want to call it. I realized something that I should have seen before but didn't.  Stepping back and looking at the carnage from two divorces is sobering. If I could have done anything to help any of those in pain, I would have. What I didn't see was that I was perhaps the one most affected, the most destroyed, the most hurt by t...