my careless contagion

This is my (brilliantly titled) end-of-year post. And what a year it has been. I apologize in advance, as this is a long post. Ya might wanna get some popcorn. 2019 started with a hefty dose of back to reality. It's definitely been a strange ride. Some highlights include seeing Cindy and meeting her kids (a highlight for me, probably not for them), as well as seeing my son embrace Play Partners (which is a sort of junior kindergarten which meets twice a week). Next was getting my two-year degree. I felt good about those things. Unfortunately, the year ended knowing there was no desire for a relationship on Cindy's end. She decided to mend her relationship with her ex. That's definitely good for her, as it was hard to see her wallowing in what I thought was indecision. Bad for me, though. All the illusions I had about us ended. But, that doesn't take away from good things that happened this year. And all I can do is follow God's lead, even though it takes me une...

Being a Christian can be very hard. Being a warrior Christian is unbelievably hard because the enemy is strong. Making mistakes and then paying for them in this life (thumbs to chest) is also very hard. Unfortunately, I fit the latter description most often, as this blog bears witness. But, when we get out of our own way, God blesses us. That's what this post is about.  My life is not perfect. I've been walking around with a broken heart as long as I can remember. Losing the girl I love was hopefully the last heartbreak for a while. I feel God stitching me back together, and quickly. The conversation of Oct. 26 gave me the closure I needed. I was operating under some very bad, specious information and false impressions, and I was set straight that day. Later conversations cemented everything, enabling me to go forward with the right information. That door has closed, and whether it opens again or not is not up to me. If I'm good at anything, it's admitting I'm ...

You were not the first, sir, and you certainly were not the last. But you were certainly one of the worst.  Her love affair with you was not brief. I don't know when it started, but she did tell me she was in love with you. I told her love is just a choice we make every day. These are things a man should not have to tell his wife. Who knows what she told you, what evils she relayed to you about our relationship. I'm sure I was a bad man and she deserved better, but you only got part of the story, sir. Yes, she deserved better, but so did I. She cheated on me incessantly, and my small attempts to equalize the balance of power were seen as devilish, I'm sure. But who was the bigger devil? I did lash out in anger, but mostly undetectable anger. I meant to hurt her, but in other, less-obvious ways than she did. Maybe you missed all that backstory. Maybe you didn't care. True, I was not a saint. But you two put me to shame. You spent a lot of time at my house, and o...

July 16, 2017, is the day Cindy broke off our relationship for good. I asked her not to come to see me if that was her intention. She did anyway. Some things have to be done in person. It was fair, though. I didn't think I'd get the girl. I used her to help destroy my marriage, and that's unforgivable. I tainted that perfect girl with our illicit relationship, and she ended it with class and poise. She was sick that weekend. So sick. Yet she came to see me. She had to do what she was going to do; that was clear. And she did it with practiced precision. When it was over, I cried. I said I wanted to be alone. Then I reversed and said I wanted to look at her because I realized it might be the last time I saw her. She shook with sobs as we hugged and said goodbye. There is a picture of me when I got home that day. My son is sitting with me in a chair, drinking his milk. I look tired as usual, but there is something else. I look like I have been gutted. And, indeed, I had...

Divorce changed me. I mean, that was the point. It was supposed to change my life, but something else happened along the way.  It's been more than six years (seven years?) since I first breathed those words out, "I'm going to leave you," to my now ex-wife. The things I've gone through in that time — first trying to save the sinking ship of my marriage and then setting the damn thing on fire — have penetrated into the very core of my being. There are phases of grief. We all know that. You don't really think about them as you're going through them, though; you just don't have that kind of perspective. It's not a linear process, but a back and forth, messy thing sometimes. But, after six years of having a heart "like a crime scene," today I feel at peace.  A divorce is like a war, but a war no one wins. It doesn't matter who came out better in the end. It doesn't matter what was lost or who got the couch (I still miss that c...

Psalm 32 sounds an awful lot like Psalm 51. They are considered companion chapters, as they deal with the same thing and were most likely written at about the same time. Psalm 32, however, shows us what happens after David progressed through the awful reality of Psalm 51. Psalm 32 is about forgiveness.  I own a study Bible from the 1970s. It's old, and it looks it. It's just one of a few Bibles I own. I would say it's mid-pack in the looks department. No matter, because I want to talk about what it says inside. First of all, go ahead and read the psalm here . You can see there is a familiar progression, with David saying this is a "teaching moment," so to speak. But where Psalm 51 dwells on the raw reality of David's awful predicament, Psalm 32 is a reminder of God's forgiveness. David screwed up bigger than at any other time in his life. I mean, this was a massive series of mistakes he was caught up in. If he had not admitted his sins to Nathan the ...

After times of great tumult, what we're left with is the often difficult task of making sense of what happened. How many tomes have been written about the world wars or the Great Depression or other significant upheavals? Well, I may not have been through a war or the Great Depression, but I feel like I've had my own skirmishes and have endured a significant amount of depression the past few years.  Starting about a year ago, I've been chronicling my emotional landscape. The major themes are: the end of a 20-plus-year relationship, falling in love with a different woman, and subsequent heartache as that relationship failed also. I've spent a considerable amount of time on the latter two, mostly because I have already dealt with the former for the last five years. We expect our progression to be linear and oftentimes we are surprised when we go backward or laterally in relation to where we'd like to go. What we may see as a setback, however, is probably just emo...