my careless contagion

No, Nebraska is not for everyone. It's widely derided for being "flyover country," for being flat (it's the 20th flattest state, not even close to being the flattest — Florida), for being "cow country," "corn country," and for having a proud college football heritage but failing to live up to that heritage for, oh, about 20 years. But, hey, I hear they have a proper football coach again. And they've always had some of the finest mollisols on the planet. Nebraska, a heckuva place. I had never seen a blizzard before moving to Nebraska at the age of 10. I had never had a snow day. I got both of those within days of moving there in 1987. I can still recall the wonder of driving around town after the blizzard with the snow piled high in the middle of the streets. We couldn't see cars on the other side of the road! Yeah, Nebraska is not for everyone. Nine years of my life were spent here. These were years filled with many changes, now that...

Part two of how I've changed through the course of my divorce is similar to part one, only I want to flesh it out. This is another long post and is a raw, real look at who I am now in outlook and prospects. The seeds of divorce were planted long ago — in my childhood, even — and grew to encompass not only the pain endured in my marriage but my entire life as well.  When I sat down with my lawyer and initially talked about why I was leaving my wife, he asked what led me to darken his door. Well, I said I had about 100 reasons for divorcing her. Indeed, and more. I could have talked about the infidelity. That seems to be a quick enough summation for most people. However, the infidelity was a minor infraction and just part of a larger complex of behavior on my ex-wife's part. This is the part where some of you may get mad at me. You see, Kate is just a typical American woman. She wanted it all. I wanted her to have it all. I wanted her to be happ...

This is the end of the road for me. Okay, not really. But, there are some themes I want to put away, as I feel I've gotten tremendous closure for things that have haunted me for eons. Coming back to this place at this point in time has given me tremendous insight into my childhood and the years after. I've seen myself through my son's eyes. I've seen my parents through new eyes. Hell, I've seen the world with new eyes. I've gotten the rare gift of a second chance at life. When I leave here, I know I'll take my biggest problem with me, but I've had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to truly sit down, converse with, and understand myself. I walk away from here more at peace than I've been in years.  There are things I will no longer write about because I've done a tremendous amount of work to understand and clean up those messes. I'm glad to be done with them. There will still be trickles of these themes from time to time, I'm sure, ...