Time to Decompress
Metalcore. From the Disguise album, released in 2019. More info from Wikipedia.
Oh look, I only made it two weeks since the last post before making another. I call that progress!
What's been going on in the "new" life since two weeks ago? Absolutely fuck-all. At times, it's felt like time has been passing me by; other times, it's been at a complete standstill. This past weekend was probably the busiest I've had since being divorced, so let's recapitulate the events that have transpired (let's start with Tuesday).
Tuesday after work, I went to go see the kids. This would be the only time this week where I was able to see them, as I was expected to be out of town this weekend (more to come). The visit started absolutely great. My daughter has gotten to the point where she feels far more "comfortable" with me (which is a world of improvement from this time last year), and she spent a lot of time playing with me in between playing with my son. Similarly, my son and I did what we have done as of late: be goofy, silly, and play around with each other. However, this fun and excitement would take a nasty turn, which caused the remainder of the visit to be miserable. At some point, I was introduced to the fact that my son now has a little tablet — "kid-ified" of course — and he was ecstatic to show me a couple of the things he had on it. This demo was only meant to be a short duration before going back to play, and while it was short, he made it readily apparent that he wanted to play with it, but knew that he couldn't until after I left. As such, he made the comment that he didn't want me there anymore. This hurt. Badly. I knew that he didn't mean for it to come across that harsh, and I know that he just wanted to play and have fun. But that brief comment absolutely stung and made me feel miserable for the remainder of my stay (which was still about 30-ish minutes after the fact). I had to fight back a couple of tears, especially after I glanced at Kayla with the look of utter despair.
Doing my best to look past the events of the previous day, Wednesday made a valiant effort towards improving my mood. One of my work peers arrived at work to help install our new virus scanning kiosks, and it was good to spend time working with him, despite getting absolutely nothing done (we did not receive the Windows image files for the kiosks until late in the afternoon, at which point we decided to put everything on hold until the next day). He took off shortly after 4 PM to go check into his hotel, and I followed behind him about 20 minutes later to pick him up and take him to a local restaurant that serves good food and better beer. A couple of beers later, I dropped him back off at his hotel and headed back home (side note: I really have no idea how long it will take for me to get comfortable with calling anything but the house my kids are in "home").
Thursday proved to be significantly busier than Wednesday. My work colleague and I were able to get started on the new kiosks, and while he primarily focused on those tasks (that is what he was there for, after all), I was able to complete a couple of other items that required my attention, being that I'm assigned to my site. About an hour before I kicked off for the day (a bit early for this weekend's activities), I found out that my work peer would be working late Thursday and some on Friday, which meant he had to stay another night away from his own family. I genuinely felt like crap, given that I was leaving early to make a near-seven-hour drive, but he assured me not to worry about it, to drive safe, and we'd chat on Monday.
I got back to the house just before 3 PM Thursday, loaded up the car, had my younger sister pile in, and we set out for Cocoa Beach. Despite "minor" traffic in Jacksonville (it was after rush hour, and while still a bit busy, traffic stayed steadily flowing), we made the six-and-a-half-hour drive about 20 minutes faster, after considering the brief stop we made in Brunswick, Georgia for fuel, food, and a stretch. To much surprise, I didn't even really speed. I stayed at 76 MPH for an overwhelming majority of the trip, only getting a fair bit more aggressive navigating through J-ville traffic.
Friday was somewhat of a "meh" kind of day. Meeting up with my oldest sister (who was down in Cocoa Beach for the same reasons I was), we hung out at the beach for about an hour and some change, before the threat of ominous thunderstorms rolled in. Driving back to the house my sister rented (which was in Rockledge) literally took us an hour, courtesy of an accident just before the bridge going over the Indian River.
When we got back to the house, I started feeling miserable, like I had some kind of cold creeping in. My oldest sister's friend stopped by, and it was good to see her again, given that I hadn't seen her since just after I graduated high school. She's a year younger than my oldest sister, and damn did she look good. She was attractive when she was in her 20s, but it seems she got even more attractive 15+ years later. Of course, I have no intentions of even trying anything with her — definitely a bit awkward — but it damn sure didn't stop me from looking. At some point, however, I felt that whatever cold I caught was getting the better of me, as it was getting difficult to swallow without pain and I started feeling feverish. I went to the room that I claimed as mine (the house was three bedrooms — one for my oldest sister and her boyfriend, one for me, and one shared between my younger sister and my niece) and ended up falling asleep sometime shortly after 8 PM. When I woke up, it was after 11 PM, so I just shut the light off and went back to sleep.
I woke up Saturday morning at about 9:30 AM, and just laid in bed for a solid 30 minutes before climbing out of bed. I quickly ate breakfast that my (oldest) sister made, hopped in the shower, and left at 10:30 to go pick up the food for the main event that caused my trip: my other older sister planned a surprise birthday party for her husband, and I was designated as the delivery boy for the catering that was ordered.
The party went well. Easily 30+ people in attendance, half of whom I knew, the other half I didn't. I was able to see my mother for the first time in quite a while, which was a mixed bag. While I do love my mother, I don't really have the greatest relationship with her, and neither do my older sisters. Add the fact that my mother has not made any noteworthy effort to see my kids (my son is five years old and has never met my mother), and it's fairly clear to see the relationship — or lack thereof — between my mother and I. Other notable attendees were my aunt and uncle (who I'm always happy to see; my older sisters and I have a much stronger relationship with our aunt and uncle than our mother, and while my younger sisters share a similar relationship, theirs I don't think could come close to what my older sisters and I have, given that at one point as kids, they were our guardians for a fair bit of time), a couple of old friends that were foster children at one point in time like we were (who likewise have a closeness to my older sisters and I that isn't shared by our younger siblings — no hate, just our younger sisters weren't with us older three at the time), and a couple of new faces to me that meant a lot to my sister's husband.
Getting back from the party, I conversed with my older sister and boyfriend for a bit (they left the party early) before feeling similar feelings of fatigue as the previous day. I ate a couple of the leftover sliders from the party (they came from Publix; man their food is divine, and always has been, as far as I'm concerned), then went to bed fairly early.
Leading into today, I was up at 7 AM and lounged in bed for 30 minutes before getting up and finishing up my packing duties. I had a drop-dead departure time of 9 AM so I could get back in time to see the kids this afternoon, and after waiting for my younger sister to finish up, we managed to roll out at about 8:15 this morning. We stopped for fuel and took off on the familiar six-and-a-half-hour drive, stopping once (again in Brunswick, Georgia — it makes for a convenient "halfway" point). With a 15-minute stop in Brunswick, and a five-minute delay for an accident just north of I-26 in South Carolina, we made the return trip in six hours, 45 minutes, despite favorable traffic getting through Jacksonville (and being as aggressive as I was three days prior).
An hour after getting back, I turned around and went the opposite direction to go see the kids. This visit was immediately met with an apologetic son for his behavior on Tuesday, and while I had put that issue to rest, it was great to hear him own up to it. We spent the following hour playing, reading, and being silly, with my daughter joining in on the fun. I'll see them again Wednesday after work, and hopefully it will be as fun as today was.
Having decompressed the events of the past five days, I feel it's time to start winding down, so I'll leave this post with select lyrics from a song I heard while on my way down to Florida. This song is an absolute banger and seems to be a good way to summarize how I feel with the situation I'm currently in as a divorced father of two:
But I hate that it seemed you were never enough...
And I hate that I made you the enemy
And I hate that your heart was the casualty...
And I hope that I sing through your memory...
As I see you now in what's left of me
Is it too late to plead insanity...
You were broken and bleeding in the name of love
And I hope that we meet in another life...
I don't hate that I need you