Nonsequitur Life

I’ve been battling a massive mental block lately when it comes to blogging. Writing I’ve been doing. Not necessarily the writing I really want to be doing, but writing nonetheless.

I spent weeks working daily on a single project. The main document is sitting at 96 pages and about 46,000 words. I haven’t written anything on that project now in about two weeks.

I’ve been working on something else. All because of a ridiculous dream. It’s sitting at 59 pages and almost 30,000 words. Which would be great if it was a legitimate project. But it’s one of my hodgepodge, bits and fragments of conversations, never-see-the-light-of-day, lay off the crack already projects. And while the writing is not terrible and it’s a lot of fun to write…it’s not what I want to be working on.

In my infinite insanity, the gears start turning on how I could possibly turn it into a legitimate story project. A few tweaks here, a name change there, it might just work out. There are a few things that will take some creative finagling to get them to work, but I could have something in the pipeline that I’m happy with.

I’m fighting to get back to the story of Ben and Marina. But right now I’m stabbing at the developing tale of Kate and Michael. We shall see what happens.

Please to excuse the blatant abuse of commas. I’m pretty sure it’s some sort of psychosis.

Revelations…

It’s easy to share details about the goings on in my life as they relate to this job and this community, but I tend to keep the details about my personal life to a minimum. I’m a pretty open book most of the time, I like to talk. (You are all shocked by this revelation, I’m sure.) I share stories about my kids, and things I do with my friends, but I haven’t ever said much about my love life. There wasn’t much to tell for awhile, but even when things changed, I still kept quiet about it.

I’ve mentioned in the past that I’ve been married and divorced, but other than saying it was unpleasant, I’ve never shared many (or any) details with the general public. I’m not interested in airing my dirty laundry for the world to see. I also have two young kids and someday they’ll be old enough to sift through the archives of all of the content I’ve created for public consumption and the last thing I want is for them to find some diatribe of me railing against their mother.

The truth is my divorce was long, drawn-out, and very, very ugly. We were both to blame for the downfall of the marriage in a lot of ways, but most people—including some many would not expect—agree that I was the one who wound up getting the short end of the stick when all was said and done. It was a mess, and if I’m being perfectly honest, it almost destroyed me. If it weren’t for my kids and some pretty incredible friends, I wouldn’t have made it through to the other side as well as I did.

It was about two years after the divorce was final that I met Her. She came into my life unexpectedly and our first meeting was not love-at-first-sight. It didn’t take long for us to become friends, however. We’re very like-minded in a lot of ways, especially our sense of humor. For the first few months, I never even considered that she might be a prospect. At that point I was still fairly bitter and jaded toward relationships, avoiding the dating game like a fucking plague, and having an impossible time trusting anyone.

She was different.

One day after a particularly infuriating fight with my ex about time with my kids, I was in a miserable mood, having a pity party with myself. She showed up, seemingly out of nowhere and asked if I was alright. She listened while I vented about the situation at hand and made me feel less crazy about how I was handling things. When we parted ways, she told me she was always available if I needed someone to talk to. It was after that conversation that I started to realize exactly what was so different about her.

I trusted her.

We had several more conversations like that one over the course of just a few weeks. (The first few years were extremely rough when it came to fighting with the ex.) She’d listen to me vent, rant and rave, and when I’d said my piece, she always made me feel like less of a tool for being as upset as I was. (Anger and frustration are completely normal and acceptable emotions in the aftermath of a divorce. Some even consider it healthy…who knew?)

The more we talked, the stronger our friendship grew, and the more I trusted her. The more I trusted her, the more I realized…I really liked her. It felt like I was regressing back to an awkward teenager, as for the first time in over ten years, I found myself on the market, and I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. Technically I’d been “on the market” for over two years at that point, but I was finally mentally and emotionally ready to take back my life.

I found someone I was willing to open myself up to, to trust wholeheartedly. But there was a problem. And it had everything to do with why we met in the first place. There was a piece to our existing relationship that complicated things greatly if I wanted to pursue a legitimate, romantic relationship with her. Because of this one, significant hang up, I tried my damnedest to push aside the notion of “us.” This just opened up a whole host of other problems, because not acting on it started to eat away at me. One of my closest friends did his best to talk some sense into me, but in the end I acted. It may or may not have been the stupidest thing I’d ever done. But I didn’t regret it. And I still don’t.

The best “mistake” I ever made, was kissing one of my employees.

Probably didn’t see that coming did you? Or maybe you did. I’m a horrible secret keeper after all.

We fell into a relationship quite well aware of the possibility of backlash and cries of nepotism. Neither one of us wanted to be “that person.” I wasn’t some drooling lecher, I didn’t want people to suddenly lose respect for me because I couldn’t keep my hands off one of my female employees. She didn’t want to be the girl who slept with her boss for a raise or a promotion. Neither was the case but we didn’t know if that was how other people would see things. After a considerable amount of deliberation, we decided we were willing to take that risk. We kept things under the radar at work for about six weeks before we finally broke the news. And while there were a handful of back-handed comments muttered by a select few, it was largely just…accepted. It was a loud reaction from everyone, but it was a positive loud.

We waited even longer to break the news to the community—to this community—because we wanted some more time to ourselves. The same fears of backlash were part of what kept us from sharing, but it was mostly because we weren’t prepared for the magnitude of the expected response—good or bad. The zeal of this community is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I am grateful everyday for the support that comes pouring in from all parts of the world from you guys. You are the reason any of us have a job. But you don’t react to anything quietly. And that was the biggest roadblock we ran into.

We’ve finally reached a point where we think we’re ready. It’s a crap shoot, we don’t know what to expect by dropping the news bomb out into the abyss like this, but we’re doing it anyway. And we hope you’ll forgive us for waiting so long to tell you.

People who know me best know the hell I went through in my divorce. Opening myself up to someone new was a huge milestone in the healing process. And in the time we’ve been together, she has helped me heal so much of the damage I never thought I would get past. Probably more than she’ll ever know. It was from this fact alone, that our relationship was as widely accepted as it was. She’s good for me. We’re good together.

She’s incredibly smart, she’s amazingly talented, she is genuinely the nicest person I have ever met, but she does not put up with bullshit from anybody. We are polar opposites in a lot of ways and so much alike in so many more. Our sense of humor is a terrifyingly perfect match and she makes me laugh, typically when I least expect it. She calls me on my shit, she doesn’t let me brood [too much] over negative encounters with the ex, and she lets me just be myself. She’s incredible with my kids and they absolutely adore her. I love her more than I ever thought possible.

Her name is Kate.

I think you know her.

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Surrender Sister Hazel