Christmasiest

It’s Christmas eve…eve. That’s the latest possible time of day on the day before Christmas. I can’t make it any clearer than that. It’s actually only 8pm, but that’s about how late I make it up these days.

Today I spent the day with my girlfriend and her daughters where we opened up presents and cooked meals and even prepared a family meal for her mother and her brother who spent the second half of the day with us. This was the Christmasiest thing I think I’ve ever done outside of the routine blood-relative holiday celebrations. We did something similar at my mom’s house last week, but we hosted this festivity: a first for us together.

 

Last night, the youngest daughter—whilst restlessly shifting around in her high-chair—fell to the floor with a thump. Quick to action, momma gasped and ran over to her baby lying on the ground before I had even realized the gravity of the situation. As I looked at her, from four feet up in the air, I could see a knot tying on her forehead. In my paradigm, I could see it pulsing with every heartbeat, and changing color quicker than a chameleon. In truth, it was pretty bad, and it did swell up quickly, but she cried it out in two minutes, and we iced it down for about an hour which helped the swelling go down to a manageable bump.

My first thought told me that we were going to be celebrating from a hospital. I was scared, and for the first time I realized that I was afraid not for fear of me losing something or not getting something, but afraid for the wellbeing of a child. This is a healthy fear. You people don’t really have to deal with sorting out fears like that, but I do. As an addict, I was only ever worried about myself. I only cared for my needs and wants, and I acted accordingly. Through years of retraining myself and fixing my past and present mistakes alike, I have found that if I put others first in my thoughts and actions, the world around me is a better place.

 

Tomorrow we separate for the day as our families hold their respective Christmas gatherings at the same time. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, and we will be back together in no time at all. In just a few short minutes I will get to help play Santa Clause for the first time in my life. Last night we wrapped all of the gifts from “him” and tonight, before we go to bed, I will eat both of the cookies the girls left out for him, and dump out the milk because, quite frankly, milk is kind of gross, and place their new gifts under the tree. There will be much excitement in the morning, and I will be part of a new happiness that is unfamiliar still, yet quickly growing on me in my new role.

 

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all was quiet

Santa Vince is ‘bout to diet

On the cookies and milk left out for Saint Nick

My girlfriend won’t let me type an inappropriate sentence involving her and ending with the word dick.

 

Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate, and happy days to all who don’t: I hope all of you love your life the way it is, and if you don’t…. Well, change it.

 

I'm Not Daddy

My name is Vince, and I’m 39 years old, and I’ve never had children. I’ve had much experience with being in the life of a child, and I think I do well with kids in general, but I am not a parent in the literal sense: nobody calls me Dad.

I want children—or maybe just one child—of my own someday, but I have no plans to impregnate any human females in the near future. I also have no plans to impregnate any other females of any species which is hopefully a relief to my friends and family. But if you want to make God laugh, make plans.

I recently put myself in a relationship with a willing partner who has two beautiful children from a failed marriage. She has custody of both of them full time, and I have taken on some of the responsibility of a positive male role-model. I suppose that’s a nice way to put it. Another way to put it is that I have forsaken my previous life as a bachelor to take on a roll much needed in the lives of three amazing ladies. But that last definition is self-centered in that it focuses on what I have sacrificed. I no longer have the right to concentrate on my desires over what is needed by the greater good. My only objective here is to continue to do the next right thing and give instead of take. What comes back—what is given to me that I do not ask for—is a love I am unaccustomed to; a look from a child that says she appreciates me; a laugh at my silly joke; or a hug from a tiny person when I wake up in the morning. I can’t express what those actions do to me inside, but it activates a part in my brain that I don’t think has ever been used. I know I’m not Daddy, but I’m filling in where one is needed, and it’s coming naturally as far as I can tell.

Privacy is gone, organization is out the window, and my skills as a cook are humbled by the selective palate of a toddler and her older sister. I’ve found myself in a world where some people only pee and shit in diapers which they cannot clean themselves. They cannot eat a meal without getting food in their hair, and juice on the floor. They cannot stand it when a grown-up is not present in a room, and they will open bathroom doors and shower curtains to be in sight of an adult. It’s creepy. Two-year-olds are creepy. There, I said it.

The older one is much easier to communicate with mostly because she knows English at a first-grade-level, and we have a lot of fun with math, cooking, and projects from the internet. She is creepy in her own ways, and she doesn’t like to flush the toilet when she’s done, but I can accept all of her shortcomings because she is learning daily. We laugh a lot and I told her how to spell the word fart.

 

I am not Daddy. I am not replacing Daddy, because I need to be better than he was in their lives when he was there. He left with an impact that will surely be felt in their lives for some time to come, and he is in a place where he can work on becoming a better father and I hope and pray that someday he can be part of their lives again as their father. If and when that happens, I will still be in their mother’s life as a positive male role-model, and someday when we have all been through whatever it is we are going through now, we will establish our relationship boundaries and live our lives in as happy a fashion as possible. For now, we are growing each day, and learning how to love again.

 

Growing

I’m still here. It’s not even that I’ve run out of material on which to write, it’s that I’ve been using my time less selfishly. When I first started writing, it served as a platform to air out my laundry in a way that wasn’t perceived (by me) as so personal; it was just a story on the internet. Then I decided to go public with the blog, venture out on my own, and the format changed to a life of recovery after prison. Now that there's somebody else in my life, I've felt restricted as to what I can and should write. But that will change with time.

My life is different again. I’m still in recovery. In fact, my sober life takes up quite a bit of my time as I now have four sponsees and a sponsor all of whom I try to meet with weekly, along with a home group and another meeting I attend on a weekly basis. I have a service commitment in my home group as always. I am the 7^th tradition coordinator. The 7^th tradition states that every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. This is usually the time in the meeting that the baskets are passed around as we collect money to pay for rent and lights and coffee, etc. It also means that we are completely self-contained in our group. We do all of the work including setup, cleaning, and business duties. There’s actually quite a lot that goes on behind the closed doors of AA, none of the specifics of which I can share with you however. Did that sentence make sense? I hope not. Let’s move on.

I’ve made big changes at work. I was promoted obliquely which means that there is no raise associated with the new responsibilities. I coined that term just now, and I like it. I now work the 6am-2pm shift Tuesday through Friday, and Sunday. I am a morning person and this really works with my schedule and what I do with my life outside of work and recovery. I am now a breakfast cook again. This is my third stint behind the omelet pan, but my first in roughly a decade.  I am also now the “soup man” which is great in its special way because I get to use some creativity in that I get throw leftovers in a pot and boil the flavors together. Can you tell if I’m being sarcastic? Neither can I. My alarm time of 5am does come early most days, but I get out of bed and trudge on anyhow because I don’t shirk responsibility anymore. I’m only a week into these new hours, so maybe it will catch up to me, but for now I am happy.

Most important of all is my life with the girls. Each day I am blessed to have these three hearts to wake up to, to come back to, and to enjoy life with. I spend nearly all of my time here, and there’s talk of spending all of my time here, not because it’s convenient, but because it feels right. There’s not just talk, there’s action. In order for me to make a move this far away from my county of commitment, I had to have the idea approved by the Department of Corrections, which it was. Making a move 50 minutes west is a big decision, and I have considered it carefully. I’m not looking for approval or guidance, just acceptance. So there you have it.

I will continue to write once I have come up with a more current theme as it relates to my life in recovery, life in a relationship with a married woman, and the daily struggles with children that look up to me for love and tolerance. Until then, I will continue to be grateful for everything I have in my life. I believe I have been growing in a spiritual sense. I have the best comprehension of a God that I have ever had. That doesn't mean that I believe in God, it means that I believe I am not God, and I am capable of loving and being loved, and that I spend my time putting good into the stream of life because of the feeling I get in return. Maybe in that way I am selfish.