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.

 

Thanks

It’s that time of year again where we celebrate the theft of our land from Natives by some guys from Spain. Right? Or did the Brits steal it? I have no clue, I lost all of my historical knowledge years ago in the fray. Well, Google tells me that the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621. Fair enough. I suppose this explains why it is customary to share gratitude over a meal every year. When you have something to be grateful for, like a harvest, you celebrate it.

This year I have a lot to celebrate. My life is quite different than a year ago, and very opposite three years ago when I ate sliced turkey loaf and canned fruit off of a tray in prison. Here is what I am most thankful for this year:

1.    Nina. It’s been two months since my grandma suffered her stroke, and although there are some permanent side effects, she is able to do nearly everything she could do before it happened. She still has her personality, her humor, and her strength. I ponder why it took such a catastrophic event to get me closer to her life, but the point is that I have the capacity to be there, and I have shown up when I was needed.

 

2.    Continued sobriety.  Another holiday approaches and nobody will have to ask my mom where I am. I have sustained my commitments to my home-group, my sponsor, and my sponsees for a long time now. Working with others has been the foundation of my recovery which supports all of my other actions, and without action on my part, and like-minded people I can rely on for support, this daily reprieve from alcohol and drugs would not be possible.

 

3.    The Girls. Without my sobriety, I would never have landed in this relationship I am in now, and I can’t imagine my life any other way. This is a different life: there’s not a moment of quiet or privacy, and I don’t get to watch Netflix as often as I did when I was single, but such is life. I am happy every day I wake up next to her (even when she pushes snooze five times), and I am grateful that I have an opportunity to be a positive male role model for two adorable children, which is something I lived without (in my home) for the first 39 years of my life. Every day I am happy.

 

4.    Mom. I don’t see you as much as I did a year ago, but we are both in different places (figuratively and literally) in our lives. What I am grateful for is the relationship that we have formed since the day I got locked up in December of 2013. I remember getting a letter from you while I was sitting in that cold dark jail cell and feeling like I had somebody that cared for me for the first time in a while. That letter, although a little stern, got me through a lot, and even though I continued on the wrong path for a while after that, you were there through my entire stay in prison, and you have supported me every step of the way since my release. I love you.

 

5.    My job. I have benefits, I get paid more than I ever have, and I actually look forward to going to work. I’ve never been able to say that combination of words before.

 

And that’s the list. Of course I have a lot more to be thankful and grateful for, but this isn’t always the right place to say everything I want to, so I will leave it at that.

 

Every day, every week, I get farther and farther away from that criminal I used to be. This has not been the easy path: there was and is much work to be done, but the results are in and I’m loving my life as it is, so I need to continue doing what I have been because it’s working. Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Don’t forget to tell your loved ones not just that you love them, but why you love them.

 

 

She 6

It’s been two months since I wrote the last post in a series dedicated to my love life. Well, I decided it was time to add to the story, as so much has happened since my last publication on the subject. You may notice that the title of this post is She 6. Well, you get a gold star for detecting that there is no She 5. Actually, there is. I wrote it for her, and it will never be published.

Once when I was young, my mother was assaulted while I was in the next room by an angry, possibly drunken doctor. I remember feeling helpless: I was too young and too weak to do anything about the situation, to protect my mother. I felt that same way that night. I knew that you two were arguing, but I didn’t know how bad it was until you called me frantically, telling me to hold on. Then the phone hung up and I waited. You texted me that you were locked in a bathroom with the girls and that he was screaming at you through the door. He was punching things, and you thought he might be drunk. I tried calling you but you didn’t pick up. I felt helpless- I texted you to call the police.

The rest of that story is for her to write if she wants to, but it was pivotal because it opened up a whole new world for us. 

You found a lot of courage that night and you grew as a woman and a mother. It was the first step of many that set you free.

Two months ago we started growing even closer because it was possible without the toxic thing around. We planned a date with your girls because I needed to meet them if we were going to be able to see each other more often. We went mini-golfing which was interesting for me because I hadn’t been around a 2-year-old for a very long time and they don’t much like paying attention of following rules. The 6-year-old and I got along just fine and I let her beat me at all 18 holes.

Since that first meeting, I have spent more and more of my time in their lives, and in the past five weeks, I have really immersed myself in a life with children, spending most of my days with them (and She.) My life now consists of everything sticky, screaming, poop, pink, cartoons, half-eaten diapers (Willie comes with me too, and sometimes we forget to put up the gate), No!, Mine!, onesies, pee, trolls, egg-animal things,etc. I don’t know, I love it. Everything is always chaos when they are awake. Everything, off of every shelf, every time. 

It’s a whole new level of responsibility for me, too. I’m not what anybody would refer to as a “clean person,” and kids leave a mess everywhere they go. She has been used to cleaning up after kids for six years, and me just over a month. I have some catching up to do. I like to think I contribute a lot to the relationship, but I think I could add more. I already do a fair amount of cooking, and I generally do my own dishes, but I don’t do them to her standards and I can see that she is maybe a little bit neuro when it comes to cleaning. It’s okay; these are the things you find out about another person when you get close. Shit, I used to smoke crack, so I don’t judge other’s behaviors and habits.

Nearly all of the time we are in harmony: We laugh, we kiss, and we love. No relationship will ever be perfect. As long as we address issues as they arise and don’t let anything build up, we should be fine. This is a big change for both of us, and it may take a little time to work out all of the kinks and details, and while we are doing that, we can fall in love every day we wake up next to each other.

It’s the middle of the night. I can’t sleep. I look on you and see the woman I love and care for. I see a woman, a mother, and my friend. I smile. I wrap my arm around you to keep you safe. I can protect you now. The world is right, goodnight.

Love and Tolerance

It’s been nearly three weeks since I last wrote a post. Have you missed me? I’m sure you have, so I will employ roughly 700 words to describe my life since I’ve been away from the computer.

Hectic. That is an adjective. I use it solely with the following definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: Characterized by intense action, excitement, and confused, rapid motion.

Many of you who have been reading the He/She series of posts over the last two months are probably wondering about what’s happening now. Well, don’t worry, everything is going well. In fact, I haven’t been this happy since… maybe ever. It is very probable that I am engaged in the healthiest relationship I’ve ever been in, and I have immersed myself in her life which includes two beautiful girls whom I have begun to spend quite a lot of time with. Things are different, that’s for sure, but I really love spending my thoughts and time on other people: this is my new philosophy on life.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working through step 10 of A.A. which suggests I continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. My job is tough, I need to watch out for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear, and when they crop up—and they will—I need to address them and move on immediately, for my new way of life is love and tolerance of others. I need not worry about mistakes other people make, they can deal with those, the little bit I focus on myself these days is all about cleaning up my side of the road and seeing what good I can put into the stream of life. I forgive, I love, and I pray. These things set me free day to day. It’s a work in progress, and sometimes I dwell on things for too long and I find myself in my head, not able to pay attention so I have to work on this daily. I will never be perfect, and I cannot expect perfection from anybody else.

Kids have a lot of energy. A six-year-old and a two-year-old seem to have a never-ending supply of concentrated Mountain Dew coursing through their veins and it’s a lot to keep up with. I do my best to help out when I’m over at their house which has been about five days per week for a little while. I read a lot of books, cook a lot of food, and go on a few fun trips when we can. It makes me happy to see them happy. This is my life now, more to come.

 

My grandma has been home for a couple weeks now save for a three-day trip to the hospital for some nausea which turned out to be some bleeding on the brain which is normal after a stroke. She still has her three therapies, twice per week, and she is quite mobile now. Here’s the best part: she has regained nearly all of her ability to communicate. She still has some difficulty reading and writing but that will come back with time. We can have complete conversations and she is alert and humorous. She has to wear a heart monitor for 30 days to determine if she has an irregular heartbeat which may have triggered the clot to move from her heart to her brain, only time will tell. For now, everything seems to be ok, and we are finally able to breathe again. It was a tense moment in time, but we made it through as a family. Yesterday I brought my girlfriend over to meet her for the first time. We sat around with some family from out of town and had great conversation for a couple hours, and today she and I will be bringing the girls over to my mother’s house for my birthday celebration where she will meet some more of us.

Winter is coming, but fall is still here. Enjoy this beautiful weather while you can, and take time to notice how beautiful our surroundings are. Take time to forgive somebody, you will never make it out of this world alive so let go of that resentment before it destroys you inside. Take time to tell people you love them—let them feel how much you care. And take time to help somebody that needs you. People are struggling everywhere, and you may know somebody right now that is afraid to ask for help. You could be the change in somebody’s life. You might have the answer in your heart, in your mind, or in your wallet. If you are the one struggling right now, reach out. People will help if you ask them, and not everybody will know your stress unless you open up. Communication is the essence—you can control that.

 I challenge everybody to put something good into the stream of life today, and leave it there. You don’t need to brag or boast, just help. Try to be a good person, even when nobody is looking.

 

It's Just Aphasia She's Going Through (Part 2)

So much has transpired in my life since my last post. Not all of it has been good, to say the least, but I will focus on the subject of my last post and what has changed since I wrote it.

A little over a week ago, my grandmother suffered a stroke. Not a stroke of luck, and not a stroke of genius, but a stroke. This means that the oxygen supply to a certain part of her brain was cut off for too long, and essentially that part no longer works. Unfortunately, the part this effected left her with a condition known as aphasia, which hinders her ability to communicate.

Last week there seemed to be little hope, as the doctor bluntly told us there is no cure, only therapy. She moved to the Courage-Kenney acute therapy center at United Hospital on Friday... I think Friday. I don’t know. Anyhow, that’s where she is now, and she has been undergoing a battery of physical, occupational, and speech therapies. I have been in attendance for a good number of them, and I am happy to report that things—although still a little sketchy—are moving forward at a good pace for a stroke victim.

 

Everything we can do we take for granted. That we can not only see, but interpret what we see into information that we can understand and communicate is something we don’t have to think about doing. When we look at a pen, we know how to hold it and what to do with it. When we look on a loved one, we know who they are. We know our own name and we can certainly write it. When we see food we not only know that we need to eat it to live, we know how to eat it. When we listen, we understand. These were all lost to my grandmother a week ago.

 

Today I was present for her speech therapy where she was able to look at objects, say what they were, and write the names down on paper—not always properly, but she knew when she was making a mistake and figured out how to correct them. Yesterday during physical therapy, she walked over 200 feet with her walker and collected different colored cones that had been placed along the walls, giving her an opportunity to mover her head around while walking: helping to improve her overall balance.  She also went up and down a flight of stairs, and was able to maneuver over some hurdles.

Her basic communication (conversation) skills have vastly improved. She knows names, can engage in productive conversation, and can understand a lot of what is going on around her. She still has some vision troubles especially when her brain has to work hard at recognizing and writing words. She gets what she calls “double vision” and her periphery to the right is blurred, but even she will admit that she can’t properly describe what is happening.

Tomorrow the therapeutic recreation nurse will be bringing in some art supplies to see how her motor skills will function for something she is quite accustomed to. She has been a watercolor painter for as long as I can remember, and I think it would be great if she could get that back, or at least relearn her form.

 

We have great hope, yet we remain cautious to applaud just yet. She has made prodigious strides through hard work, and she has a long way to go. The process of recovering whatever will be recovered after a stroke usually takes about two years, so there is some time, and the largest area of repair happens early on with getting a lot of the speech and motor skills back.

It’s been a tough week seeing her like this. I don’t know if I could do as well as she is doing under these circumstances. Next week she will get to go home—actually to their new home, where she will have assistance around the clock available, and home visits from nurses, doctors, and family. We are all in this for her, and I will be there as much as I can.

 

It's Just Aphasia She's Going Through

It’s dark. My keyboard is barely visible but for the harsh light of my computer screen. The duct pushes clean air through a sterile vent at a droning and steady pace. Other dim light reflects off of all the shiny surfaces including the dry-erase board in front of me whose only word I can currently see is Aphasia. The reflection is that of a television set on the opposite wall which is cycling through some loop of advertisement or propaganda. The curtain is only half drawn so I can hear the bustle in the hallway just past, but I cannot see what is actually happening. Infrequently there is a buzz or a beep, but none of that concerns me because none of those noises are coming from within this room. Off to my right there is a shallow rumbling. It’s melodic and somehow brings me a comfort I don’t fully understand: It’s the light sound of snoring.

I’m in a hospital.

The snoring is coming from my grandmother who suffered a stroke just over 24 hours ago. I get security knowing that while she is sleeping, she is finding happiness that somehow makes sense to her fragile mind. She has suffered stroke aphasia which affects a person’s ability to express and understand written and spoken language, and during the last day I have seen that repeat itself too many times as she was tested every two hours with little to no success. When I say success I mean that she cannot say to us what she sees in something as simple as an illustration. She cannot read out loud. She cannot say my name.

I am not saying that she is dying. I am not saying that she can no longer function in any capacity. I am saying it is likely she will never be the person she was when she woke up yesterday.

Today is the day. Every day is the day you should be grateful for everything and everybody you have in life. I have much gratitude that I was able to spend the last two years getting to know my grandmother again. I can never get back the decade that I lost to my addiction (the second time) but I will always have the memories I have created since I came back.

Much of today was spent as it should have been, surrounded by family. We laughed, we cried, and we showed her the love she needed to feel. I didn’t like how the medical staff talked about her like she wasn’t there, but found that it was actually easier to communicate about her than with her. At this moment she is talking in her sleep and even these words are jumbled. I want to fix it somehow but I know I can’t.

There’s a feeling of helplessness that I’m sure she feels. I see her trying so hard to say things but that part of her brain won’t work. I want the doctors to give her a pill or a shot that will make it all function properly again, but those do not exist. Everybody is stranded in this situation. I feel frail. I am powerless. All we can do is continue to unite as a family and show love and support.

I need to be in the moment here, but I needed to get that out. Please send your thoughts and prayers her way.

He 4

This is the fourth in a series of posts written by She that starts here, and the eighth in a series of posts, the first four of which are written by me (He) that starts here.

Finding the courage to tell the man that I had been with for 8 years that I didn’t love him anymore was terrifying. I knew deep down in my heart this was something that I had been hopelessly waiting for for far too long. I had planned on telling him in person, but it didn’t exactly play out that way. He noticed I had been acting differently and that something was on my mind. The conversation ended up unraveling in a Coborn's parking lot. We were on the phone with one another and he was harassing me to tell him what was going on. I was choking on my words, but finally managed to blurt out “I don’t love you anymore.” There was only silence on the other end of the line, but I had never felt such relief as I did in that moment. I had finally said it.

We began talking more and soon learned a great deal about one another. Our coffee daytes added up and soon meeting Wednesday mornings at the Coffee Depot was regular. I didn’t expect to develop feelings as quickly as I did, but it happened. I even tried multiple times to end what was going on and remain only friends, but I couldn’t. He made me feel safe, worthy, and special. I was tired of fighting against a tide that kept pulling me back and dragging me down. It was time to stop fighting and see where the current would take me instead.

Surprisingly, my husband took the news well. He told me that all he wanted was for me to be happy and that he understood how the pain I went through affected my feelings. We went the next few days making a plan on what our steps would be moving forward. Who would stay in our apartment and who would move out, schedules for the girls, separating bills, etc. It seemed to all be going smooth; little did I know that was all about to change.

I had told my husband about he, not that I had developed feelings, but that I had a friend at work whom I had connected with through the subject of alcoholism. I told him about his blog and suggested that it would be beneficial for him to read as he continued his journey through sobriety. We kept our feelings low key and private. I had only told a few close friends. I don’t think I was ever afraid of what people would think, but more so I didn’t want the focus of my marriage ending to be because of another man. I had a past full of reasons and I didn’t want to drag him into it.   

Then one day, my husband came home and I could immediately tell he was acting off. He corned me in the kitchen and proceeded to ask me a number of questions and said that I have 3 chances to answer them correctly.  The questions were based around He and my feelings. The conversations grew uncomfortable very quickly and I could see another person emerging through his eyes. I found out then, that he had been reviewing my phone records and monitoring my calls and texts. He even had followed me an entire day when I was out and about to see who I was with. Things were escalating to a level I hadn’t seen before and it was scary. I started to question everything and thought that it would maybe be easier to take it all back and stay with him.

He kept my head above water.

Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life.

Tip toe if you must, but take the step.

To be continued…

 

 

 

WTF WF

I know I can’t control operations at a bank, and realistically, either can the tellers. So why would I get frustrated by a simple trip to Wells Fargo to cash in my change today? Here, I’ll tell you.

I walked in with my coin jar and waited in line while the tellers went about their routine. Every trip through the line is a sales pitch there, so I normally do everything I can to avoid a trip to my bank. I didn’t want to count out my change so this was a necessary trip.

My turn was up and I approached a nervous man. He stumbled over his words.

“Um, I’m sure you are aware that, uh, we don’t have a coin counter here anymore.” He pointed at a wall where there did, in fact, use to be a machine that counted coins. He continued, “Our new policy is that you can sit at one of our manager’s desks and count it and put it in these sleeves.” He grabbed a stack of random coin wrappers and showed them to me. Somebody wrote that policy.

You’re fucking kidding me, I thought.

He wasn’t fucking kidding me. He asked me to follow him to the waiting area where he told a manager that I needed to count and wrap my change. Now, I could only think of one other option at this point: go to Walmart and trade it all for a gift card. I decided to see what would happen next.

This is what happened next:

 

 

She sat me down at her desk and told me she had an hour before she had to do anything else and I should be done by then. I? What about we? So I literally sat there for 20 minutes and sorted out my own change, put it in the coin-tube things, and rolled them all out. At a bank.

 

It seems like every time I walk into a Wells Fargo, they do something that makes me want to try another bank. Usually it's the painfully slow line, or the agonizing bombardment of questions I am asked every time I'm there. If it weren't for the questions, the line would move so much quicker.

 

"Hi sir, my name is ----."

"Hi."

"What is your name?"

"Vince."

"What?"
"Vince."

"Hi Wince."

"Hi."

"How can I help you today?"

 

I look anxiously down at my pile of neatly rolled coins and stack of dollar coins. I point to it.

 

"Ok Wince. I would like to help you with that transaction. Do you have an account with us?"

"Yes."

"Can you slide your card please?"

 

Fuck. This is the worst part at any Wells Fargo. If you have to slide your card, you will automatically be standing there for at least five minutes because the system they use is from 1948. And this is when they hit you with exciting account opportunities like their new big time cash-back credit card. Fuck.

 

"I just want to get cash."

"OK, I can help you with that."

Great, you're a bank teller.

 

At this point he methodically and repeatedly counts all of the work I have done and comes up with $89.15. I tell him he has literally just counted out $99.15 and he thanks me for correcting his error. He asks me if I would like to deposit it or take cash which I thought we had already discussed because I will do anything, literally anything to not have to swipe my card at a Wells Fargo teller machine thing.

 

I have now been at my bank for 45 minutes which includes 15 minutes of standing in line, 20 minutes of coin counting and sorting, five minutes of setup and teardown of my coin-counting station, and five minutes of a 30-second transaction.

 

"Would you like to apply for a big time cash-back credit card thing?" OK, that may not have been verbatim, but he did ask me, and so did the giant signs everywhere in the building. I said no and I was finally done.

 

Wells Fargo gave me an account when I got out of prison. I had bad credit, little money, and they had no reason to trust me. So for that I am grateful. But I think it's time to move on as every trip seems to be an inconvenience to me and every other frustrated person I stand in line with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



He 3

This is the third in a series of posts that starts here.


For years I hid what I went through as a wife of an alcoholic. I hid it from my friends and my family. They could always tell when something was wrong, but I was good at convincing them that everything was okay, that I was okay. I would pray that one day I would find the strength and courage to leave, but I feared that I wouldn’t be able to do it for “life” by myself.

I learned how to walk on egg shells and choose my words wisely so conversations with my husband wouldn’t lead to a fight. Those moments were always the worst; before my eyes he would transform into a different person.  He would yell, swear, repeating himself over and over again. If I left the room he would follow, if I locked myself in the bathroom he would scream at me through the door. He knew what buttons to push and what words to say to hurt me the most. He wouldn’t stop until he grew tired. This was the same behavior with his drinking. He would hide it everywhere. I would find mini liquor bottles in the sock drawers, closets, jacket pockets; anywhere he thought he could hide it from me. He would drink until he fell asleep. I grew to have a lot of anger and resentment toward him. I knew that our girls deserved better and that I deserved better.

We worked opposite shifts from one another. He would work days and I would work nights. We would see each other for a few minutes and exchange a quick hello and goodbye before I would take off for work. I would call him every night on my way home and hold my breath until he answered. If he answered, I could tell by the sound of his voice how much he had been drinking. If he didn’t answer, I knew there was a good chance he was passed out and there was no way of knowing what to expect when I got home. The drive would seem like an eternity, even though I would speed most of the way home.

There was one night in particular that I will never forget... I called as I left work like usual, he didn’t answer. The whole way home I had an overwhelming feeling in my gut, I could tell something was not right. I unlocked the door and there he was on the couch. Passed out with a brown paper bag full of mini liquor bottles, empty ones scattered all over the coffee table and the floor. Next to him was our 3 month old daughter crying hysterically in her bassinet with a blanket over her face. Our 4 year old was next to her in a tired daze watching some stupid action movie. My heart completely sank and shattered that night. I bawled as I held my girls, thankful they were okay. I would never forgive myself if something happened to my children under his supervision.

So back to HE… I waited for you to respond. Watching those little Facebook messenger bubbles pop up and down to let me know you were typing. After what seemed like minutes, you responded “sure”. We planned to meet a few days later at a coffee shop half way between each of our places. A part of me felt wrong meeting with another man and not telling my husband, but there was also a part of me that knew you could help me better understand the mind and actions of an alcoholic. I needed to understand.

That morning when I arrived (late as per my usual) you were already there, sitting at a small table outside in the sun, coffee in hand. I was a bit nervous since this was the first time we had really communicated outside of work and our daily jokes. But I instantly felt calm once I sat down across from you. I explained a little bit about my situation, you shared with me your experiences, and we drank coffee. What seemed to feel like minutes was hours. Shortly after our coffee meeting you posted an entry on your blog. That entry would forever change my life. The title, Love Your Life and at the end of it you wrote a paragraph directed to she:

If everything in your life isn’t the best it possibly can be, if something or somebody is holding you back from being the happiest you have ever been, if you can’t be in the moment wherever you are because your thoughts are taken away to something darker, then something needs to change. And every time, deep down, we know what that change needs to be. YOU have the power within you to shake things up and even though stuffs might quiver awhile afterwards, eventually you will find happiness when the toxic thing is removed from your life. Every day you have one less day on this planet and you cannot afford to cry and worry when there is so much out there to experience. Never give up. Never stop trying to find what makes you live inside, because if you do then you truly die.


I knew immediately after reading this that I needed to make a change in my life. I could no longer wait for things to change and get better; I had to do something about it! I made the decision that moment to tell my husband I didn’t love him anymore.
To be continued…

Officer Down

I missed my exit. I wasn’t paying attention because I was on the phone. I always use my earpiece when I drive because I think it’s safer, but if I missed my exit to work, there must be some side effects. I knew there was another exit about a mile up the road on MN highway 12, so I would just loop around to get off at my exit which only lets onto highway 15 from the westbound side.

Now driving in the eastbound lanes, I noticed some debris on the side of the road, but I didn’t think much of it. I continued my conversation on the phone and found another exit that would allow me to finally get to work, still on time. I have never been late (in sobriety), and this (last) Friday would be no exception.

Now travelling in the westbound lanes again, I saw up ahead in the lanes I had just been travelling that there appeared to have been an accident, and the cops had already arrived on the scene. I thought to myself that it all must have happened very quickly and that the officer must have been behind the vehicle and saw it all happen, whatever it was.

I got closer and saw what looked like a van at an odd angle up on the grass and it had a huge spider web indent on the passenger side window. I thought that probably the van hit something and the passenger wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. I said a silent prayer for whoever might be injured.

I made my exit this time. As I wound my way through the million dollar houses that line the shores of Lake Minnetonka I had to pull over several times for emergency vehicles going the opposite direction at an alarming speed. I have never seen any vehicle travelling as fast as they were, and I knew they were probably doing to the accident I had just seen, but I was still surprised at the sense of urgency they portrayed. I would guess that even on those windy roads, they were going well over 120 on the straight-aways. Huh.

When I got to work, not five minutes in, I found out that an officer was involved in some sort of a crash on Highway 12, very close by. I stated that I had just seen it, but I didn’t really know what was going on. It looked like the officer was just parked on the side of the road, but I wasn’t paying much attention to it all as I needed to make my exit.

And a few hours later the news was everywhere. An officer had been struck and killed on the side of the road while clearing some debris. And I started wondering. I wondered if any part of my chain of events could possibly have had an effect on the outcome because I was so close to it all. Was the officer behind me in the distance? Probably, yes. Could I have known what was about to transpire behind me? Well, no. And I didn’t know what was going on from the other side of the road either, and if I had stopped to help, it wouldn’t have mattered anyhow. But I still wonder.

It also takes me back to the days where I would frequently pass out behind the wheel due to sleep deprivation. Four times, in four different cars I woke up backwards on a highway or speeding off into a ditch. Four times I was lucky to escape serious injury myself, and four times I cannot believe my actions did not affect anybody else with injury or death.

The driver of the car is said to have been texting and high on cocaine. That was true of me for years while I was behind the wheel, also with no license. I was no better than her, and I am so grateful that I am not in her shoes, and although she is pretty well fucked from a legal standpoint, I hope she finds the help she needs while she is away, and I hope the family of the victim can forgive her eventually, as hard as it may be.

He 2

This is the second in a series of posts--not written by me--that starts here.

I am a firm believer that everything in life happens for a reason.  Though the timing of an event or meeting someone in particular may seem inconvenient, God has a plan for everything. I hope that by sharing my story it can motivate or encourage someone in their own life. This is a story about she, meeting he, and him giving her the courage to find strength and break free.

So where did we leave off…oh yeah, you spoke to me in French. I’m not sure what you said at that exact moment, but I know that I smiled and it felt good to smile. The following day or somewhat close to that you asked if I’d like to hear a joke. I thought to myself, so this guy is cute and funny. I don’t quite remember what the joke was about, but I laughed because it was stupid. Something you would find on the back of a Laffy Taffy label. You told me that you would present me with a joke daily and in turn I was to do the same. Day after day we exchanged jokes, laughed, and that was our thing.

While lying in bed one night unable to fall asleep, I decided to stalk you on Facebook. I went through your pictures and explored your life like a creeper (or what I could, due to your privacy settings) and right then, up popped a friend request from you. My heart skipped a beat and I pressed accept.  

The situation with my husband during this time was at one of its better moments. He was on his 4^th try of sobriety and from what I knew of, was sober. He didn’t attend treatment, but said he was attending group AA meetings, therapy, and undergoing shock therapy treatments. Now, if he did any of these I don’t really know. I carried on with life and pretended I was happy. I think I made myself believe that this is what happy was. I told myself awhile back that if I ever did decide to escape my marriage and move on, I would have to find a person that met a long list of qualifications I had created. One- he had to be sober.  Two- he had to adore children. Three- he had to be an honest and trustworthy. Four-He had to make me smile. Okay, so I guess the list wasn’t too long, but all of these things were a must. 

I clicked the link to your blog post and soon found out that you had an extensive and colorful past. The first blog post that I read was titled 3 and had an opening quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and give thanks constantly. And because all things contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

 

I was relieved to find out that you had been sober for three years. You had overcome many of things that I was currently dealing with, just in a different form and I felt compelled to reach out to you. I knew that you could help me. I sent you a message over Facebook Messenger asking if you wanted to meet for coffee. My heart pounded as I waited for you to respond.

To be continued…

He

This is the first in a series of posts written by She.

It’s been over two months since we first started talking, but 3 since I noticed you. I first saw you as you were walking down the lounge porch with Chef. I was standing at the host stand and found it strange that I wanted to know more about you instantly. (I hadn’t had that feeling since meeting my “baby daddy.”)

I remember the moment that I saw you in the bar shortly after. I recall the situation a bit differently than you… You walked in dressed up and wanting a job. You never smiled or looked my way the few times I glanced over at you. Dozing off from whatever work I was pretending to do while listening to someone share with you the history of the club, I looked at you, but never caught you looking back.

I always wondered about you and your life outside of Club. I figured you were probably married, but no ring and if you weren’t married, you probably had a girlfriend. I wondered if you had kids, what kind of car you drove, where you lived, what your name was. All things anybody would want to know about someone if they were curious. And I was. Each day I would look to see if you were working and most days you were. Something about you, I was drawn to.

My life was a big mess. I had been struggling with a complicated marriage and a husband that abused alcohol, was a compulsive liar, and financially was digging us into a deep hole (that I had no knowledge of at the time.) I threatened to leave time and time again, but felt trapped. I  many nights crying myself to sleep, but held on because he blessed me with two beautiful children. I didn’t want to rip our family apart because I was the unhappy one. I didn’t want to put our children through that and swore that I would give everything I had before I gave up. I struggled with accepting the fact that being an alcoholic was a disease, when I blamed him for choosing to do it. I would ask over and over again how he could put liquor in front of his family and all he would answer was he didn’t know. This was his answer to many of the questions I asked. And soon enough I just stopped asking. My heart was scared and emotionally I checked out and lost a light inside of me. I settled with the fact that this would be my life. A life of fear, worry and anxiety every moment of what would happen next.

One day while in the midst of a friendly chat with a line cook, I asked him what your name was. He replied, "Vince."  That was it; I finally knew one small, and probably the most important detail about you. Days passed as we floated around one another. Not speaking to you, only secretly admiring and wondering. I didn’t even think that you noticed me or if you did by chance, you weren’t the slightest bit interested.

One day though it happened. We locked eyes for a moment, but to me the world slowed down and stopped, just for a second. And then you handed me a sweet potato fry and mumbled something silly to me in French.

To be continued…

Almost Two Years

It was 42 degrees when I woke up this morning. I should clarify that it was 70 in my house, but much cooler outside. Fall is my favorite season, and I am eager to feel the weather, see the colors, and taste the hard work of the summer sun in the vegetables and fruits that come around this time of year.

I worked hard this summer, and Labor Day weekend was the official end of the busy season, although golfers will assuredly golf until the snow flies, and people do eat without their children, so we will still have work throughout the fall and winter months.

Recently, I started cross-training on the garde manger station. I have been working sauté for the past few months and I love it, but it is good to know all of the stations in a restaurant so you are more useful, and it will look good on a resume someday.  I had a combined eight hours on the station before I was given the spot to work on the Sunday before Labor Day, and I wasn’t a fan. Garde mange (French for “keeper of the food”) consists of salads, sandwiches, and desserts. Few of them are easy to assemble, and most of them have a complex assortment of ingredients that seem to have only one particular function, so the station has 1,000 ingredients for 20 items. Now, that is an exaggeration, but when it gets busy it would seem that way. I don’t really like that station, but it sort of grew on me the other day, so I will go back and forth from sauté to garmo over the winter months.

Now, by contrast the first part of this post was probably boring compared to the previous four posts about my love life. I received a lot of (mostly positive) feedback regarding those posts, and I have plenty more to write about. She (yes, the She from those posts) has started writing her own series of posts entitled cleverly “He” that I may share with you someday.  

I’ve been seriously considering starting an anonymous blog; A new blog with an entirely different concept through which anybody can share their dirtiest, most honest and revealing stories. I have an idea for the first post which would shock most people, and nobody I know—past or present—has ever heard the story. Although my life is an open book, there are just certain parts of my past that are better left untouched. They don’t harm me, and there is no resentment held, and no amend necessary associated with these stories, they are just things that are too dirty to share on a blog associated with a message of recovery from addiction and criminality. So, stay tuned on that, as I may share a link someday.

It’s a little early, but I thought I would mention that in two days, I will have been free from prison for two years. It has literally flown by. I have changed from the guy wearing maternity pants, standing confused and afraid in the aisles of a Walmart then heading to his mother’s house to live, to a confident, strong man living on his own again, ready to face life as it comes, and willing to do whatever it takes to stay sober and carry the message of sobriety to those who still suffer. It’s been a hell of a ride, and I regret nothing. I am grateful for every day I have had, and I am hopeful for my future. I know that if I keep working on myself, I will be useful to others.

For the past year or so I have been able to say something that I hadn’t for over 30 years, I love myself. I love who I am and what I have become because of everything I have ever done.  

Thanks for reading.

She 4

This is the fourth and final post in the first series of posts that starts here. There will be more on the subject at a later date, but this will be all for now as there is content you don’t need to know, I don’t want to share, or she doesn’t want me to write about. For now…

The only thing missing from her marriage was a divorce. Although she had checked out of the relationship with her husband, they still lived together and he expected honesty and loyalty from her without reciprocity. He found out by prying into her phone records and tapping into her Facebook Messenger account. Needless to say, he was upset, and he took it out on her with a verbal assault.

But this post isn’t about that. The message of this blog is one of positivity, and even though I have a lot to say about the events and the ways in which they transpired, I need to focus on the now, and the happiness that has raveled between us two.

Putting him (the toxic thing) out of our minds, we resolutely turned our thoughts to each other, because we make us happy. Saying we is tough in that sentence because at the end of the day, she still had to go back to a home they both shared. I cannot imagine how tough that was for her, but she made it through and someday, I hope to share with you how it all went down.

I watch you pass by the kitchen window. I want to reach through and kiss you when you smile at me. You make my light shine even without your presence. Every day I have with you is a gift and our moments together become more precious as time passes. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Tu me tues.

This song.

We continued our coffee daytes. (Microsoft Word dislikes the word daytes, so it underlines it in red to notify me that I have not spelled a word properly, but we agreed on that term last night when we spoke on the phone. It’s like a date, but during the day which works out better for a mother with two children that works an alternating day/night schedule.) And we talked on the phone—a lot. I’m not a phone guy, so at first I was worried that I wouldn’t know what to say, but it came naturally, and we got Bluetooth earpieces so we could safely talk to each other on our respective rides home, often talking well into the night. When I’m on the phone with her, it’s not the same as being next to her, but it helps. I’ve never been short for words, and our conversation is filled with laughter, love, and levity. Of course, there are serious moments, too. Aside from a trip out of town for her, we have conversed over the air waves every day since I got her phone number, and I have never wanted to put the phone down (except for when I’m at the gym or tired. Or I don’t have my earpiece because it’s stupid and I lost it. I mean, why the fuck are those things so small? Why don’t they have like a homing beacon or maybe even a little bell on it like a cat might have?).

Two months in and she tells me the thing no guy wants to hear this short distance into a relationship. “Vince, I’m pregnant.”…….

Hahahaha. No, I’m just fuckin’ with ya’. Get your minds right.

I don’t know where this will all lead. This is just the beginning of a story of two complex characters coming together in this thing called life. I do know that I will do everything I can to keep this moving forward because I like her a lot and the feelings keep escalating every time I see her, and I’ve been given all of the signs that the feeling is mutual. I hope to write much more on the subject of us in the future, but for now, I will go back to blogging on an occasional basis. It’s been fun.

Life. To be continued…

She 3

This is the third in a series of posts that starts here.

 

The pain in her life was more than any one person should have to suffer. There are many forms of abuse out in the world, and she was a victim on many levels. She needed courage, she needed hope, and she needed to be loved. I prayed for her to find the courage to be strong. I gave her hope that her future could be bright. And I showed her it is possible to have fun in life: to smile and laugh every day without fear or restraint.

She gives me a lot of credit for helping her get out of a terrible situation, but I tell her every day that she is the one who did the work, I was merely there to support her and tell her she was wanted.

 

We continued our coffee dates. We would meet for hours before work that passed as minutes in our paradigm. We could talk the whole time, or sit in absolute silence without awkward tension. I have never felt so comfortable or connected to a person, and we locked in on each other and smiled for no reason other than pure delight.

It was tough for a while to hide our emotions from the people we worked with. At one point, well before I ever talked to her or told her jokes, I may have told a few people there that I would marry her someday. This was before I knew she had a husband, and before I found out that she likes country music. I had that very thought that moment I was standing in the bar at my interview: I didn’t think it, something said it, “There she is.” I knew what it meant.

A few days after we started talking, and privately meeting up for our coffee rendezvous, somebody took something out of context and started a rumor that we were sleeping together. This, I assure you, was not true, but it spread like wild fire and we were both talked to by management and the person responsible was reprimanded and slowly the rumors quieted, and we continued in secrecy.

This is a good point to mention that there are two beautiful creations as a result of the marriage. She has two amazing daughters that gave her hope and strength and happiness in her life when there was little else to be grateful for. I won’t write too much on that subject now, but it will be relevant to a later post.

 

We wanted to spend more time together but that would be difficult to do with an ever-prying husband and children to take care of at home. Me going to her place was out of the question as he didn’t know about me and surely he would fret. She lives fifty minutes away, so travel for us is less manageable than you might think. But, we managed to see each other before work, and we would often go for drives after work, meeting in the Lund’s parking lot down the road as not to arouse suspicion amongst the other employees. We were in our own little world when we were together; nothing could get between us.

A few weeks had passed since we exchanged our very first words through the kitchen window, and the inevitable happened: he found out.

 

To be continued…

 

She Part 2

This is the second in a series of posts that starts here.

 

Finding out that the person you are falling for is married is disappointing to say the least. All of the daydreams and fantasies that played out in my head would be for naught, and I would still have to see her at work every day, smiling, laughing, and living a life I wanted to be a part of. But that isn’t what happened. She carried with her a great sadness, and only briefly and on occasion would she let go and smile. I needed to know more.

We had a brief but friendly conversation over Facebook Messenger on June 27^th during which she told me she had been reading this blog. She gravitated toward the subject matter because she had been dealing with a very similar situation to my bad years, for the past few years herself. We agreed to have coffee together, and found a spot to meet midway between our respective houses, The Depot Coffeehouse.

We sat, I listened, and we drank coffee. She sipped hers slowly as she spilled her story to me as I gulped ferociously at my morning java as I always do. Now, what we talked about is private, and he isn’t here to defend himself, so I will only share this post that I wrote shortly after our first meeting. The last paragraph was written as a result of our conversation, and it motivated her to start the process of change in her life that she had so desperately wanted to for far too long.

That meeting was the first of many. I was in a bind for a moment because on a technicality, she was married. But mentally and physically she had removed herself from that relationship long ago, and I know from experience and Wayne Gretzky that we miss 100% of the shots that we don’t take, and I knew that I wanted to be a part of her life. I just needed to summon the courage to figure out what the next step should be. Then I realized there aren’t any set guidelines or steps to life. I realized that I had already been doing all of the work necessary to be the person I wanted to be, and if I continued to do what I was doing, my life would come together in the shape it was going to be: I was no longer in control, my God of my understanding would guide me, and give me the courage to deal with whatever was given to me.

For weeks we continued to talk outside of work. For weeks I watched her struggle with her life at home as it was and as it had been for years. And for weeks I gave her advice as unbiased as it could be; from my perspective as a recovering alcoholic. And on a daily basis, I watched her gain her own courage—her own strength from within—to move forward with a decision she had made long ago. She had found a piece of her life had been missing, and she set out on a journey to find it. She found that she could be happy. She realized she could smile every day.

We kissed.

 

To be continued…

She

It’s been nearly four months since I had my interview at the Lafayette Club. I’ve written extensively on the subject as time has allowed over the summer season, but I have one subject I’ve only barely broached.

I remember clearly being lead around the enormous compound by my future boss on the day of the interview. I was dressed in tan slacks with a blue plaid shirt tucked in, brown leather shoes to match my belt and watch: I looked like I wanted a job. Maybe I even used “product” in my hair like some sort of model. A lot of people say I look like a model.

I remember the tour well because something significant happened; I saw her for the first time. She sat across the bar doing paperwork (an employee not a patron) as I stood and tried to listen to the history of the dining room. I stared. I had never seen such a beautiful woman. My brain told me then that I would take the job because I needed to get to know her. I knew then that I needed to taker her on a date. I don’t think she ever looked up, but I hoped that if she did, she would feel the same way.

Time passed, I started working behind the line, and I got to see her more often. I was scared to talk to her at first; in fact, I would look down every time she walked by in fear of her catching me staring. Fears get in the way of a lot of our lives, so I decided that plan wasn’t working. One day she was on the opposite side of the line and I offered her a sweet potato fry, and she accepted, and she smiled. The smile nearly buckled my knees. I whispered in French, “Tu me tues.” You kill me.

I needed a plan. I decided to kill two birds with one stone: I would bring hilarious jokes to work every day and tell them to her. She would laugh, and I would get to see her smile.  So I did. Every day I would bring the funny, and every day she would laugh, and every day I would get to see her laugh. And it just kept going.

 

Each day of our lives represents opportunity to better this world. I have found over the past few years that if I continue to do things to help others: to make them laugh, to listen, to care, my life in turn becomes more whole. Each day I am given I try to figure out what I can give to this world, and when I focus on that instead of myself, good things seem to keep happening, so for today, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing, because what’s happening is incredible.

 

Every day we would talk over the foodservice counter (through the window in kitchen speak.) Every day I would learn a little more, and I would want to know more. And one day, we became Facebook friends. And that’s when I found out she had a husband.

 

 

To be continued…