Now

Hi. I’m going to try something a little different today. Amanda (that’s my girlfriend) is attending a C.M.A.A. event this evening and I will be watching the girls because, well, that’s part of my life now. It’s just after 4pm, and I’ve worked, worked out, and showered for the day, and I will be leaving in just a few minutes to pick up the two caterwauling tornadoes. The rest of this post I will try to transliterate what is happening around me to you as it is happening. I will embolden real-time events.

 

At the daycare center I walked past a few rooms to find the oldest child. It’s easier to pick her up first because the fewer distractions the better when getting a two-year-old. I find the oldest on the floor of the gymnasium picking up bb’s from a small plastic toy box she has dropped. I can’t imagine why any kids toy would contain bb’s, but here I am trying to find them on the floor of a daycare gym so no other kids pick them up and eat them. The little one is done with her snack that you will read about below, so she is trying to hand it to me. I don’t need it for anything so I tell her to put it on the table.

We leave the big room and head down the hall to get the young one. She runs to me with arms open and I give her a huge hug: it makes my day every time. We gather together her things which include: a backpack; a scarf; various art projects from the day; a hat; and her coat. The little one wants juice now. She doesn’t really want to put on her coat, so I lie and tell her mommy is at home and it works. The lie won’t matter in the long run because she isn’t old enough to remember in the short term, and I can distract her with treats when we get home.

We get home. Both children want a snack and I oblige them. They both want Nature Valley granola bars, but they don’t want to eat them out of the package; they want them in Ziploc bags. Again, I oblige. The little one is again done with her snack, so this time she sets it on my keyboard; small crumbs dance their way across the keys until they find a temporary home somewhere in-between the letters. The older one is now by my side telling me she wants to go to her friend’s house because she didn’t see her today at school, and I tell her no because I have never met their parents and I don’t know where they are. The little one is now directly to my left, coughing on my face several times and whining to me that she can’t find her juice which is on the table in front of us,and now she wants a pear. She’s crying again saying, “I want eat”.  The older is now to my right, sniffling because she can’t see her friend. I can’t win.

They are both done crying: It’s one minute later. It’s not dinner time yet, and the girls just had snacks. They are both whining now. It’s not crying, but it’s close. The big one still wants to go to her friend’s, the little one wants her blanky, so I tell her to go get it. She obliges. Nope. She came back without it. I don’t like giving them snacks too close to dinner time because they won’t eat their dinner, so if she actually is hungry now, it is possible I’m being neglectful. Either way, I will start dinner after I finalize this post. The little one found the remainder of her sister’s bar and is chewing on it while she stares at me. She coughs. Her hands and face are sticky and covered with oatmeal and sugar. It is my responsibility to clean her up, so I will do that now.

We are all settled down now and relaxing in front of the big-screen watching Angry Birds. It’s time to do something fun before dinner. Last week I showed the oldest how to start up a batch of agates in the tumbler. Today we get to check the progress and make sure everything is working properly before they get closed up for another three weeks.

We checked the rocks, and we found a blanky. I started a load of laundry, and now it’s time to start dinner. When I started this post I thought it would be fun to sort of write down what was happening in my life with two children on a given night. What I realized was that when I’m focused on something else (this post), I’m not being in the moment with them, and that is the most important thing. So I’m ending this here, and I will come up with something more substantial when I have some free time in the coming week.

 

 

Sexual Education

2017 was a tough year for a number of criminally, and immorally sexually frivolous men. It was a powerful year for the uprising of women who showed courage, strength, and an ability to fight back the men who had oppressed them in every field, and at home for far too long. This applies to life in general, and my life at home now with a victim of domestic assault. It was enjoyable to watch the uprising from the outside as an adult, but it called into question some of my sexual past.

Now, in the fourth step of A.A., we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. And in the fifth, we share that information with another person (my sponsor) and we let go of all of the defects of character that made us who we were for our lives in addiction. The fourth step includes a sex-inventory. For mine I was told to make a list of every woman I had ever slept with, and then, separately, write extensively on where I had been hurtful, neglectful, abusive, aroused jealousy, etc. I did that, and I laid it all out for my sponsor, and I felt better about things in general when the whole process was over. But it did bring out a lot of questionable behavior of mine from my teenage years and even some tacky events from my drinking and drugging days that all may not have been criminal in nature, but in the position I am in now—living with and helping take care of two female children—I wonder what could have been done differently in my past, and what can be done now to promote a healthy future for women of all ages.

When I was in sixth grade, I remember something called sex-ed. We all laughed about it because some of us knew a little about sex from watching porn from under their parent’s bed, or even then, from personal experience. Me, I had done neither at that point in my life and I giggled when I heard the words penis and vagina (and I still do.) I remember being showed a video on the proper way to put on a condom, using a real erect penis, and that was the talk of the town (of 12-year-olds) for weeks. That same video showed the proper way to mount a woman and insert said protected penis. But looking back I find one very peculiar oddity: nothing in any of the literature, movies, or presentations said that the woman should be awake, coherent, or conscious. Nothing dealt with what you should do if a woman (or a man) says no (even if you’re in the middle of action.) Boundaries were not even vaguely defined. That’s disturbing to me now.

I wasn’t raised with a male influence in the house, and I don’t know if that’s a talk that men are supposed to have with their boys. But I think boundaries are important and should be discussed at the same time as all other sexual education. As a male influence now in a household with only women, I think it’s significant to show the girls through example that mommy and Vince are equals, and that we respect what we say to each other, and for now, that’s what they need to see. I don’t know how early they start sex-ed these days, but I think it’s never too early to teach that gender equality is vital to our future as our culture grows to include so many variations on sexual category. More importantly, I think it’s vital for boys to understand consent at a very early age, before curiosity takes control and an opportunity arises where misinformation—or lack of information completely—can cause an irreversible incident, or worse, carve a path for lifetime abuse of every partner which can cause a lifetime of hurt for every victim.

My lack of education on boundaries fueled decisions I made while young, and under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Some people don’t need an accelerant to feed the flames of sexual misconduct, but if more people can recognize the signs of an abuser before a person becomes a victim, we all benefit, and if future generations are given the correct information at the proper time, instances of sexual abuse can go down.  

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.