So, Eric, what's been going on? Well...a whole bunch, and not much at all. My kids are all moved out (at least for the time being), with both of the girls attending UNM, and my son living nearby with his girlfriend. He still works at the cafe, so we see each other regularly, and I try to get up to Albuquerque to see the girls at least once a month.
So, I find myself living alone for the very first time in my life. The dirty dishes are my dirty dishes, the laundry piled up is mine, the reason there is no food in the fridge is because I ate it...and I kind of like it.
Work is still the same, a hectic summer, trying to get caught up on back taxes from the previous winter, only to be sliding behind again already. Ah, the life of the small business owner in a tourist town!
I met a woman, actually we'd known each other in high school. She messaged me out of the blue on FB one day in March, and after that we messaged, texted, or emailed back-and-forth nearly every day until July when we finally met and spent a day together. At one point during our correspondence, while we were talking about relationships, she wrote that she believed that she felt that she would KNOW when she met the right man. Apparently, I am not him.
Up until our meeting we had really connected, there was a solid feeling of friendship and the beginning of something more, I think, and I really wanted it to...be. Since then, we talked on the phone a few times, we always laughed a lot, but then we just sort of drifted.
So, still no prospects in that department, but that's alright...you get right down to it I'm a 44 year old, out of shape, twice divorced, struggling business owner, whose credit rating is in the toilet from putting his business's and his kid's needs ahead of the need to pay his bills on time. Oh, and I've got a bit of a drinking problem. Not exactly the types of things nice ladies are looking for. No one that I would be interested in being with is going to look at the above description and say, "Wow, this one's really fucked up, I can have a great time fixing him!"
Am I beating myself up? No, it's an honest assessment, and I'm okay with it, because, on the other hand, I've somehow managed to raise three very good young adults, in spite of their mother leaving when they were young and their step-mother doing the same later, and in spite of some serious miss-steps in my parenting techniques. I also think that I'm a pretty nice guy.
I'm not going to go on patting myself on the back...I just don't want to give an inaccurate sense of how I feel about myself. Could I be better? Of course. I could also be a hell of a lot worse.
I'm thinking that I'll examine a few of these sentences in a bit more depth in some future posts, and I don't think it will be too long of a wait, if you're interested, because I'd forgotten how therapeutic writing can be, how it can help one see things from a new perspective.
I hope everyone is well, I'm slowly getting caught up on your blogs.