Random Thoughts... Blogging, Marriage, & The Future

Brenda really hated this blog, the last six months we were together.

Perhaps she still does.

Before that she didn't care.

I think now she partly doesn't care, and partly thinks she hasn't any place, rightly, to criticize anything I do.

I’m unsure why I choose this method to work through things... thoughts, events, emotions... I suppose I find writing a way of coralling my thoughts... making sense of the torrent flowing through my noggin’.

I began my first blog a couple of weeks before my son, playing with fire, burned down our church.

That was a hard time for both of us. That event was the beginning for Brenda's hope to begin spiraling downward.

Rereading the previous paragraph I see I am implying the fire was the beginning of the end of our marriage. It was a stressful event that did redirect our lives... especially hers, but it wasn’t the only reason.

The fire changed the way Brenda saw Jeremiah. That was the real effect of the fire.

We had problems before. The death of Willy in ’92 was probably when we stopped helping each other through our emotional wounds. We each drew into ourselves, and when we spoke of Willy, it was through our terrible ache and we could not hear each other.

There were other problems. Sex.

And she had an affair 15 years ago as well.

The biggest problem was that at some point we forgot how to listen to each other, and to speak out our selves, sharing who we truly were.

We didn’t really help each other in ways that did any good.

I tried. I began writing the blog posts, and I asked her to read them. She always said she was too busy. Sometimes I printed them out for her. She didn’t always read those either. I took to reading them to her out loud. But, it seemed... I don’t know... that she really didn’t want to hear it.

I never stopped asking her to read them. Even when things took a personal turn in this blog...

I suppose I got to the point where I felt that if we weren’t talking about the things that were eating at us, then I would pour it out through writing. It may not have been fair to write about things she would have been uncomfortable with others knowing. It may have been best to keep them to myself.

And yet... that/this blog helped me in so many ways... it drew in people to pray for us, with us. It brought people who just “loved on us.”

I wanted to share my thoughts, my concerns. Her apathy should have told me her heart was wandering away.

Now it doesn’t seem to matter.

Aside from being a digital cloister, this blog has given me friends, and corporate prayers. Thank you for being here my friend.

This past year and a half I have written much about my life, my faith, my passions...

This past year what I have written has chronicled the tide turning against the sand castle of my marriage.

From this particular point on the timeline, what I think I see in the future is far different, far less clear, than the one I thought I saw not so long ago.

I clearly saw a future of old age with Brenda... a single marriage... a single path.

Now that future has drifted away like the illusion it was and in its place are confusing thoughts, odd ideas, unclear feelings.

Being married seemed such a certainty... such a part of who I am... was.

An idea has been slowly growing.

Why? Why should I be married? Why do I need another in my life?

When I was 18 I wanted to learn about religions. I'd been a Jesus Freak in the early '70s, and then I began to wonder about other ways of thinking.

It started with a pair of novels. Siddhartha and The Razor's Edge. Then I got a little book from the library about The Buddha. Next I read four or five Carlos Castenada books... novels masquerading as anthropology.

I started gobbling up that stuff.

I ran across a guy who had a lot of such things to read. He let me pick from his library.

I got a stack. A good stack.

I was living in Silverado Canyon, California, a rural community which ran in a mile sliver beside the Cleveland National Forest, and sent its fingers up smaller canyons... Sweet Heart Canyon, Mine Track, Sleepy Hollow, Shadybrook, Ladd Canyon, Wild Cat Canyon (I wonder if Alice still lives there)...

Above rose Saddleback Mountain... Scrub oaks, russian thistles, and mesquite clung to a thin layer of topsoil covering sandstone.

Into a wide, shallow cave I took that stack of books and stayed there almost three months.

The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, the Bible, Patanjali, The Koran, The Book of Mormon, even a little Moa Zte Tung. I read them.

A year later I lived in an ashram. A celibate lifestyle... I was there a little more than a year and a half.

I hitchhiked all over the West Coast.

Alone.

I have led a solitary lifestyle on occaision.

Part of my nature tends to the bookish monk.

I wonder... could my future be one without a partner?

I’ve been that way before.

If life is about experiences... living a life that is unique, making us unique for eternity... then as far as the marriage thing... Brenda and I were together for over 28 years. I have experienced the marriage thing. Been there, done that... still have the T shirt.

Maybe I’ll do something else.

These boys of mine may well be on their own within a year.

What shall I do? I could write! I could write blog posts, perhaps a book or two...

Once they are moved out... I could...

I’m a teacher. I’ve plans for this Summer... but... future summers...

Have you ever thought about how many books you are going to read?

I read eight or so a year.

In Silverado I read that many in a week.

At eight a year... Let’s see... reading, writing... the ‘rythmatic hints I have only 240 or so to go! Oh no!!! How will I ever be able to choose only 240 books out of all there is?!!!

Might that change? More than eight a year?

I could take a stack of books, drag them into my house...

Hmmmmm...

My future might be anything...