How Time Sped Up Towards Divorce

As I get older, the past sometimes looks like a distant image.

When exploring memory banks and emotions attached can the past seem clearer.

Although not every detail is recalled, some things do come into view.

The few clarifying details somehow provide for a bit of understanding.

My middle school years (6-8th grade - ages 11-13) were quite challenging for me.

They were also challenging for my dear relatives.

Towards the end of my sixth year at the private Catholic school, the priest suggested to my mother that military school may provide me with the discipline necessary to straighten me out.

Although I had aspirations to join the military as my dad had and other male relatives, the thought of military school was fearful to me.

I begged my mother not to send me there.

I went, instead, to a public middle school in a nearby city... using my aunt's address to qualify for admittance.

The public schools in the city I resided in had already been overrun with gangs and too much disorder to deal with (at least this was my mother's attitude and one which I agreed with).

Although I had learned several bad traits during my time at the private school, I learned many more bad things at the public school.

I think this is sadly a natural process a child experiences as they learn more about the world and how adults seemingly care less about small trespasses and perhaps even larger ones.

The freedom to curse, to make nasty jokes, and disrespect teachers was not curbed at the public school as at the private school.

These activities were still 'wrong', but they weren't dealt with as strongly as at the private school.

My rebelliousness was met with many allowances to further rebelliousness as much as I can get away with.

Only fighting was dealt with strongly, and I had my times of near-expulsion for that activity... having to sit in detention several times for it.

It was during this transitional period that I realized my dad had a girlfriend outside of his marriage with my mother.

That woman would often call the house asking to speak to him.

The emotional turmoil this caused my mother, sisters, and myself was quite overwhelming.

My dad worked well with his hands, and I would sometimes accompany him to a nearby municipal airport where he was hand-building his first airplane.

I desired to pursue a life with airplanes in emulating my dad, so any chance I had according to his allowance I would go with him.

I couldn't understand the feeling I would feel in my stomach when this woman would show up at the airport.

I knew deep down inside it was wrong, but seeing my dad sin like this was so conflicting regarding the upbringing he and my mother had paid tuition for.

Being so young, I can only reflect this adult activity as a reflection of me... not something between my mother and father.

I remember one day asking my dad after that woman left, through many wrenching tears, why he didn't love mom.

My emotions seemed to have triggered his, and his eyes welled up with tears when he responded with 'she never cooks for me'.

It wasn't until many years later as an adult that I better understood this seemingly ridiculous answer of his.

Entering 7th grade at the public school, I tested and qualified for a pre-algebra math class.

Not sure if it was my brain's limitations or the stresses of the dramatic events at home and my transition, but I would become overwhelmed when I couldn't process the math.

I recalled to my mom that during a particular math quiz I was dumbstruck at what the questions were asking of me.

Time seemed to speed up and my senses became sensitive during that quiz.

Looking at the clock on the wall in class during that quiz, I can tell the second hand was not turning faster than usual, yet my senses were telling me that time had sped up a bit.

Perhaps it was my nerves and the thought of a failing grade from turning in an unfinished quiz.

Perhaps it was what was going on at home.

After telling my mom about this episode, she set up a visit with a mental health practitioner... I think to address this time episode and also what was going on at home.

I think I visited once or twice, I don't recall.

One (or the only) time my dad arrived, he only fielded a few questions the mental professional asked him.

That man had asked my dad a direct question about life at home and my dad wasn't going to have such an examination.

I think he made a few harsh remarks while standing up from the chair (with curse words likely included), said he was leaving, and asked me if I was coming along with him.

He had showed up on his motorcycle and I had come with my mother.

I desired so much to be loved by my dad, to be around him all the time, I immediately jumped up and left with him.

I admired my dad's toughness, but I wasn't tough like him.

I had been more influenced by my mother, grandmother, and grandfather... and they were not tough or rough around the edges in the way my dad was.

Only my grandfather was tough, executing justice and discipline with his belt, yet he was available for interaction unlike my dad.

Since it was my dad who was absent for almost every event I can recall in my life growing up, and my maternal grandparents and my mother and sisters being always present and available, it seemed easy (in my mind) to forsake them for an opportunity to build a deeper bond with my dad.

Complete opposite of what would be a rational decision.

One day during my 8th grade year my dad tells me he is moving to Texas.

My immediate response was a request: can I go with you?

He said 'sure'.

Since I had thought my dad's distance from me was due to his strained relationship with my mother, I figured that life with just myself and him would bring us closer together.

I had visions from certain instances in movies or television shows I had seen where a father and son do certain things that a loving father and son would 'normally' do.

It it were not for such media, I likely would not have expected anything different at home or from my dad.

My dad had a boat and would go fishing out at sea with it... but I recalled only once being with him and my sisters and mother on that boat.

I don't recall just the two of us going on that boat of his, but one time with a friend of his and that friend's boat to go fishing.

Perhaps I wanted time with my dad, selfishly.

I remember the engine not working that time the family went out on my dad's boat and him cursing up a storm while trying to fix it.

My dad had a motorcycle all my life, yet it was not him who taught me to ride a motorcycle but a soon-to-be brother-in-law.

This same brother-in-law also taught me how to fish, and many other things.

It seems this brother-in-law was able to see what was going on with me and he took an interest.

He loved me... and took the time to draw me out and field the complaints I had inside.

It was also this brother-in-law who would talk to me about girls.

It was in 8th grade I began to build a greater interest in the opposite sex.

Although I had a girlfriend from 1st grade to 3rd, and a major crush on my 1st grade teacher Ms. Bracken, I didn't begin to act upon the impulses until after arriving at that public school.

My upbringing at home and the private school / church still had me fully respecting women, and the thought of touching them, even only their hand, was grounds for being struck down by God if they were not my wife.

In my heart, even at such a young age, I took God very seriously.

The upbringing, although laced with fear of punishment for misdeeds, was firmly established in me.

Although being a rebellious child, when considering God I would snap out of that rebelliousness.

But girls who would shun my attention I was quick to lambast, as this was the societal current in the new society of that public school (and a remnant lesson from the private school, for not all children there were saints or even trying to be).

By the time I had grown accustomed to the change from private to public school, and the stretching of identity according to the freedom to wear whatever clothes I chose (in contrast to a private school uniform), another transition was to transpire when I moved to Texas with my dad.

I don't remember if it was 7th or 8th grade that I somehow shared with my mother the thought of killing myself.

I somehow considered that removing myself from this world was some kind of answer... or perhaps a way to return whatever painful turmoil I was feeling onto my dad and mother and others... I don't exactly recall my reasoning now.

My mom told my dad, and he sat with me in a comforting way and spoke the softest he ever did to me regarding this crazy idea of mine.

It felt good to have his attention, but the circumstances that attention was given was shameful for me.

I wasn't the best with my mother throughout it all.

She had to take the role of sole disciplinarian in the house for most things.

One day I had used a certain term on her I had heard her use for the woman my dad was dealing with outside the home.

She corrected me saying that it was that woman who fit that term.

I was so ashamed the moment that word left my mouth, I wanted to die.

The power of words, especially the careless and weighty words reflecting one's heart at any given moment, can be so detrimental and unforgettable and regrettable.

My dream of getting closer to my dad came in the opportunity to move with my dad to Texas.

Moving schools once again, and this time moving out of what had always been 'home' to a new state and a newer start, seemed like a welcomed idea.

I wasn't too happy with public schools, but had learned to be a bit tougher and adjust to that society.

The first few months after living with my dad in Texas in the hope of getting closer to him was simply not to be.

Although we did break bread together much more often than before, and the fact we did 'do' more things together, even going fishing on occasion... it wasn't what I had idealized.

It was not until many years into adulthood that I realized my dad too had an upbringing that was less than ideal (like so many of us).

It was not until I began to struggle with the effort of truly forgiving my dad, forgiving the girlfriend that became his new wife and my step-mother, understanding him from his point of view, that I was able to put this time in my childhood into a brighter perspective.

This was how healing began to be processed.

The distance I had with my dad growing up had automatically translated into how I viewed my relationship with the Father in heaven.

My dad was always generous with his money, and would rarely deny me anything I'd ask him gift-wise... and somehow this was how I had initially viewed the Father when seeking Him with my heart, mind, and soul as an early adult.

It is difficult breaking initial molds that are fashioned upon us by what happens at home and how certain relationship dynamics are established.

The path to slow down the time that led to my parent's divorce, and to make sense of all that my heart was challenged with and that my mind recoiled with, has been the very mechanisms that have allowed for maturity and growth.

The paradox is that without such struggles and challenges and disasters, how does the individual learn and become?

We each have our initial molds and the process of life that attempts to break, adjust, correct, and enact greater constants intended to be built upon the Rock - Yeshua our Perfect Example of how to be a father, a son, a brother, a friend, a servant, a leader, et al.