Five Children

So my dumb ass wanted five children. Whenever someone would ask me, “Do you want a family?” I would firmly reply, “Yes, I want five children.” So what exactly was I asking for when I said that I wanted five children? Was I asking for five of my own progeny that will make a difference in the world and take care of me in my old age? Was I asking for little people that I can teach everything that I know so that my legacy will live forever? Maybe I just wanted to make more additions to the phone book under my name.

No! What a man is saying when he says he wants five children is, I want a woman that is willing to have five of my children and raise five of my children. I want to be involved, but not with everything. I want to know that she is going to feed, bath, fit out, and cultivate my five children. If there is a problem at school I know that she is going to take care of it. If someone needs to deal out the punishments, I will play my part and warm some behinds. Wanting five kids really has little to do with the children.

I have two...ten and four. The thought of having three more is very frightening. If the ten year old is not trying to kill, scare, or disfigure the four year old, then the four year old is trying to kill, mother, or spit on the ten year old. Don’t get me wrong they are angels 80% of the time, but the other 20% can take up 100% of your energy. I can’t even imagine what five would feel like.

I can’t imagine it because I never imagined it. Five children would not be my responsibility unless it was time to go to the park, watch the game, have the talk, cut the grass, go to the movies, scare the would be suitors of my girls, barbeque, or lay down the law. Everything else belongs to the mother.

Instead I would complain to my wife about how hard work was. You know stuff like how they changed the lock to the bathroom that is near my desk and how they haven’t made me a key yet. I would tell her that now I have to walk by Sean’s cubical in order to go take a leak, and you know how much that motherfucker can talk. After twenty minutes of my complaining about Sean, my wife would fall fast asleep not being able to get in one word about her day, or how my five children are doing. The five that I wanted.

As she lies there peacefully I will get a moment to take in her beauty. I will look around the room and I will think about her. My children will all be asleep too; although it took my wife some time to get them all to stay in bed, but she is getting better at it. So as I would lie next to my beautifully wife, in my nice house with my five kids, one thought will be going through my head.

I wonder why she didn’t do the laundry?

The First Wife

In 1997 I got married the first time at the age of 23 my wife was 20 and we struggled through our marriage. There were good times and bad times. Everything seemed fine until I left to go over seas in 1999. I called her daily and I could tell that she was giving less and less of herself on the phone from day to day. Our conversations went from hours to minutes in a few months. Half way through my deployment she told me that she was leaving our house in California to return to our home state of Ohio. She said that she would remain there until I got out of the Marine Corps, which was one more deployment and three more years later.

When I returned home I had an empty house, a repossessed car, and a bunch of bad credit. My phone bill was over three thousand dollars as well. I found that very odd because whenever I talked to her from Japan, I called her using the calling cards that I bought on base. That is when I found the letters. Several letters were written to a Marine that was now stationed on the east coast. I left to go to Japan in June, the letters started in July. Apparently while I was sending money to my wife at my house I was also financing trips so that she could go see another man. Needless to say the marriage was over. We stayed married on paper longer than we actually stayed together, but that was my fault for dragging it out too long with the paper work.

So from 1999 until my current marriage, I have always felt like she did me wrong. She hurt me. It hurt more because she could do anything. She did not have to work and I offered to pay for school if she wanted to go back. It all just left a bad taste in my mouth. When referring to her I often call her “the devil”. People think that it is funny because I am able to joke like that. But I was never joking. I have never felt so hurt and betrayed in my whole life. Only the devil himself could pull something like that off.

Today my perspective has changed. I think about what I have been through in the five years in my current relationship. I know that it was not totally she that failed me. I think that I could have done more to help work it out. I feel like I could have been there more, and even been more understanding. In my head I thought that leaving East Cleveland was the best thing for us.

My job did not allow us to save enough and buy a nice house in the suburbs somewhere, but the Marine Corps offered immediate removal from the area. That was my dream, my idea of a good plan, as the man and the provider of the house I felt like it was best for both of us. It was not best for her. She grew up in a close family. Her entire family could probably be located in 20-mile radius. I did not grow up that way, I had always moved around. I welcomed change of scenery in order to start my new family.

Lastly, and probably most important, we were kids. She was just 20 and I 23. She had no high school diploma and I had no real skills to get a good job. How were we supposed to start a family if we still had so much work to do as individuals?

My marriage that I am in now has tested me and continues to test me. When you quit, you are saying that there are either no more possibilities or that you are not willing to try the possibilities. With my wife and two kids I am learning my own limits and sometimes it feels like there are none, but sometimes I feel like I am right at the edge.

So I think about that first marriage and my thinking is different. We don’t keep in touch, that bridge is burned now. I have said things that were meant to hurt, to kill if possible, and so has she. Now I feel like we were in the same boat. We were trying something as kids. I wish her the best in life. I hope that everything that she wants out of life is attainable for her. I hope that she is able to take from that marriage the good, because it was not all bad. I hope that she is able to take the bad and use it to grow. I know that without her I would not be the man that I am today, a man that my wife and children adore.

The Sunflower

Currently I am working on my very first picture of a sunflower.

I absolutely love the sunflower; it is by far my favorite flower. The pedals are a bright yellow and if you look hard enough on the inside of a flower there is a very interesting swirling action going on in the center spiraling out to the pedals.

It’s perfect.

So I have tasked myself with making this the very next piece that I do and the next one you will see on the site. So far so good, but it has to be really good before I finish. If I take some pictures that I really like in the meantime, I will share them prior to me finishing the sunflower.

things you never see coming (continued).

So I called her at work the next day and told her that I love her.

I am not sure if that counts for me giving in, or me not standing my ground, but I don’t care. That is what is different with this relationship and all the others. I do not fell like I have to stand my ground and not talk to her until she apologizes. Who cares, I am better off when things are good at home. She has her own business; I am trying to start my own. We don’t need the funk in the house.

We talked about it, and there were some miscommunications and now we are back on track.

Isn’t that the goal anyway?

We are LIVE

So I decided just to go with what I have so far. No more procrastinating promising that I will make the site live when I get done with....

When I get done with a couple of more drawings.
When I get done with taking pictures that cause conversation.
When I get done with figuring out the layout of the site.
When I get done with this semester at school.
When I get done with cleaning the house.

I can go on forever, believe me I can. So I am going live now with what I have and I will continue to put out more pictures, more drawings, and make changes to the layout of the site. But I need to do this now because I need to give myself some sort of feeling like I am moving toward reaching my goals.

Maybe if I know that people might be looking at it then I will work harder at making it something that will keep them coming back.

Enjoy! This is just the beginning.

the things you never see coming.

Today I had a conversation with my wife.

Wait....

First one must know that things have been great with my wife for a long time. We seem to really enjoy each other's company. We work well together, we are both great parents, and she understands me, and I her. I think that we almost have to be together because we are both people that don't think conventionally. I accept that about her and vice versa.

So back to today...

We had a conversation that was turning sour. It kept going longer than it should have, and then from nowhere she is calling my view childish and immature. So of course that pissed me off and now we are not even talking to each other. Now when I say things have been great, I mean things have been great. This is stupid what is going on right now. But FUCK what am I supposed to do? Do I apologize for some shit that I won’t even know what I am apologizing for? Or do I just wait until it just goes away? Because she never apologizes.

Something so simple.