Jeff’s blog

As 2009 has closed, I decided to reflect on the year past and this years plans.

2009 started out alright, towards the beginning of the year, my wife and I started renting a fairly big house here in Wakarusa. Great school system for the kids, great small town atmosphere. Samantha was going to school with her cousins and both kids liked the new place. Their rooms were huge and I think they just loved the change. I got to help coach Samantha’s baseball team and had a blast and she loved having her daddy on the team. Something I looked forward to since I had kids and I can’t wait to do it again.

I’ve watched my kids grow this year. Both are getting tall and growing so fast. Samantha started 2nd grade in the fall, played her first year of pitch baseball, had a blast doing gymnastics. started going over to friends houses, is really become a great reader. Trevor finally potty trained, learned to ride his bike, learned to write his name and to count, started pre-school, and is just starting to become his own person. Both are really great kids and I am a lucky parent.

Then it started falling apart. I guess I had known for awhile, maybe even for years, but it really started to sink in that my wife no longer loved me. I had thought about leaving for a long time but I think I was comfortable and I kept telling myself that is just how she was. But the final straw was when she turned down the position to get back on 1st. The position that would have put her back in our families lives. As it was then, I saw her for a few minutes between my shift and hers and for about 20 minutes when she got home and that was it. She saw the kids even less so when she turned down that position I was pissed, I was hurt, I was crushed. That was the final straw, it sank in that there was no more love. I had still loved her at this point, of that I have no doubts. In the next few months, I saw everything else in a new light and saw all the signs I had been ignoring for what they were. I spent evenings crying in my pillow after I put the kids to bed. It finally came time to end it, so I did. We discussed it and decided to separate after 15 years of marriage.

But what came out of this was a new found love. While going through all this on my own, I reached out for help, for someone to talk to and one person responded. We became really good friends, everything just kind of clicked with each other and once I was separated, we decided to become an item. She was there to listen to me complain and she listened. She was there when I was questioning everything around me and she put my questions in perspective. She was there when I was down and picked me up. For the first time in a really long time, I felt loved by a woman again. She made me realize how much I was missing by staying in a marriage with someone who didn’t love me. As this year closes, we’ve been together for 7 months now and still going strong.

So what is to come in 2010? Well so far it looks like I’ll be moving into a bigger place in order to accommodate my bigger family as Cheri and her kids will be moving up here this summer. I look forward to mixing our families together and I look forward to being there for Cheri and her kids. I look forward to watching my kids grow more as Samantha will be starting Girl Scouts and playing baseball again. And Trevor will be starting Kindergarten and playing his 1st year of t-ball. I look forward to helping raise Chris and Skyler, whether they feel that I am a step-father to them or not, I want to be there for them in that capacity. And as far as I am concerned, I will have 2 more kids. I really look forward to just being with Cheri on a daily basis.

So as bad as 2009 was, it was also good. 2010 is looking promising, but as most of you know, you always think your future will be better. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. But I look forward to it all the same and remain positive that I’m on the right track with my life and with my kids lives.

Back when I was in school, I was hurt a lot as far as feelings go. I was made fun of, ignored, whatever, you get the idea. I ended up with the attitude that I don’t care what other people think, and I have had this attitude since. And for the most part, that attitude has served me well. Until now that is.

People don’t like me at work for various reason, and I don’t care. You hear rumors about me depending on who you talk to and I don’t care. I probably start half the rumors doing things I shouldn’t but I don’t care. Now with my separation and inevitable divorce, the rumors are really flying and I thought I didn’t care. Apparently I was wrong. She was my wife’s friend as well as mine. She still is and that’s fine with me, I’ve never asked anyone to take sides. Most people have been good about this and are still friends with both. Only 1 person comes to mind that was both of our friends doesn’t like me anymore. And that hurt. I’ve always been able to shrug people off that don’t like me, even friends who have gotten mad at me. But for some reason it bugged me and took awhile to get over it. Technically you could probably say I’m not completely over it.

Anyways, today at work, my soon to be ex-wife came in and pulled the friend mentioned above over to the side and started talking. I could see my wife keep turning around and looking at me so I know they were talking about me. I guess technically I didn’t “know” but you know what I mean. It brought up a lot of feelings of getting made fun of when I was younger. Like I said, normally it doesn’t bother me, but for some reason this time did. Drudged up all those feeling of being left out and being picked on.

I guess those feelings never really go away. You may learn to deal with those doing it to you and you may learn to bury it, but you never forget how it feels to be on this end. It caused me skip many, many days of school growing up. I hated school. Now that I’m older, I realize it wasn’t school that I hated, but the way I felt at school. I like to go through those old high school photos on my friends facebook accounts but looking at them also depresses me. Reminds me of all those feelings again.

I have grown and have a decent life. I’m in love, have 2 wonderful kids and a consistent job. I have the usual complaints of working too much and not enough money but I would describe my life now as happy most of the time. Which makes me realize how much those repressed feelings can hold over you when brought to your attention. I’m hoping by typing this blog, that I will make myself realize that very thing so they can’t control my life. And who knows, maybe somebody out there may learn something as well.

On Friday, we went to our 5th annual Father’s Day weekend camping trip. I took a half day as to get over to my moms and start packing up the vehicles. After some delays on getting everything packed up we were off. As we are heading down there, I’m watching the outside temperature gauge in the van go from 78 degrees all the way to 91 degrees when we get there. First thing I notice as we enter the campgrounds, is there is barely any cell service. Already knew this might be a problem as it was last year, but I was hoping a new tower went up since then, no such luck. We step outside and it was so muggy. We all start unpacking our vehicles and putting up tents. In the past, Tina and I have been the laughing stock because it always took us so long time to put up our tent. This year, Nae and I put it up in about 20 minutes. So I guess we all know who the problem was all these years – lol. After all the tents are up and we are all sweating our asses off. A storm rolls through to the north of us, really cools down the campgrounds, just as it starts to get nice, here come the rest of the crew. We ate supper of burgers, dogs and Brad had brought marinated shrimp all on the grill. Some mac and cheese as well for the kids. Before it gets to dark, we break out the cornhole game that Brad brought. Teams were Tony and I verse Brad and Robert. Brad and I threw against each other and Tony and Robert threw. Brad and I pointed like crazy but we were always cancelling each other out. We quit with 1 game a piece needing a rubber match. We quit when it started to get dark. It started to rain not long after and we tried to play some games under the awning that we keep everything but the rain started coming down at angles with the wind and we decided to pack it up and head for bed. After we get in bed it’s start pouring rain and very windy. I texted Cheri as long as I could in the tent before we both decided to head for bed. Everytime I hit send on a message, I would have to hold my phone up in the air and hope the message went through. I needed that Cheri time too because we hadn’t been able to communicate much during the evening. I’d be doing something and my phone would go nuts during the evening. I finally be somewhere to get service and I’d get 10 or 12 messages at once that were all waiting.

Saturday morning, we get up, have some breakfast and swap stories about our flooding tents as we all had some. Started playing cornhole again, only this time Robert & Kristen had taken the kids fishing so we replace Robert with Randy. Picked up where we left off the night before at 1-1. We took it to a game 7 before Tony and I pulled it out. After that we all went down to the beach. Most of the adults stayed up at the picnic table while some laid out in the sun while the kids all tore off into the water. After awhile, we headed back to the campsite for lunch and relaxation. Kids played and rode around on their bikes while the adults took showers, kicked back, took some naps. ect. Eventually, we ate supper of marinated chicken & more shrimp with potatoes. After stuffing ourselves, we went back to your cornhole game and it just got embarressing. Tony and I realed off win after win for about 8-10 straight victories. Brad didn’t want to quit until he won a game so we had to put lanterns under the boards so we could see the holes in the dark. Brad finally gave in and we went and had some smores and sat around the fire. This was a great time around the fire because Samantha was falling asleep on me. After I sent her to bed, Trevor climbed in my lap and did the same. To this day, I love nothing more than my child to fall asleep on me. I’ll miss that when they grow up. Everyone headed off to bed and I went to the tent for my “Cheri time” As great as this weekend was, it really sucked that Cheri and I couldn’t talk. We rely on modern technology to keep us together and apparently camping isn’t modern enough yet.

Sunday morning, I got woke up to the kids yelling at me because they wanted to give me my father’s day cards. So I got up, and all the father’s opened their cards. The kids cards were great, they made them, I assume last week some time. They both had the Michigan logo on them along with father’s day greetings. Couldn’t have asked for better cards. After breakfast, we started to tear down the tents and get ready to leave. We took the kids down to the beach one last time, this time I got in the water with them. Had a really great time there as well because both kids hovered around me the whole time, it was good time with Trevor because we were out pretty deep and he thought he had to hang on to me, we played together awhile and Samantha would pop over and play as well. Like I said, a really good time. After that we changed clothes and headed home.

Best part of the trip home was I was able to talk to Cheri without holding my arm up in the air. As great as a time as I had camping, it was hard not being able to communicate with her. We tell each other what we’re doing most of the time and I think that’s because we’re so far away we both want to know what each other are doing. I was expecting more questions from the family about what was going on, i’m sure they know the stuff about Tina but was expecting question about Cheri. I think they think it’s just a rebound kind of thing and I’ll eventually tire of it. But I don’t see that happening, I see spending a long time with Cheri. We seem to be perfect for each other, like we’ve been waiting for each other our whole lives. Even though we are 600 miles apart, we feel like we’re together most of the time, thanks to technology. The first time we saw each other again, it was like we known each other our whole lives, it was comfortable, no nervousness or anything. We text good mornings and IM goodnights. We text all day long and when we’re both at our homes we IM until bedtime. We don’t put our lives on hold either, we log off to take care of the kids or other commitments. Which tells me i’m not obsessing, i’m in love. Maybe after Cheri and I have been together for a few years, people will start to see the committment we have for each other and take the relationship as serious as we do.

Anyways, I digress. The camping trip probably doesn’t sound like much to most of you. But I had a really good time and have some good memories of time with the kids and the rest of the family. Some time with my older nieces as well, they came to the family late and I get the feeling they aren’t always comfortable around me. I have fun joking around with them, not sure they always do with me. Oh well, good time was had, that’s all that matters. Now I’m back home to real life, not sure that’s really a good thing but it is what it is.

As I sit here at my computer on Mothers Day morning, I’m thinking, my mom would whoop my ass if she knew I was up at 3am screwing around on the computer. But I wanted to take a few minutes (or more) to write about my mother.

My mother has always been there for me. I can go all the way back from when I was 8 and my father passed away after battling cancer. My mom raised my brother and I from when we were 8 and 5. I can’t say I remember a whole lot from those first few years without my father but I know it couldn’t have been easy. Now a father of 2 kids (ages 6 and 4) I couldn’t imagine having to do this myself. But she did, she gave me what I needed and raised me to be the man I am today. I may not have become a doctor or lawyer but there is one thing I am because of her, a good parent. And it takes a good parent to raise a good parent and I had the best. She dropped me off and picked me up at all my various events, she went to as many games as she could, which to my knowledge is close to all of them. She taught me the values that I teach my kids now. Family is always first. You stand up for what you believe in. You don’t back down from hard times. You always be there for those that need you. Always help who you can. If you want something, you go after it.

I hear this kid isn’t a good kid but he only had a single mother/father raising him. To me, that’s no excuse. My mother did it, she did the best she could and beat the odds. I may disappoint from time to time but it doesn’t matter, I know she’ll still love me. I may do stupid things at times, but she’ll still love me. Unconditional love, it may be a fairy tale to some, but to me, it’s my mom. She is the strongest female I have ever known. I can’t imagine my life without her. She is my world, my hero, my friend, my counselor and my mom.

So today, on Mothers Day, I salute all the mothers out there. Whether your in you 90s and a great, great grandmother or your a teenage mother. It takes a lot of love and care to do what you have done or will do. So on this Mothers Day, sit back and relax, because even though your work is never done, you can take a rest now and then. And today is the day to do it. Today is the day for the nurterer’s of this world to look back and embelish what you have done for your children. How you made them better people for this world. Happy Mothers Day.

Cheri and I have been talking about Junior High and High school recently and it brings all kinds of memories back, mostly negative. I hated school, which was why I skipped every chance I got. In junior high, I estimate I skipped around 100 days in the 3 years I was there. Usually Mondays, still hate Mondays – lol. I’m not saying if you don’t like school to skip it, I’m just explaining what I did.

Everyone has their own memories of high school, some good, some bad. Mine are mostly bad. I’m not saying I had a horrible childhood or anything because outside of school, I enjoyed my life. What I remember about junior high was getting picked on. Mostly verbally but I was still picked on. Now in hindsight, some of that was my fault, maybe most of it. I was quiet, I didn’t go out of my way to make friends, I alienated people, and because I did some of that, I think kids thought that I thought that I was better than them. I had no desire to “conform” and be a “popular” kid. I took it to extremes where I would do anything to not be popular. I had a few friends that I ate with and talked to, but nobody I was really close too. The one guy that was probably my best friend at the time, ended up in a different click in high school and I lost touch with him. I slept through most of my classes because I like to stay up late at night. I was smart enough to pass anything in class which made up for the fact I hardly ever did any homework. Usually equaled to a C or D but that’s passing and that was all I cared about.

High school was more or less the same, with less skipping because they threatened to expel me if I continued to skip. I started to drive so I would leave after 3rd hour with the career center kids and go home. I was late a lot to 1st hour. One year they threatened to kick me out of my 1st hour if I was late again, so anytime I was late, I would skip that hour and they never did kick me out. The first few years of high school were the same with the kids, got picked on, made fun of, whatever you want to call it. I can think of one kid who constantly wanted to fight me (yes, I do still remember his name) so he could prove how manly he was. I finally gave in and said yes, he told me to meet him somewhere and I told him no, he wants to fight me so bad, he can find me wherever and we’ll do it then. Him and a buddy ended up coming down to my friends house when we were there. They brought a football and we started off by playing a 2 on 2 football game until I ripped his shirt trying to tackle him and then it was on. He kept coming at me, all I did was defend. He maybe landed 3 punches and I never threw any. He eventually got bored and went home but after that day, he wasn’t much of a problem after that either. He particularly didn’t like me because of the next paragraph, a positive about high school. But I’ll get to that in a few. What I did learn in school, was to not care what people thought of me. It took me a long time to learn it, but I did. Once I did, I’d get called a name, I’d look at them and say “thanks.” Once they figured out I didn’t care what they thought, they left me alone. My mom had been telling me that for years but you all know that we’re so much smarter than our parents at that age. And don’t even get me started out on girls, because I had crushes on a few but most wouldn’t give me the time of day. Not that I had the confidence to go up to them either. I don’t recall even having a girlfriend through all of high school. Which might have been a good thing considering I married the next one I dated (2 years after high school.)

The one positive I had in school was sports. Because I was so antisocial, I never really did any organized sports in school. I had gym teachers telling me to all the time to try out for basketball and track but I never did. Probably the only regret I have about school is not playing sports. But in gym class, I was an equal. I was very athletic although I didn’t look it. I used to tear up some of the basketball players who played for the school in gym class. No matter the sport, I picked it up quick and got better than most in a short amount of time. Which would be the reason the kid in the above paragraph didn’t like me. For all the sit there and take it I did in school, in gym, I was aggressive and went after those I didn’t like.

Outside of school, I was a different person. I went to a club in Elkhart where I was popular with the kids and the adults, was liked and looked up to. I’ve always had a great family, although I didn’t appreciate them much back then so my life equaled out I guess.

I said above that the only regret I had was not playing sports for the school and that’s true. That was my ONLY regret because all the other stuff, made me who I am today. I still have some of the attitudes like not caring what others think, but I learned to care what I thought. I still don’t go out of my way to make friends, but I don’t alienate either. If you ask most of my friends from work (and I have) what their 1st impression of me was, the 1 word answer I received the most was they thought I was an a@@hole. But if you take the time to get to know me, I’m a pretty straightforward type of guy, I don’t take any crap from anyone (including bosses, not a good thing) and if you want to know something, ask, because I have nothing to hide. But if your looking for a certain answer then don’t ask me, because I will tell the truth, regardless of how it makes you feel. Which would be why everyone assumes I’m an a@@hole when they meet me. But if you know me, I’m loyal to my friends and family and nobody else. I’ll be the nicest guy but don’t cross me. I’ve never been in a fight (unless you count the one in high school) but I don’t back down from them anymore either. I’m a straightforward, in-your-face kinda guy. It probably helps that I put 100 lbs on since school as well. I am a pretty calm individual, it takes a lot to get me going, probably from sitting there and taking it for as long as I did. I pride myself on being in control, I can only name a few instances where I said something I didn’t mean. I know as far as school memories, there isn’t much up there as in individual stories but I don’t really remember individual stories that shaped who I was. The whole experience shaped who I have become, in good ways and in bad.

If there is one lesson that I could take from school and teach it to my kids, it would be to be yourself (I know, cliche) but it’s true. That can be ones greatest asset at the end of their life is to look back and say “I did it my way.” If your truly being yourself, then chances are you are truly being happy. And that’s what life is about, being happy.