GEM FU

This one may be a bit intimate; if you read this blog and enjoy the lighter side of living in Hawaii, or the fun of catching waves on O'ahu, you might skip this one.

I've been listening to Marc Maron for a few years now. If you haven't already, check out his podcast WTF. He interviews just about every contemporary comedian and the time he spends with each of his guests offers close intimate looks at the inside lives and motivations of some people we see from a distance; maybe a distance we don't recognize when we are laughing at somebody's schtick on a stage.

I'm also a fan of Teri Gross's Fresh Air radio show. She similarly cracks open people we see in People, or wherever, on a regular basis.

So, this morning, I'm listening to Gross interview Maron, which of course offers me omphaloskeptic levels of meta-introspection and it affects me in a righteous way. Life is a real thing going on all the time and we experience it on a daily level, with some distance, or, if we are lucky, we experience it in a deeper way for brief moments.

So, this is where I take a left turn.

I love my children. I have been blessed to know four beautiful struggling humans, who each have a joy within them that I experience regularly. Not daily, not like I'd like. But I have been able to experience intimately the individuals they are.

Okay, so enough prelude. I've been struggling for a while now. I asked Kris to marry me on a surprise trip to San Francisco just over seven years ago. I knew a co-worker of her's and was able to arrange to have her sent to the City for a supposed work trip, and I met her at the airport there and surprised her with a ring and a proposal.

We had a wonderful weekend, which we both look back on with many fond memories.

However, we have to keep a separation when we look back on that moment, because the woman I dated and had my two youngest children with (referred to here as the GEM) got the news from a former co-worker (who we'll call the motiveless malignant) on Monday, when we returned to Portland, that Kris was happily engaged. The GEM got Kris's number and called her directly and left a VM in which she tried to derail our happiness.

Since then, it's been a constant struggle to keep the GEM at a distance, while trying to keep close to A & M and be the best father I could be for them.

I want to be clear at this point that this post, this telling of what's going on is not meant to be an FU to the GEM. I'm certain there are elements of FU in this telling, because I'm human. I'm not Jesus. I'm flawed, but I also have been able to recognize that this struggle the GEM continuously foists on us, is a chance for me to evolve as a human in my brief lucky chance to experience life on this planet.

Even labeling her The GEM is sort of an FU. It is an acronym for green-eyed monster. Not long after Kris and I got married, M was having nightmares about a green-eyed monster. Kris created a label for a spray bottle that looked very professional and contained some lavender essence in water and was called Green-eyed Monster Spray.

Each night we would spray under M's bed and in the closets and around her bed so she could go to sleep in peace, knowing the monster spray was vigilantly protecting her through the night.

We sprayed our own bed one night when we had had nightmares ourselves about the GEM's latest escapades.

So, that's me owning up to my FU behind calling her the GEM; it's a way of dehumanizing her and pushing her away.

But I want to reiterate that I don't want to tell this story for the FU reason. I have avoided writing this down for two reasons. First is I don't think FU gets anybody anywhere and second is my fear that my children would stumble across my words at an age where they weren't quite ready to come to terms with the fact that their mother has a severe personality disorder.

So, why write it out now?

Good question. One I'm going to work on answering.