a weight has been lifted

I'm in some type of honeymoon-state-of-mind. I had fun with my nine-year-old yesterday. Goofing off. He's a goofy kid and is always doing something to be funny or to make people laugh. I've never really felt like I could give him my full attention though, even in those times when he is working so hard to receive it. Yesterday was different though. For what feels like the first time I was able to be myself with him.

Something else that has changed with all of this is the status of the house. It is a long(er) story that I will delve into a bit later, but the short version is that it was never a house that I or we planned on buying. A bit more detail (that I wasn't aware of until well after closing on it): our purchasing the house and using a very very specific mortgage "company" was part of a retirement strategy for someone very very close to us...suffice it to say, I was never in love with the place. We bought it when I was deep in the mindset of just going with the flow, like a tree branch floating with the current of a stream. I didn't push back. Looking back now I had absolutely no business purchasing that house, and absolutely should not have obtained the aforementioned mortgage from the aforementioned "company". But again, I wasn't really thinking, I was just reacting. You want a house? They found a house? Ok, get it. And so we did.

We lived there together for five years as a family and it did become a home. We did a lot of work to improve it, to make it our own, and I think we were successful. We were making great strides in establishing strong roots as far as this home was concerned.

Random, but it means something to me. This is probably the last time, or close to the last time, I felt “at home” at our house. This photo was taken in January of 2018, he would have been 4 or so. We were outside in the backyard, coats on, having fun together. He wanted a hotdog so I made one for him and one for me. Something about that time, that specific moment, felt perfect to me.

When I stopped living there it began to feel weird though. Almost immediately she started to make her own changes. Her and her family started and finished projects, like an animal marking territory. It lost all warmth to me. The place I wanted to "come home" to no longer felt like that to me. Now it was a random place in a random neighborhood on a random street I never in a million years would have given any of my attention or money or blood and sweat (no tears).

It became her house instead of "our home." She even changed how she talked about it. I started calling it "the house" when she started calling it "my house." It was all some weird game, or at least that's how it began to feel to me.

With it being her house and with our marriage falling apart I was always, or even more so than usual, reserved when there with them, with my own family. I held back, maybe giving 50% or so. Not being myself whatsoever.

It felt different yesterday though.

Part of the paperwork that was finalized last week is me removing my name from the deed of "the house". I guess she owes me $1, whatever. She can have it. And so, it is no longer any of my concern. It is officially not my house, and is officially her house and completely and entirely all of her concern. Combine that with the marriage relationship being severed completely and I felt like myself again last night with my nine-year-old in the family room wrestling, laughing, playing, and having fun together. It was great, and strange, and felt like a very new experience to me.

In a very real sense a very real weight has been lifted from my shoulders with all of this happening...and so far it feels pretty darn good.