Tongue-Tied

I know... I haven't posted anything in months. I suck as a blogger. Thank heavens I have a day job. The problem is I still don't feel like I can share the things I want to say. I've started posts in my head every couple of weeks only to abandon them as being too much information. I've even considered starting another blog, not linked to me in any way, with names changed to protect the innocent (and guilty I suppose) just so I would have a place to organize and vent my thoughts.

I mentioned months ago that I wasn't comfortable sharing what was going on in my life. Unfortunately, all that crap is still going on. My last trip to court was in September and the divorce STILL isn't final. Actually, I guess it doesn't matter if the paperwork is done or not since that wasn't really my reason for not sharing. I don't feel comfortable saying anything here that I wouldn't say in front of my kids. My closest friends and family know the details of my life, all the crap that has gone on over the last 8 or so years, and the final straws that led me to file for divorce but the kids have been sheltered from the truth.

That's not to say I've lied to my children. I have never told them anything that wasn't true. I've just left out some of the uglier bits. They are too young to absorb and analyze the facts of the situation. My daughter has accepted the fact that we're divorcing but she recently let me know that she was mad that no one had told her why we split. I gave her an 8-year-old-appropriate version of some, but not all, of the reasons. She absorbed it and seems to have moved on but my son still doesn't get it. Its almost a year and a half since we separated and he still asks me why Daddy doesn't live at home anymore and when Daddy is moving back. I give him the politically-correct, good co-parent lines about us not being able to make each other happy anymore, how we're both able to be better parents to him if we aren't together, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. We've had that conversation over and over again... and he still doesn't accept it. I can't tell him the truth. He's 5.

Who Am I?

I had assumed I would keep my married name after the divorce was final simply because it would be less complicated to have the same last name as my children, though I actually hadn't really given it much thought.

Until yesterday afternoon.

After we were done yesterday, my attorney let me know he still had some questions to ask (even though I'd testified for almost 3 hours already). They were the basic required questions to establish that I had filed with the court to dissolve the marriage, that there were irreconcilable differences, and if I was requesting that the court restore me to my former name. That got the wheels turning last night.

I thought about the pros and cons, considered the simplicity of sameness, and the issue of explaining a change to the kids. I realized that many children have different names than their mother, whether by divorce or design. After all, some women never take their new husband's name upon marriage in the first place.

Then I thought of how it would feel to be a Beck again.

So when my attorney asked me the question on the stand this morning I said that yes, I was requesting the court restore me to my former name. From that point on my attorney referred to me as "Dr. Beck" and it felt fabulous.

I made the right decision for me.

Bedtime Stories

I remember when reading bedtime stories involved me reading to them.

The Game of That's Mine, This is Yours

I had one of those marriages in which there was no "yours" and "mine"... there was only "ours." That goes for stuff, the house, savings and debt. In my case that was a big mistake. I suppose in many instances that kind of arrangement works perfectly. Perhaps it worked in the bygone days of a single-income household in which the earner has the spender on a budgeted allowance. However, when one works and just trusts the other to spend appropriately, a certain level of integrity must be present in the spender.
I am now spending hours trying to recreate the past... finding statements to bank accounts, 401ks, IRAs, and credit cards for the past umpteen years. Apparently it doesn't matter who spent what and if the other knew it was being spent; a credit card is "community debt" which the non-spender must pay half of. Apparently it doesn't matter who had the income; a 401k is a "community asset" which the non-earner is entitled to half of.
Doesn't really seem fair, does it?

The Autopia

If you're anything like me, you hate the Autopia. The line is always unreasonably long, the cars are uncomfortable to sit in, the pedal is too hard to hold down for the whole ride, and your kid thinks its more fun to slam the car against the rail down the center than to try and steer with it.

However, if you're anything like me, you'll gladly endure all of that just to see this look on your child's face. Worth it, don't you think?

Welcome Back

Most people who follow this blog already know that the sunshine and roses depicted herein over the last couple of years is, in at least some part, fiction. The problems were many and eventually became too much to live with so a change had to be made. The details of the split are personal... but the result is an ugly divorce. Its been almost a year since the split and it will be finalized in another month. We've got to be breaking some sort of speed record for a 12-month resolution considering how many trips to court and how much bickering there has been. I haven't been posting because I didn't know what to say. Unlike him, I don't feel it is appropriate to air our grievances in a public forum and, with so little else going on in the last year, it doesn't leave much to blog about.

However... life marches on. With regards to my career and home, my options are several. I'm planning on spending the next year figuring out what the hell to do (less if all goes wrong in court next month and I have to scramble). If you're interested in my progress as I leave the past behind and march into the future, feel free to check back once in a while... I'll share.

Um... Yeah...

You know how sometimes life gets so crazy you forget to make sure you put pants on before you leave the house?

When life is like that your blog tends to suffer.

I will return... I promise.