The Long Way Home

I have this little exercise I put myself through anytime I feel a regret coming on, one where I try to turn the regret into something I instead appreciate. It’s kind of fun actually, to try to reverse it from the negative to the positive, and you can apply it in almost any situation. I would, however, suggest you perform this exercise the same as I, and only do this with an internal monologue.

“Why thanks, officer! I was likely going to spend that seventy-five dollars on something frivolous and wasteful, rather than have it going into the community coffers for some good. I appreciate this chance to do my civic duty, and the reminder that my driving was unsafe and too fast.”

“Nice. I am so fortunate that Totally Hot Latina Mom—who is almost always there when I pick up Kylee from school and has chatted me up a couple of times—was able to see me in my sweats, ball cap, and three-day-old beard this morning. Now I never have to worry again about her seeing me at my worst. What a relief!”

“Mr. Bathroom Scale, you are such a great friend. How else would I have ever remembered how that weekend in Kansas City (replete with Mary’s incredible cake and all those calorie-laden Stouts) was going to throw me totally off of my training plan for this year’s running season?”

See? It’s easier than you would think. And, if anyone tells you that what you are saying is a rationalization: first, turn off the volume on your inner voice, because it has escaped you, then, tell them to go away and quit eavesdropping. Your conversation with yourself, voiced or not, is a private conversation and not meant for others to hear. Then, if they are old enough, remind them of this scene from The Big Chill:

Michael: I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.
Sam: Ah, come on. Nothing's more important than sex.
Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?

(Just a side note here: those of us old enough to quote scenes from The Big Chill are now more likely to insert longer time frames into Michael’s last statement.)

By now, I have likely convinced you, and if I have not then I probably never will. The fact of the matter is: I have instances where I still can’t convert something I regret into a benefit. Where I struggle the most is with this thing we all call Buyer’s Remorse. That one nags me for days on end after I have splurged on something.

Like many of us who have had to be more expense conscious during recent economic times, I try to minimize the splurges and stick to the necessities. Nowadays, I always ask myself if something I see in the store (and dammit, I work in one of the best) is a Need To Have, or A Want To Have. I have several motivations for this questioning of every purchase.

The primary concern is, of course, over money, the preservation of it, the need for it to be spent on essentials, and the fright I have experienced a time or two in my life of not having enough. Second to that is the desire to teach efficient and effective spending habits to Megan and Kylee. With Megan, it is likely a lost cause, because she has never seen a shoe shop or a shoe department that she could not empty of styles her size if ever given the resources. Kylee is another matter; she has control of impulse buying down pat. Lastly, I am just trying to practice less consumerism and leave as little a footprint on this planet as possible.

And a little confession for you: sometimes, when I buy something that I think is an impulse or a splurge, I leave it sitting there on the desk unopened for a while, in a pristine return state, in case I feel too guilty and get the urge to take it back. Ever do something like that?

Remarkably, one of the things in my life that I least regret is my marriage to my former wife, Michelle. But, that is probably not hard for anyone who has children to understand; I have two living, breathing little inspirations who offer me daily reminders of the meaning of my existence. Personally, I am not sure how anyone can regret a marriage that resulted in children, unless they are unable to see past their own selfishness, or is guilty of the mindboggling act of abandoning children to their spouse.

But there is more to it than that, actually. My marriage was bookended by two periods in my life which were less than rosy, and so it is framed and defined as one of the best times of my life. I know you might wonder how that could be, if it didn’t work out, but by comparison it shines. I also remember it as a time of my life—eleven years worth, to be exact—where I was a part of a complete family, and that had long been a lifetime goal of mine. Okay, so it didn’t turn out to be a lifelong achievement, but it was good while it lasted and still offers me rewards, to this day. And we’re still family, the four of us. We’re just a little different family.

Travelling home is what brings up most of my regrets lately. We have fun there, seeing friends and family, are very comfortable there, and on the drive home I inevitably begin to wonder how I ended up where I have, how I got there, why I so readily left everyone and everything behind. What would life have been like, and what have I missed out on by not being there all this time? And, almost as soon as the questions arise, I know the answers, and I know it is more than just the two other people there in the car with me.

Despite my difficulties with all things metaphysical, I still have a tendency to believe that everything happens for a reason. I could list a plethora of people, events, lessons, rewards, trials, and victories great and small, all of it being things I had to go through to be the person I am now—as we all have. Whoever I was yesterday helped me prepare for who I try to be today, the same as what I experience today will prepare me for tomorrow. Skip out on any part of it, and I am not the same person, and the same person would not experience or interpret or act or react to everything based on the perspectives formed from previous experiences. It’s a necessary chain, with each delicate link no less vital to the support and beauty of the craftsmanship than any other.

So, in short, the reason why I’ve enjoyed going home now, and why I did not get to enjoy it all those other years, was because I could not enjoy it in the way that I do now, or as the person I am now. I wasn’t ready.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

Filling Voids

Monday morning marked the start of Spring break for the girls. It’s a time of bliss; no homework or teachers to torment their lives for a solid week. For me it began that morning with a drive to the halfway point between here and Kansas City to meet their grandmother on their mother’s side. I didn’t mind doing the drive since it meant I got to spend a little more quality time with them. It gave me a solid hour and a half more of watching Megan text and Kylee listen to her iPod.

But it also gave me a return trip of what I like to call Contemplative Windshield Time, which can be golden. It’s that time where you can mentally fix just about everything that is wrong with your world, everyone else’s world, and the whole world in general. That morning I was pretty sure, by the time I put the car back in park, that I had the global financial crisis turned around. I almost called NPR with my answers.

Walking up to the door I remembered it was going to be another one of those entire weeks without the girls. Damn! I was trying my best not to think of that, or at least avoid thinking about it for as long as I could. Eventually I knew it would creep back in there, somewhere about the time I came home to the silence or ate one too many meals by myself. I can never push it off entirely.

The first time this happened was the week of Christmas a couple of months after Michelle had moved out. We were all planned for a trip to her father’s for that Christmas, tickets in hand and everything, when things came to that point you just can’t avoid any longer. I guess I could have been a jerk about it then but didn’t see the point of robbing the girls of a trip they had looked forward to and time with their cousins in the warm climate of the southwest. “Sure,” I said, when Michelle nervously asked about them doing the trip anyway, not even really anticipating anything about what it would be like to be without them for the holidays. When it finally dawned on me that I would be spending that much time alone and could easily slide off into a holiday funk, I was determined not to let it do so. I was braver than that, stronger than that. I would rise above the dismal gray of winter and be merry and gay (easy there) and productive with my time. I would volunteer.

And volunteer I did. That first Christmas I found a family in need through the Santa letters collected at the main post office downtown. I recruited several friends and peers at work and we managed to put together a large Christmas meal, a bundle of much needed clothes, and a few toys—for fun’s sake—for the family. I delivered it Christmas morning after making arrangements with the mother. I couldn’t help but hang back in my car after leaving it on the doorstep and ringing the bell. I felt more human that morning than I had in a long time. That Christmas was a special one for me, even without the girls.

I took that feeling and ran with it for the next two years. I joined Big Brothers Big Sisters. I volunteered time for my soccer league in addition to coaching both Kylee and Megan’s teams, and collected equipment and uniforms for kids that might need it. I got involved with exchange students. I think I was also the only Den Father on record for Megan’s Girl Scout troop. All the while I felt good about what I was doing and thought I was offering a great example to the girls about giving back, about caring about others, about looking out from within your self.

Then one day a friend told me, when I was bemoaning how busy my life had become, that I might be taking too much time for others and not for myself. This same friend also thought that maybe I was filling voids with my volunteering. I dismissed it at the time, but later had to admit to myself that filling voids was how it all had started and that they were probably right. Still, I told myself that there were worse ways to fill that void, that mine was a noble pursuit, and I found it hard to give up once I came to a point where I simply had to. Our lives changed a little and charity had to begin at home. The time and expense of my volunteering had to give way to the economy and a need to focus even more on the girls. It was the right move.

But what that left me, with weeks like this week, was the return of the void. So on the drive back from delivering the girls, somewhere between fixing the world economy and preventing global warming, I made a mental list of things to fill my time this week:

1. Catch up on studying my Italian.
2. Write furiously on this blog.
3. Spring cleaning, and then a little more cleaning.
4. Catch a few March Madness games (GO TARHEELS!)
5. Detail the car.
6. Write that great American novel I have been threatening to do for years.
7. Swap out the winter and summer clothes in the closet space.

All very exciting stuff, huh? And noticeably absent of any social activity. I was discussing this with yet another friend (yes, I have more than one) when I got another piece of advice, that maybe my identity and existence was too wrapped up in the girls.

Hmmmm. I hate it when advice like that is so dead on.

I’d never thought of it that way. I knew I was, by design, not dating and not out there really doing much of anything for myself, socially or otherwise. I thought I had pretty good reasoning in doing so. The dating scene really didn’t work for me when I tried it for a while, and everything else had to fit around work or time when the girls were with me. I resolved myself to being a father and father only, because it was the simpler life that felt and fit right. Some have argued that I have limited myself, that I need to take time for myself, and that I need to adjust to the new life where the girls are not with me every day and find a way to make myself a happier camper. Their arguments are not lost on me.

But then I come back around to the one question I can’t answer: why would, or should, anyone ever resolve to accept not seeing and being with their children every day of their life (within reason until they turn the age of thirty-something)? Why would it ever be okay?

It shouldn’t. The closest I've ever gotten to an answer for that was in telling myself that making the best of a less-than-ideal situation is what we all must do. That survivors—and I pride myself on being one, given my history—rise above life’s challenges and overcome them. I get that.

I found that the better way to attack the problem, actually, was to tell myself their time away is a reality I can’t alter, and dwelling on it idly when alone is self-indulgent and wasteful and a bad example for them. I would want them to do differently, so I should. It doesn’t mean that I have to accept it, but I can choose to distract myself from it even though I dislike it. How, is less a problem for me.

And so, if you don’t mind, there’s a closet back there calling my name.