My first entry in almost a year, largely because D and I split temporarily in early April and I had no internet access for months. Incredibly, the past several months have been harder and more bitter than any since my marriage broke up three years ago this month.
In August my ex-wife moved almost three hours away, taking my daughters to a new home where I cannot practically see them on a regular or frequent basis....Her primary motive is to reduce my influence on their lives. The girls are clearly distressed about moving so far away from me....
Going offline has done me one great benefit. My daily writing went, for the first time in many years, to a longhand form. This has had a major impact on my writing and spiritual life. If I had been writing for an audience during this past year, I don't know whether I would have been able to go so deep and so far.
Earlier this week I felt a great burden lift: the resentment I have felt toward my exwife. I knew it was destroying me, but couldn't find the way out of it. This recent healing has come as a great relief. I feel ready to move on in other and getting more of my work published.
But I will never again abandon my goal of doing daily handwritten pages. Last spring I read Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones; later in the year, Wild Mind. Her advice finally prompted me to pick up a fountain pen and it has connected me with my inner universe in a way I had never believed possible.
Another important development: two weeks ago I had my premier as a composer. My local gay and lesbian choir performed a piece I composed last November. The music was set to a poem I wrote for my best friend two years earlier, Joining. It is a "coming out" piece about accepting your sexuality, setting aside your shame and healing through the act of intimate lovemaking.
D and I had a rugged year. Twice we broke up and did not see each other for more than six weeks. He has moved into his own apartment 40 minutes away but very close to his work. It has been a growing and learning year for both of us. We reconciled in early November and not a harsh word has passed between us since then. Through these past three months of turmoil and bitter despair, he has steadily listened, consoled and reassured me....
The way we got back together has persuaded us that our love is more important than our differences; and that perhaps there is such a thing as a soulmate, that we might be connected by something stronger than hormones and nerve impulses.
The comfort and stability of this relationship is another thing that has helped bring me to a place where I am ready to move on.
This morning I went through all the pages on this site, noting broken links and design changes I would like to make. It is interesting to glimpse my mind more than a year ago. I have changed so rapidly in the past three years, like the universe in the few microseconds after the Big Bang. It has been a period of growth more rapid than any time in my teens or twenties. Crises will do that.
Friday, August 4, 2000 [Note added]
My outlook and mental health have continued to improve over the past 18 months, but ironically my relationship with D finally ended in April 1999, 27 months after I met and fell in love with him. As I grew in my commitment to creative goals and a writing career, we became less compatible. Again I lost Internet access, and by the time I got my own connection in October 1999, I could no longer identify with the brooding and critical spirit which characterized so much of this journal's original content. I will continue to retrieve a few of the better passages as time allows [Please read the Archive Intro].
All written material and images are ©1997-2001 Van Waffle. This page updated Feb. 11, 2001.
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