Kick back, relax, and take a break for awhile to read a portion of the story of my life. This one will take longer to read than my typical postings but it should provide to you a way to perceive life in a more positive manner.
In helping my clients achieve wellness, especially during the times of marital discord or child custody battles, my nutritional counseling is relatively straightforward. We establish dietary plans that fit their lifestyle needs based upon whether a consumable is beneficial or detrimental. It can be quite simple; Hostess fruit pies are detrimental while fresh fruit is beneficial.
In the domain of psychotherapy there exist no clear demarcation between detrimental or beneficial thoughts, acts, or experiences. These are more akin to tastes than nutrients. The same act or experience can be quite pleasant to one person while concurrently reprehensible to another. Today I plan to share with you a series of what could be perceived as negative events in my life which have now left me in a state of calmness, wellness, and fulfillment in life.
People have often observed that I have an uncanny knack for seeing the positive in every situation. Just past age 20 I get struck by a truck and basically killed but lived through it, spending 17 days in intensive care. My eventual outlook was, now I have an opportunity to do something else. The plan had been to compete in five professional events stateside that year and then move to England to race in Europe.
That event marked a pivotal point in my life which provides an appropriate place to start this epic of the actions and decisions that brings me to the current moments where I am with the woman who loves me for who I am and I equally for her. In this narrative I will provide the background to the series of adversities or stymied plans that were instead fortuitous steps in the series that has coupled me to the woman that elicits my greatest happiness and what my eventual outcome will be.
So that collision was positive step number one -- it kept me in the United States.
I must regress slightly to expose what I had also lost besides the potential to race among the greats in Europe. Four years prior to that collision I had heard of someone whom I admired moving to Indianapolis. This was an accomplished person who appeared on the national news, magazine covers and such. After a few days of investigation I located his home and knocked on the door. Three hours later I headed home. I was welcomed back often and his house became a second home for me.
His wife and I became the dearest of friends sharing a love for each other that I had not experienced prior. The night we met we established an immediate emotional bond. When he was gone for weeks at a time I was there on a near daily basis. I would cut out from school to go see her. We loved each other and had an intimacy like that shared by few others. Truly no other until much later in my life which came about through what was an unintentional search that lasted 20 years. Or was it?
The day of my deadly collision was the day she and her husband moved to Chicago. She actually went the following day because she stayed in the hospital until I was conscious and could acknowledge her. I knew that something dreadful had happened to my body but simultaneously I felt the dread of the realization in what it meant as she said she wanted to stay with me but had to go with her husband. We had agreed to not say goodbye but that, instead, she would just be gone one day. I was physically and emotionally devastated.
Life somewhat fell apart in response to the events of that dreadful day. Eight months later I began serving my stint in various federal prisons around the country after passing on the opportunity to roll on someone. With my nationwide gang connections wardens were not openly embracing me as a resident. I eventually settled in Louisiana where I enjoyed my recovery in a much more temperate climate than Indiana while dining on the fine cuisine of cajun chefs. We ate well because the guards need the inmate leaders to help maintain control and they can find themselves easily distracted from watching the storage rooms in the kitchen or gates to the housing units. That stint was also a good time to take advantage of the government’s free health care system and have a follow-up surgery performed along with some dental extractions.
As my term of parole neared an end I had set my mind upon marriage which would provide a foundation to keep me from immediately exercising all the new criminal schemes I learned while incarcerated. The younger sister of a buddy took notice of me and was attracted to the “bad guy” image among other things. She had just reached the age of 18 and was looking to get out on her own.
So going to prison was positive step number two -- it kept me out of the dating scene until the eventual wife reached the age of 18.
We carefully discussed all the terms and conditions of the marital partnership which was to include a prompt relocation to Arizona which apparently was as much of a quest of hers as it was mine. Instead we moved around the Indianapolis area from apartment to apartment then decided to buy a house here due mostly to her anxiety about moving away from family. She had become pregnant and I didn’t want to raise our child in an apartment nor in the city. We had lived in Broad Ripple, Castleton and Westfield. I decided that rural Noblesville, maybe in a Victorian farmhouse, would be ideal.
While enduring the househunting ordeal the wife’s sister announced that she had decided to attend Purdue University. Her sister and I were quite fond of each other and would maintain frequent contact through letters and phone calls while she was in college. So because I wanted to remain proximate to her we moved to Lebanon instead. She actually attended IU Bloomington which nixed the proximity plan.
So the Purdue plan and relocation anxiety was positive step number three -- it resulted in us continuing to reside in Indiana and particularly our relocation to Lebanon.
Although I was eager to have a child the wife was reticent and instead stuck with the logical plan of waiting until she was finished with college. In actuality she wasn’t finished with college when we conceived but it was late enough that her pregnancy wouldn’t hinder her participation.
When our most dearest and wonderful -- or only -- son was age three we enrolled him into a preschool. On the first day as we drove up to the entrance I notice a gal walking in with her son. Something about her made an immediate impression upon me. Her son and my son were instant buddies. Seems peculiar that in seeing her for about four seconds I was able to see a connection with her and without ever meeting her or prompting by either of us our sons became best buddies.
It was shortly after that when I discovered that my wife had lied to me and repeated the lie when confronted. From that point my affection toward her which had developed was dissolved although my commitment to our partnership remained steadfast. However, she left and my son and I remained in the home where I continued to rear him. I then experienced the freedom which allowed me to return to being the person I was.
So her abandonment of our family was positive step number four -- it removed the abuse and control from my life.
As I was now free to develop my own relationships with others, it was then that I pursued exploring the connection that I saw to the mother of my son’s best buddy. She eagerly accepted me into her life and we saw each other nearly daily. I stayed overnight frequently and she even slept in the living room with me at times when she was pissed-off at her husband. At some point she asked him if I could just live there and be like a second husband to her. I was stunned when she revealed that she had asked him that but not that he said no.
So his refusal to accommodate her wish was positive step number five -- it kept me from getting tied down to a woman again.
During the time I was regularly seeing her my son reached school age. Since I had automatically been declared a non-custodial parent by the court, his mother enrolled him in the Lebanon public school system. This was in direct contradiction to our express pre-nuptial agreement that I would be the primary educator of our children and that such would be home based.
For me the public school system, beginning in grade one, was a horrific experience. The entire process was humiliating, degrading, and quite depressive. I did not want my son, who also appeared to be intellectually gifted to suffer similar abuse to what I experienced. By the time he entered grade one I had provided enough education to him that he was immediately advanced to grade two. But as our time together was so limited as to not allow the necessary two hours per day to provide a comprehensive educational experience to a child his advancement languished. He had no further accelerated advancement.
So his education being retarded by placement with his mother was positive step number six -- it kept him in proximity to his grade two classmates.
Concurrently we were also travelling to Lafayette to see a gal we met there who operated the carousel in the mall. She was living with a guy who was unmotivated, had debilitating anxiety issues, and had yet to cut the cord from mommy. My son and I would often head up there in the evening after my near co-husband came home. We would hang out at the mall until closing and then stay with that gal at her apartment.
Not unlike just about every other gal that has become intimately connected to me she also complained about the shortcomings of her current mate. Rightfully so, and I echoed her concerns until she finally came to the realization and made the decision to cut him loose. Although she financially supported him and was relieved of that burden there existed a subtextual indication that she may be coming to live with me and I embraced that thought.
I had also been hanging out with a buddy of mine who had recently divorced and would sometimes accompany me to Lafayette to get car parts and then stop by the mall to see the charming lass. Those two instantly hit it off and she moved in with him nearly immediately and they later married.
So her choosing to live with him instead of me was positive step number seven -- it kept her from residing with, marrying me, or just otherwise hindering my freedom.
Over the next few years there were some other close calls. There was a gal who I met on a King’s Island trip with a group of friends and our youngsters. We seemed to be side-by-side throughout that day. I was intrigued by her and stopped by her folks house a week later to see if she wanted to go on a walk with me accompanied by the youngsters I was sitting. She told me that she would be coming back to my house that evening and then she left on the fourth day going back to her boyfriend. The request for me to take her to his house was the first I had heard of any boyfriend. That always seems to get revealed long after these relationships develop.
I had moved to Thorntown, up the road a short way from Lebanon where my son resided with his mother. So, to cut out some travel time I bought a second house in Lebanon a few blocks away from him. This allowed for him to have more time with me other than as a passenger in the car and always made it more convenient to see his school friends.
Eventually the Thorntown house would get taken from me in a lawsuit brought by the town because of political statements I had made on the house about town officials -- child molestation particularly. That didn’t bother me much as that town is full of inbreds and lacks a certain intellectual quality which I prefer to associate myself.
So my Thorntown house being taken by child-molesters was positive step number eight -- it ultimately led to me residing full-time in Lebanon.
Not unlike his father, my son also had a knack for intuiting a relationship -- that love-at-first-sight feeling. As he tells it while he was in elementary school a new student entered the classroom -- a striking redhead. His buddy smacked his arm first and declared “dibs”. I think my son was too awestruck to have made that move spontaneously. As she fondly recalled to me around the time she graduated from high school he was her first little boyfriend.
I got to meet that glorious redhead when she, my son, and another girl had done some fundraising and needed a photograph taken for the newspaper. So this redheaded child hands her phone to me to take the photo. This was my initial exposure to a camera phone. So I am trying to peer through the lens and my subjects are seeing my eye on the screen. My son stood there in disbelief, the other girl laughed in a way like I was a buffoon, and the redhead laughed as though I had lifted her spirits for the day.
So until his mother moved to Missouri with him as he entered middle school I provided the transportation or venues for us to do activities together. Just being in Lebanon made it much more convenient for him to engage his friends in Lebanon when he was with me. So when he would return during the various school breaks we would organize or participate in activities with these friends as a way of maximizing his time with me and maintaining his friendships.
So him being removed from me to Missouri was positive step number nine -- it engaged his former classmate friends with me when he was here.
That dear redhead and I maintained a regular relationship with each other even while my son was away. We would work-out together at the gym or I would take her to political or other events that piqued her interest. I also enjoyed her inquisitiveness and appreciation of my wisdom. Plus, my interactions with her kept me youthful in spirit.
The more I got to know her the more I felt a sense of dedication to ensuring that she would have the opportunity to fulfill all of her dreams and ambitions. She understood and accepted me and I the same for her. I would fancy the idea that maybe she and my son would unite as spouses and I would thereby still get to know her through life. Regardless, I did want to observe her progress through life somehow and be available to her.
Two years or so later I was being courted by a woman in Arizona. She would come to Indiana for a few days at a time, we stayed in Kentucky for a week where I met her extended family, and we conversed on the phone often. She wanted me to move to Arizona immediately. Flagstaff had been where the mother of my son and I had intended to reside shortly after our marriage. It never happened as I stated earlier and I have lamented that but it was actually a positive step.
It was at the point of being asked to move to Phoenix that I mentioned the insightful red-headed high school girl whom I had befriended and was dedicated to helping through life if needed or requested. I said I didn’t want to move immediately because this girl still had another year of high school to complete and I am not sure what her plans were after that but she may want me to stay around Lebanon or need to live with us. Well my suitor was not pleased by that revelation and abruptly stated that she was not going to share me with any other woman “especially some high school girl.” So I made it real simple. I didn’t call her back and thus she never had to share me.
So my suitor being unwilling to potentially share me was positive step number ten -- it kept me from getting married again and then moving to Arizona prematurely.
Tough to think of denying myself the opportunity to finally complete a near lifelong quest to live in Arizona as a positive, but it is. I had not been on a quest for marriage and I was resigned that I would stay in Indiana in case my son decided to come back here for college -- which he did. That fiery red-head would soon be making the same decision. She was not just his first girlfriend but was a classmate since grade three.
When she came home one day I was already there and as she read her mail she began to gleefully dance around the kitchen. She announced to me that she would be attending IUPUI instead of Ball State and thereby we would get to see each other more often.
The newfound freedom and responsibilities of being an adult coupled to the lack of preparation provided in the home lead her on a collision course with extreme adversities. So much that she became ashamed of herself and cut-off contact with me because she didn’t want to disappoint me or for me to reject her. Her stint at IUPUI lasted less than a semester.
So her cutting off contact with me was positive step number eleven -- it kept me from protecting her from achieving her goal which was improper for her at the outset.
Less than a year later she passed me as I was riding a bike to Indy. She turned around and then we talked for about an hour. Although her behaviours that she knew I found objectionable had not fully abated I did not reject her as she had feared.
Our relationship is a robust series of encounters that span a vast range of activities and may be frequent or infrequent. We have no sense of need to control each other. Every moment we are together is enjoyable. We argue and debate vigorously but never fight. We exist wholly and individually while at the same time being united. We accept each other completely and express our love for each other spontaneously and without sense of obligation.
She knows my ex-wife but hasn’t talked with her particularly about our marriage or plans we had made such as moving to Arizona. We have talked with each other extensively for the past eight years but never on issues such as where I ultimately wanted to live. Yet, late last year she simply mentioned during one of our chats about what she wants to do in life is for us to move to Arizona a few years from now.
If you have read this far I first congratulate you on being inquisitive enough or relaxed enough to do so. Second though is the pay-off based upon what I realized when she made that statement about an ultimate life goal. Here it is.
Every situation we experience is a positive act in furtherance of a more positive outcome.
Recall from reading this what you may perceive as being negative experiences -- nearly killed and being disabled as a result of a vehicular collision; being sent to prison; getting divorced and left homeless; having my child relocated 501 miles away from home; having the woman whom I loved unconditionally and who loved me unconditionally moving away with her husband; and others who followed getting close but somehow always missing a binding connection.
Today I perceive all of those events as positive occurrences. The relationship as it is with the vivacious red-headed love-of-my-life is not an outcome but another positive experience so long as it shall last. The positive outcome will be that I experienced a happy and fulfilling life. I know now that I will have that outcome because all experiences are positive. That is my perception and it is self-perpetuating.
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