They're home

I dropped the kids off with their mom around 9 last night, after the kids and I wrapped up our 4 day Christmas celebration. I was expecting to get home to the empty house and have a bunch of emotion hit me. Instead, I took a three hour nap.

I think instead of missing the kids and being sad that I’d be alone on Christmas, I had this awareness/thankfulness of/for how far I’ve come. I can’t believe how great my Christmas was with the kids. And to get a full picture of why, I think I need to rewind a little bit.

8 years ago, my then wife found a love note I wrote to a stripper…on Christmas Eve…10 times out of 10 that is going to lead to the husband eating a Quik Trip hot pocket by himself and not seeing his kids on Christmas day, right? Shitty day for the wife. Awful for the kids.

And for me…I don’t know. I’ve written about how bad it was, but was it? I’d been kicked out of the house. Left for dead. Had friends give up on me. It took a pretty dark reality to get me to seek out stripper time in the first place. And that girl showed me more love than I’d had in a long time...not stripper love…we never even had sex…but, just the kind of love where you listen. And throw in a smile here and there.

So, I can raise my hand and say…yes…I fucked up Christmas 8 years ago. And you can also take that part of my story in context and say thank God I got out of there and thank God for that stripper. Because, you know, 8 pound 6 ounce baby Jesus being born is mostly about hurting your wife so that a stripper can heal you.

So, then the next year. I went broke as a poker “pro”. Limped into Christmas at my sister’s financially speaking. Had to borrow money from her just to pay for gas home. And took a job at Chili’s as soon as I got home, because I needed money that day. Wearing a chili’s apron at age 37. That was pretty humbling.

There was another Christmas in there where all I could afford was to give both kids a wii. One gift. To share. Holy shit. Now, I’m crying…and can see why yesterday was so great. I’ve come a long way.

I think there’s a parallel between what I had to give the kids financially and what I had to give them as a dad. Like, in the marriage I was a walking dead man. I was not a good dad. I was so fucked in the head. And so depressed. And so stuck in the Christian “you can’t get divorced ever” mindset. I was slowly living out my death sentence.

Riley was almost 5 when I got kicked out of the house. Blake was almost 3.  I’d have my moments, but when you’re a miserable person, in a miserable situation…the kids aren’t going to get your best. And they didn’t. The worst stretch was moving from hotel to hotel for 9 months. Hardly seeing the kids at all after the separation. I can never get that back man. Share the house? “No.” I was told. That’s not fucking okay man to keep a dad from his kids.

And so I signed a parenting agreement and was thrilled to get some time with the kids and over the years it’s finally grown into what it is now…exactly half-time. And I’m losing it again right now. Tears streaming down my face, because it’s dawning on me that that’s all I ever needed.

For years it was the kids living at mom’s and heading to dad’s was more like visiting. There was a place the kids called home…mom’s. And there was the couple days a week the kids hung out at my place. And again, I can’t get any of that time back.

But, the whole story makes me appreciate how good I have it now. If I didn’t have the lows, the high that was yesterday wouldn’t have felt the same.

There’s been some drama that has come up lately that I’ve worked through with the kids. It was rough. And they both cried. But, then a couple days later, we talked it through and there was a closeness that the whole thing created. They get that I want what’s best for them. They get that I love them and that sometimes we have to talk through hard things to get to the other side.

And so when riley kept choosing to hang out with me this week, whether taking turns choosing our music or playing board games or just talking, it meant the world. And kid made me cry hard when she said, “I’m excited for presents at Moms but you know what? I just like spending time with you dad.”

Context, right? Left for dead. Made out to be the villain. Kept from the kids. No money. Bad jobs. Come on man…all the sudden all that stuff was in my rear view mirror. All the work I’ve put into my mental health and into my business. I’ve been able to be a dad. I’ve had something to give the kids, not just financially, but fatherly.

And now my tears won’t stop, because it made me realize I needed to put all this into even greater context. I shut my dad out years ago. And what I get from him now is father’s day texts where he says “happy fucking father’s day.” And birthday texts where he tries to mind fuck me, retracting a previous admission that I was right to “divorce” him. this year he said something like “I take that back. You shouldn’t have divorced me. Happy birthday.”

He chooses to not respect my decision for him to not see the kids, and puts them in uncomfortable spots. Going behind my back and conspiring with my ex wife to go to dinner with my kids when I said no. And when I said to not send the kids gifts, because it only confuses them, he sends them to my ex wife to give to them. So, I got to watch the kids super uncomfortable faces yesterday when they let it slip that they got Christmas money from my dad. The kids should not be made to feel like that. The way they both reacted made it seem like someone had told them not to tell me about the gifts from my dad.

It’s all shitty. My dad hurt me and my sister. And I’m dealing with that on my own and have chosen to make 100% sure he doesn’t hurt my kids, only to watch my ex wife enable him. It’s fucking horse shit. I get to pick what’s best for my kids and what’s best for me. And since cutting myself off from my dad and divorcing baby mama, it’s better, but they both still make my life and ability to be a dad more difficult.

So, yeah…to overcome what I already wrote about was big and to navigate all the mental gymnastics my ex and my dad force me to get through has been really fucking exhausting. But, at the end of the day yesterday, with Christmas at mom’s on the horizon, Riley told me she just likes spending time with me. Come on man. That was too much. What a gift.

And the whole time with them was really…watching Christmas movies. Starting puzzles that we’d never finish. Having any and every event end with “I think we need to eat a peanut butter ball to celebrate.” Mail ordering our favorite pastry from Seattle. Having both kids help with the cookie making. The whole fucking thing was “they’re home.” Fucking finally. The four years with Sarita were bumpy. But, now we’re back to just the three of us.

When Blake got the computer he’s been wanting for Christmas, Riley said, “you realize we’re never going to see him again, right?” Only to have Blake wander out of his room a little while later to see what Riley and I were doing. Watching a rerun of the Miss Universe pageant. What else? So, the three of us sat there and watched almost 3 hours worth. Yeah. We fell asleep. But, we also ate cheese dip. And had lots of comments and thoughts about the whole thing, especially at the end when Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner. We all cringed. We all felt horrible for Steve, Miss Columbia and Miss Philippines and it lead to some good discussion.

(Edit: forgot to also add that Riley had a great idea that parents should video themselves pulling a Steve Harvey and walking into a kids room as they're enjoying their big gift and say, "i'm sorry. there's been a mistake. that x-box was supposed to go to your brother. the card says it right here. it was my mistake." and capture the horror as they take the gift away and give it to the sibling.)

It was such a random way to spend time together, but that feeling of knowing the kids are at home with me was priceless. We had our Christmas dinner. I tried to make the cottage cheese rolls from the cookbook my grandma wrote, but I fucked up the frosting. It didn’t matter. The presents had been opened and we should have all gone our separate ways to enjoy them, right?

No. Blake invented a game called family trivia. He just asked a random question about his life and Riley and I had to guess the answer. Then it was Riley’s turn. And mine. And before we knew it an hour had passed. But, not before lots of laughs. Riley was in tears when I reminded her that on our drive to Disney when she was in 5^th grade, she pointed out a “stripping” club. She didn’t remember that at all, but thought it was hilarious that she would say that out loud.

Man, we’re family. We can say anything. There were the hard times. But, these are the good times. And the fact that those kids choose to hang out with me is pretty overwhelming. From lonely hot pocket dinners to stripping club jokes. We’ve come a long way. I’ve come a long way. And I’m lucky they still want anything to do with me after all my fuck ups over the years. Somehow my love for them still gets through. Merry Christmas. Best one yet.