Moving Forward

Well my boy is back and my stress levels drop 50%. The smile on my face is almost permanent. I give little laughs to myself and I am sure people think I have completely lost the plot, and that whatever loose screw there was, has finally
fallen out and rolled away.

Five to six weeks is a long time to go without seeing my child. It is difficult being a father with no transport. I rely on my partner to get me there or at least get him back. His mother while I am sure is content doing her thing, unsurprisingly she still doesn't often lift a finger to help us out in that respect. He will be
devlivered when it suits her and only if it suits her. But you know what? I don't want to be wasting my energy with that.

My relationship with my son is probably a little unusal. If he hadn't been born and been around at the beginning of my new life, I would have gone straight home when my marriage broke up.
I try not to get involved in wasting time on regrets or anger. I have often recounted how I felt like I was treated like shit, but I can forgive because it wasn't intentional. Maybe it was intentional but I don't think I could cope with that. Just yesterday someone who knows a little of what happened was uncharacteristically charitable. She said that my in laws were not bad with me they just undermined me unintentionally and disregarded me actively. (whew).


Now things are better, Aqua my partner is a constant support and defends me from myself when I get silly. Now I stay also for myself. My french is improving all the time but it is never easy. There is a stress level that is ever present. This stress level is non existent when I am at home in Ireland. It is to do with unfamiliarity. When you live in one place for thirty plus years, you know it well. When you live in a foreign country for just over three years, you cannot possilby understand, the flow of traffic, the nuance of phrases, hand gestures, a look, even the drift of cloud. I am beginning to understand the vastly different sky. I am now able to communicate that I don't understand the banter.

Besides my focus is my relationship with my boy. I think too many parents are not conscious of the things they do that cause problems for kids later in life. Mind you being conscious of it doesn't mean you automatically solve it, or mean you don't at least create other problems. However I can but try. So we do the obvious things as much as possible. Talk positively for a start, for example,.. 'we'...cannot be 'alone',...we are together, or.. You don't do things 'wrong'...but, you could do that another way. I pay attention to make sure he knows that our place is his place. He is a lucky boy to have two homes. I try to create the space for my partner to feel she is included, she has rights, she has love and is loved by him. He sees her romantically as cinderella sometimes.
It's difficult when a child is entrenched in the notion of the nuclear family. It is odd in this day and age that thinking like this for a child is possible. There are not too many unseparated couples that I know. I am sure over 50% of the parents of children in his class, have been divorced. It just seems that this is how to live here. It isn't that romantic really.

Anyway The dinner on Friday night was a resounding success. We ate pasta with mushrooms, we ate grilled beef, vegetables, and a spicy sauce made from Herbs, lemon, honey, garlic and, well, spice of course.
The weather has picked up again and the jelly fish are back. It puts a hold on my swimming.

I am toying now with the idea of changing my profile, inventing a pseudonom and then feeling a bit more freedom to write whats in my heart and mind.

Summer is in the last throes and hopefully I can swim today. I am toying with the idea of doing one crazy thing in my life. I decided on an Iron Man. Given that I smoked like a trooper for the greater part of my adult life, this is perhaps
not the wisest choice. When have I ever made the wisest choice? So I have been swiming since May. I am what the French call 'null' in the water, completely crap, but hey, a guy has to start somewhere. :-)