Spring Blooms

Spring hobbles in this year on crutches and complaining that his feet hurt. It started out with some nice beautiful days in March, sometimes the temperature in the 70s, but the monthly forecast for April in our area is going to hover around what we're having now. Highs in the 50s , lows hovering around the freezing mark. The magnolia tree started out with big beautiful ancient flowers rich pinks fading into pure white-- for about three days. Then a frost hit and now the petals are crispy brown and falling. I had just raked all of the autumn leaves and now these dead petals collect in divets in the lawn to remind me that the effort was fruitless. I'm not raking them up.

But despite the feeble weather, things are looking up. In my personal life I am well adjusted to the upcoming changes in the dynamics of my family. We took separate vacations this spring break. She took our daughter to Oklahoma to meet her parents and her boyfriend, who will eventually be her fiancee, and I took my son to a video game convention in Boston (PaxEast, as reference to those who are familiar-- it was great fun). My wife and I have the ball rolling on our divorce. within 2 months I hope that it will be finalized. I'm pretty satisfied with the lawyer we've vound. he can do a low-cost divorce quickly. When we first signed up for it, he gave us a timeline. Six weeks from the date of filing the papers. When we looked at the calendar, Theresa counted out the weeks and lo an behold, the 42nd day (six weeks) from when we signed up fell on our 13th wedding anniversary. Strangely appropriate, and just a little off in that the divorce wouldn't be finalized that day, but rather when the papers got through. Regardless, there was an air of irony in it.

I don't know if we will be celebrating our anniversary or not. We might go out for dinner and talk about stuff. Or we might just do nothing. It falls on a Thursday, which means I'll be working in the evening. Not really too worried about it. On the anniversary after I came out of the closet, I still wanted to celebrate. Celebrate the fact that I spent time knowing a woman whom I respected and loved and raised children with. We went out to a national park for a day hike, and looked at the tadpoles in the stream and collected different wild grasses in spontaneous bouquets. When we hit the zenith of the hike, Theresa started crying and told me she felt coerced into the hike and that she would have preferred to not do anything and try to forget.

This was one time that I feel I made the right choice. I didn't want to forget. I didn't want to pretend it never happened. I wanted to acknowledge and be proud of my time with her. This was the first indication of a dark and disturbing road for her which lead to many months of depression and suicidal thoughts. She pulled out of these, and is doing fine now, but it was a harrowing experience. She now looks forward to a future with Tony, who absolutely adores and worships her, which she needs and which she deserves.

The magnolia blooms did not survive the frost, but the tree lives on and the flowers will emerge again.