New Beginnings

That's quite a stupid title for a post isn't it? I think there's an album or a book that I've read by that name.

Stupid because a beginning is always new, that's what it means.

Anyhow, today is yet another massive day in my life, not just because it's a Friday. I think, as I get older, life becomes more jam packed with activity, it gets more complicated and it gets more busy. But, and this may be news for those amongst you who complain about hitting the ripe old age of twenty whatever and feel old, it gets better.

Some sit around and moan about getting older, about becoming boring and staid. Well those people will become like that, that's the law of the Universe; we become what we believe.

For me today is a massive day because it's the first day of the rest of my life. The girls and their mother are moving into their new house today. I can't describe how this feels, though of course I'm going to make an attempt at it.

In the last couple of years I've had several first days of the rest of my life.

There was leaving the former family home, saying farewells to things that had meant so much to me. Leaving the girls with the knowledge that everything would be different forever was fucking hard I can tell you.

Then there was the day the decree nisi came through, meaning the first stage in the legal process of the divorce was complete.

Then the decreee absolute. I was divorced. It was big.

It's as if there was a piece of chewing gum stuck to the pavement and each big day was one of the strands being stretched until it was no longer attached. To have children with someone means that some strands will always be attached and they're strands that I love more than I can describe. Yes, more than even I can describe. Me with the powers of description better than a thingy in a whatsername.

The past weeks have consisted a lot of the splitting up of posessions. It's something that would have happened a year or more ago if the house had been sold then, but it wasn't, something to do with a worldwide recession that we've talked ourselves into. This splitting and dividing things is hard, even more than you see in the films. There was no happy reminiscing between the ex couple as we laughed over old moments. There was no being friends and all mature about things as if we were some kind of text book divorced couple. They only exist in text books.

More or less every thing represents a memory, one that usually involved one of the girls as they grew up. A piece of homework, a handprint done at nursery school with a message wishing me happy Christmas. There was a drum book that I remember working through with A when she first started drumming, they all represent little pices of the history of my relationship with my children.

And, as they move on to their new home, I move on in my life.

I'm still their Dad. I still love them.

I'm just not with them. I hope one day they'll understand.