I can not believe that almost a year has past since last I wrote on these pages. I turned 41 yesterday not that doing so had much to do with my silence. I have thought about this blog many times and many times I have not when I probably should have. This has been a year from hell quite literally. We lost our home and were forced to move in with my parents late in 2004. Shortly there after I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt. I say shortly it was one in the same day. That started us down a long winding road that would lead my wife to threaten suicide twice and my son attempt it once himself. Living conditions became unbearable for my wife so she ran out on me took the kids and filed for a restraining order to keep me from seeing her or the kids. We did eventually reconcile but it has been a rough road. We lived for a time in a homeless shelter until we at last quite literally found a house at the last hour.
That has been my year in a nutshell. It was a long painful year. It was a year filled with grief, but also one filled with joy. Life has begun anew in many ways for us. Ohh it has not and is not easy. I am still working a dead end job. It seems that the management is reluctant for whatever reason to move me from my current position to one of greater responsibility. Partially I do not blame them. There are times when I doubt my readiness to take on the responsibility. Will the pressure of such a position just push me back over the edge.
I try to stay focused on the positive things in my life. There is so much negativity around me that it is difficult not to get discouraged. My oldest daughter is 14 and just now discovering boys. She wants little if nothing to do with the family. I wonder some times if she has even turned her back on God. Much of it may just be typical teenage stuff, but there has to be some element of her being effected by the mental illness that plagues our family. My son who like his mother and me is bipolar. He is even with medication VERY difficult to handle. He can have such an explosive temper, and then at other times be the most loving boy you have ever known. He is 13 so telling what is normal adolescent behavior and what is a result of his mental illness is even more difficult then with my daughter. While she retreats into the company of her friends he has no such luxury. How I long for a peer that can come along side him and be his friend despite his differences. I had one or two of those true friends and they made all the difference in my growing up. My 6 year old is following in her brother's footsteps. She is such a chatter box and has to be doing something constantly. Yet the things we need her to be doing she will not do. Our 3 year old is a holy terror. If she isn't into something she is asleep dreaming about getting into something. It is all my wife can do to manage her own symptoms of bipolar but add my 3 year old into the mix and it is a disaster.
That is all for now. There is so much more I could say. I just hope this will not serve as the final entry until next year. So much is changing with the blog and the community, particularly our move to our own domain. I just hope that doing so will draw readers to this place and they will find some comfort, some challenge, or something in the words that I or others will write here.