How has everyone been? It's been a while, but for some reason, I thought the ol' NL had gone to the /dev/null in the sky. Glad to see its alive and kicking! Grats and thanks to Kadian for keeping it kicking!
First of all, I promise no politics!
I have to tell you, the last two years have been a couple of the most interesting times for me, with HUGE changes. It has been a real roller coaster ride, but I am truly cruising high and fast right now. But lets begin at the beginning...
It looks like the last time I checked in was a coupla years ago, I was a realtor and living in Georgia with my wife and grandson. At the time, I had closed my low-carb store, and was working on recovering from the bankruptcy that followed. Due to economic reasons, (because carbs are cheaper than hell) I had steadily put on all the 100+ pounds I had lost since 2003, all the time knowing I was killing myself, but not really having any choice as I had no money to eat real foods. After all, a loaf of bread and a bag of bologna would make me lunch for a week for $3... I had become an expert at finding pizza bargains (kiddo loved pizza) where I could keep pizza in the house for the weekend for $25. Over the next 2 years or so, I balooned back up to the 350 or so I weighed before I started.
Anyway, though I dont know if I discussed it here much or not, I was dealing with lots of wife issues. Some of it may have been attributable to my gaming, I dunno, but way back in November 2003, we had a big blow-out, and basically began living separate lives in our house. She moved into her own room, and rarely came out. She went through several stages of depression, etc., and we tried getting it treated, but as it turned out, she wasnt really interested in being treated. She basically let me take care of Joseph as I saw fit, and I went forward with life. A little over 4 years ago she got involved in an online/long distance relationship with some dude in Portland Or. I won't go into details, but I will say it was rather serious. During that whole time, I experienced a wide range of emotions, and not all of them anger or pain. In many ways, I often felt relief because I had wanted out of that marriage for a long time. There was always one over-riding factor, though, that being Joseph. This was compounded by the fact that we were in Georgia, whether neither of us had family nor a lot of friends as a support system, especially her should we get divorced.
So, in the spring of 2007, I decided to do what I could to either fix or finish our marriage. I started looking for a job back in our home town of Topeka, Kansas. I found one at a bank there, and moved us back. Before we left, I had a talk with the wife about her relationship, and my expectations, etc. Well, not 10 days after we returned and I started work, I found out this relationship was unabated. I confronted her and gave her an ultimatum. A week later, it was obvious nothing had changed, and I began to discuss openly with her my intentions. For the next 2 months, as I watched her cell bills, etc., it was obvious that not only was she making no effort to stop this behavior, her minutes were actually increasing, until in mid-August, she talked a whopping 5200 minutes in 30 days with this individual. So, at that time, I contacted an attorney and began to explore divorce. Joseph was always top-of-mind with me, and I knew that divorce would be dispurtive enough, I decided to wait until the school year was out in May.
In August, however, I decided I was making enough again, and the checkbook and schedule had levelled out enough, that I went back on low-carb and began to lose weight again. As of now, I've lost most, if not all, of that 100 pounds I'd put back on.
Anyway, I continued to play WoW (I'll update my WoW life in that forum later) and in October, I was asked to join a group going to Dire Maul to tank for a warlock on their epic mount quest (I have a druid tank). I did, and when I joined vent, I heard the most amazing, charming, yet down-to-earth person there, who happened to be the warlock we were assisting. As I later found out, she was a 43 YO speech pathologist from Florida, who had started playing WoW to keep tabs on her kids' activities when they were online (believe it or not, she has 6!) There was something about her that refused to let my mind go of her, and we began communicating constantly, either in-game, on the phone or texts, and later via email.
She is the complete anti-thesis of my now-ex-wife. She likes the same music as I do, the same movies, the same types of books (her and all her kids devour books), she likes the same foods (even likes my low-carb meals) and even likes her steaks med-rare (Yeahehhea!!) And she's conservative as hell. LOL! And unlike my now-ex-wife, she has a master's degree, works for a real living, and has a fantastic house. Fortunately for me, she had an idiot for a husband who slept all the time, and treated her poorly, not appreciating the real person she is. We spent hours and hours talking over time ourselves, and exchanged almost 1000 emails (of which I have them all) and we really did know each other in almost minute detail before we ever actually laid eyes on each other. I will say with absolute certainty that I knew her 100 times better than when my now-ex-wife moved with me 18 years ago.
When the lease was up on the house I was renting in May of this year, I officially filed for divorce and we went our separate ways. Joseph's daddy had been working his way back into his life in a big way, and when school let out, Joseph went to stay with him. I had left the bank in February and am working for a computer company doing help desk support and project installations around Topeka. Debbie and I had considered moving her and the kids to Topeka, but they needed help getting ready, so I came down to Florida to help. I am able to keep the help desk job through the use of a firewall/VPN and an IP phone... telecomputing at its best. But as it looks, we may stay down here, rather than move her kids back to Kansas. We're still deciding on what to do.
So, there you have it. Mikey has tossed off his old life and has begun anew with an exciting and wonderful future ahead. Debbie is the most fascinating person I have ever met, and she amazes me every day, still. We've spent almost the whole summer together now, and neither of us have yet to have one of those "Boy, I didn't see that coming" moments. Her kids are smart (all of them straight-A students, decent and respectful,) they seem to like me a lot, and they absolutely adore their mother. I mean, all families have their moments, but this is very "Brady Bunch" most times. The big kids take care of the little kids, and the three older teenage girls and their mother are all best friends. No rebelliousness or fighting between them (other than over a laptop once in a while). Its amazing and tons of fun to be a part of.
Well, there ya go... a Mikey update! How's everyone else doing?
