Pictures of the storm that blew though here a few nights ago...

This evening's sunset...

The cries of her pleasure
And the sighs of her contentment
Are the most beautiful music in the world

I've started seeing a psychologist, and he's a really good one. Nothing like the passive sex voyeur I saw back in Texas. This guy is focused on results and giving me tools.

Yesterday I learned something major.

I'm basically a sweetheart kind of guy who, as far back as I can remember, has never intentionally hurt anyone. Because of that, I never really learned what true guilt is -- at least, not that kind of guilt. The guilt of hurting someone intentionally.

That being said, I've always felt bad when bad things happen to people, and especially when it was something I did, or do, that causes that hurt. I've carried a world of these bad feelings with me my whole life. Then yesterday my shrink taught me that important, vital thing:

There's a huge difference between being guilty, and feeling bad. I've always felt guilty. But since I've never intentionally hurt anyone, I have no reason to actually feel guilty -- for anything. Bad, yes. It's right and natural to feel bad for something that causes someone pain -- but to blame yourself for it? To carry around guilt because of it? No.

Learning that, learning that I've been misplacing guilt my entire life, feeling guilty for things I should never have felt guilty for, was one of those huge "Why the fuck didn't I know this?" moments. I walked out of the office feeling rather heavy, somber, and then suddenly it was like a huge weight lifted off of me, and I felt like I was suddenly full of helium. I had always been trying to forgive myself for things ... turns out I never needed to! There was nothing to forgive!

I am feeling really good right now.

I've scheduled a session with a psychologist to help me sort through these jumbled emotions. I haven't seen one since 2004, and I'm actually looking forward to it ... especially since my insurance covers it. Booya insuance!

Something that's troubling me right now is hard to express, and I don't want to bore everyone with the details, but this is my attempt to sum it up in a nutshell: I've had to let go of things so much in my life that I've become an expert at it. I can shut off and walk away from just about anything. It's made me not want to attach to things so that I don't have to let go of it later. Does that make sense? And now I find I'm sick and tired of letting things go, and I want to hold something tight and keep it as mine and have it close to my heart, and not let go of it, ever ever.

And yet all signs point to me having to let it go.

I wonder what the psychologist will tell me.

Probably nothing.

...there is no solution. That's the solution.

What?

No. Really. Sometimes in life there are no solutions to some things, and so the solution is that there is no solution. You accept it and move on. I realized that today.

And by move on, I'm not saying that her and I are not seeing each other anymore. I'm saying that we stop trying to solve this problem, just accept the situation for what it is, and move on to things that we can solve.

The root cause is fear. As it says in the book Dune, "Fear is the mind killer." What we need to do is start removing the things that cause us to fear, start nibbling away at them one at a time until they crumble and fall. Eliminate the fear so that in the long run a solution can then present itself.

Until then, our situation is the result of other situations which have to be solved first.

Does that make sense?

In the meantime, we'll be together Friday, and both of us are very happy and excited by that!

I'm not sure what the difference is here between friends and subscriptions, but since I seem to be getting back into Xanga I'm going through and subscribing to all the people who've been on my friends list all these years. Hello!

My love and I have redefined our relationship as "friends." This is killing both of us and I suspect our friends find it ridiculous. To see us together is to see two people madly in love.

The problem is that she can't move forward with a divorce and has basically given up trying. In order to keep her estranged husband from snatching away her youngest daughter, she has to keep her relationship with me a secret. He blames me for the breakup of their marriage, and refuses to accept any responsibility for anything -- it was him that broke up their marriage, years ago, by being an abusive jackass -- before I was even in the picture. The two of them don't even live in the same state anymore. But because he's abusive, because he's willing to use their own children as weapons, and because he has her at a total disadvantage for several complicated legal reasons (that have something to do with him being in the military), she's unwilling to fight him any more.

So where does that leave us? How can we have an actual relationship where she has to hide me from people, and I can't see her openly, and I have to explain to people that my girlfriend is actually married to someone else and, no, they're not divorcing?

Also, what is the message we're sending to our kids? I can see it both ways:

A) We're showing them that two people who are truly in love should be together no matter what.

B) But, we're also showing them it's okay to have an extramarital relationship?

Talk about mixed signals. We're in favor of A but not of B.

We had a rather hard conversation yesterday (it seems we only talk via text in one form or another anymore) where she told me a psychologist (which I'm planning to start seeing) would probably tell me this relationship is unhealthy and I should break it off completely. But when her and I are actually together, which is not that often anymore, it's like drinking from the fountain of youth. It's the most healthy, whole, and rejuvenating happiness either of us has ever experienced.

We've concluded the whole thing has become a mess, and neither of us know what to do about it. The only thing I know is that I'm not going to put my life on hold anymore, and I'm not going to have another miserable Christmas wishing I was with someone who I can't be with. What that means, I'm not sure. My plan at this point is to concentrate on building a social circle where I live, and flying myself and my daughter back to California to be with family next Christmas.

Anyone have any advice? I'd love to hear it. I'm at my wit's end about this.

I swear to myself and the Univese at large, this is the absolute LAST suckwad Christmas I will allow to happen. It was okay to endure it when I was alone, because I could pretend it was just another day, but now that I have one of my kids living with me it is NOT OKAY. It is not okay to be lonely and somber while pretending to have fun, it is not okay to be NOT surrounded by family and friends, and it is ABSOLUTELY NOT OKAY TO NOT BE ABLE TO BE WITH THE WOMAN I LOVE ON CHRISTMAS. It is absolutely NOT FUCKING ACCEPTIBLE. This is me putting my foot down. I am not doing this again.

One way or the other next year is going to be different.