An Experimental Blog

 I mentioned many times how much I love the feel of pen on paper. I love to write. But as I look at the few old journals that I still have I realize they are illegible to anyone but me and I also believe no one will actually ever read them.

Not only that, I have arthritis in my hands now that limit how much I can write and I don't think it's going to progressively get any better. I have always held with the belief that the pen in my hand and the paper I am writing on or somehow magical, that they brought out a muse that didn't exist in the speaking world. Here I'm going to try to find out whether or not that is true.

I'm going to start with something that has been difficult to either to put on paper, or put into any words at all. What happened to my marriage to Steve? The end was nothing less than a messy disaster. Once upon a time I could have listed everything during the seven years preceding the end that had led up to it. Now I find with fading memory much of it is lost, perhaps most of it for the best, but it might make it a little harder to tell the actual story. 

I always say that the end started when we found out Oran Skaw had molested our girls and our lives fell apart because of it. Truthfully, there were problems before that but they just didn't seem insurmountable.

Wow, I'm already stuck, I don't know how to go on.

A Few Days Later

I don't think I got stuck because memories are too traumatic or anything. More like where to start. The beginning of the End was the tragedy of Oran Skaw but our marriage wasn't perfect before that. Whose is? We had a few big strikes against us. Our tragic childhoods of abuse and our own individual geekiness both drew us together and separated us. But there might have also been secrets we kept from each other that ate at the marriage.

I thought Steve was adorable when I met him. I had been hired at Collier Macmillan selling encyclopedias door to door right after I got out of jail. Ok, that's another story.  I was on a 7 year probation and worried if anyone would hire me. I was a HUGE believer in Fate. Maybe I still am somewhat. Collier's was the first help wanted ad I called and I was scheduled for an interview.  

I was 19 or 20 and very immature still in a lot of ways. I had survived "on the streets" for years, so I was fairly street smart, I was a voracious reader so I was very book smart, but socially I was a baby in many ways.

The sales office was on the 9th floor of the Texas Towers building in downtown Houston. I now see that office as extremely shabby but at the time I only saw these unbelievably dynamic people from the beautiful receptionist, Ruthie, to the Boss, Kriss. At the end of my interview with Kriss he asked me what I had to offer P.F Collier and I said, "I want to learn to be Just Like YOU!" Magic words for the biggest narcissist I would ever meet!!

I was also actively searching for a mate to raise Jami with. I had found out about myself that I seemed to "fall in love" easily and often. Back then I just loved everyone. I thought people were fascinating and was determined to see good in everyone I met. It seemed logical to let Jami have a huge voice in who I ended up with since I sermed to love everyone.