Happy Birthday Blog! The Story Behind The Picture

I got my dates mixed up. Actually I'm almost a week late.

One year ago today, I installed the site meter on my site. I forgot that I had started my blog almost a week earlier. ICK. BUT...this appears to be the lot of my life....a day late and a nickel short as they say.

Man, what a year. 236 posts have been published. Some with pictures. Some without. It certainly is a journal of my troubling year. I just wish I had kept this thing earlier, to mark the grand upheaval and not just the aftermath. (the aftermath was bad enough....but what led up to the aftermath was even more gut wrenching....perhaps I'll write about them in FLASHBACK mode one day.)

The picture of me that defines my blog was taken by daughter #2 in the summer of 2005. 'It was taken approximately three months after Lovey made her grand pronouncement.

I had gone to a family reunion in West Virginia. Shortly before that picture was taken, one of my cousins did the annual "Where's your wife?" routine. As I look back on it, there were many such occasions with my relatives. I always kind of squirmed when asked. But I made excuses for her.

"Oh she's working."

"She's preaching this weekend and couldn't come."

"My son needed someone to be with him."

Oddly, at this particular time, I hadn't seen the pattern and had not yet realized that Lovey just plain old didn't want to get to know my family or have anything to do with any of them. (I'm an only child....and my cousins, aunts, uncles, are all very important to me.) She didn't even do good at building any type of relationships with my mom and dad. Cold and prickly might be a good description of how she was to them.

Normally, when the cousins asked where Lovey was, I would answer and they would shake their heads and walk away. Well, this particular year, the cousin in question responded "She must not really like your family because she never has been here. I've never met her."

I smiled wearily and answered, "It doesn't really matter anymore. She is divorcing me. But I'm here!"

The cousin offered her condolences and gave me a hug.

That's when I went on the walk up the dirt road that resulted in this photograph. You can't see it, but my head is racing and I'm experiencing a ton of new feelings that are on the verge of swamping me in depression. I did not know what was up ahead. Looking around at my new surroundings....alone. Frightened and hurt in the situation I found myself in. Remembering how my life used to be, versus how it was at the time.

That picture becomes very poignant when one knows the point in time it captures. It shows a divorcing gay man, whose world is in total chaos trying to process it all...trying to hold it all together.

It was also during that trip that a few other things dawned on me.

One of the things that Lovey always prided herself on was the fact that she was a "supportive wife." I didn't really think too much of it until I was on the trip that resulted in this picture. I was sitting on my parent's front porch swing after the reunion.....after the picture was snapped...... and I heard those words from Lovey. "I've been a supportive wife."

Just what does that mean?

She never came to a reunion.

When my parent's have been gravely ill, she was very rarely around.

In 24 years of marriage I had 8 signifiant deaths. Not one time did she go with me to the funeral or go through the mourning process with me.

Wow, I thought.

Upon my return from WV and having made this photograph, I had an occasion to chat with Lovey....about the marriage.....and it's death.

"I've been a supportive wife," pronounced Lovey.

"How do you define supportive wife," I asked innocently.

"I cooked." she said.

"Not very often," I responded gently.

"I kept a clean house for you."

"Not really," I responded....eyeing the ministerial clutter in the room we were in.

"I supported you through your being gay."

"How's that?" I asked. "You never really became active in any of the spousal organizations I provided information on. You never talked or fostered good relationships with my friends' wives who were going through the same thing. You never talked to me about what it was like for me to be gay. You said that I was using you as a cover and for only that."

"Well," Lovey said in a huff. "I didn't divorce you!"

"No, you're doing that now. So how have you been supportive of me?"

She stalked out of the room. She had no answers.

This blog has been my salvation. It has helped me to relieve much frustration. It has given me the opportunity to process emotions that I may have not done otherwise. It has given me a world of new cyber friends. People who write me back channel to give me words of encouragement and a kick in the butt.

Thanks to each of you for taking the time for making me a part of your life. Hopefully in it's own little way, it will help you on your path.

That first year, I used this picture in my Christmas letter.

It's a simple reminder of where I was, and where I am now. It's a gentle reminder of just how far I've come.

Happy Birthday Blog.