Letter To My Son - Primary School Times- Part 5

This personal story I am drafting will be my gift to my son on his 18th birthday in six months' time, this and a video game because what 18-year-old is looking forward to a very long letter from his dad?

Over the last 18 years, I struggled to be a dad, just like my dad struggled before me. I was very lucky to share lots of time with you in the past, but the divorce changed that.

Now that you are an adult I wanted to tell you my story. A story that I wish my dad had told me. Maybe it's too early right now, but you might enjoy it when you get to be old and sentimental like me.

Letter To My Son Part 5

Guess we all learn that life has its ups and its downs. Fun times became rare during that last year together as a family. Even on the weekends, things would not always go as planned.

My weekend plan was always to do some overtime before you woke up. And as soon as you were really awake and finished watching your first cartoon, I wanted to do some fun stuff together.

It did not matter what, swimming, Lego, Skylanders, Magic The Gathering anything. I always planned to make time for you.

Unfortunately, your mom and I drifted more and more apart. Partly due to her illness. She had to spend a lot of time in her room and I spent a lot of time organizing the household if I was not at work.

More often than not that caused us to have endless discussions on the weekend. Always at the time I planned to do fun stuff with you.

I feel bad when I think about those mornings and early afternoons. I remember sitting in her room listening to her while thinking by myself: "Just say yes so you can spend time with Kiki."

Those discussions made me feel guilty. Those hours I had planned to spend with you often ended up being only half the time, or less, to do "the you & me stuff" I planned.

Looking back I think your mom and I just married too soon. We hardly knew each other, we were married in less than 18 months after we met.

So many awesome things happened during those first years, of which you were the most awesome one, but things changed when money became a struggle.

I got stressed, she got stressed, she got sick, I got a job and somewhere along life's path, we lost our connection. And if that happens it´s probably better to swallow the bitter pill and end an unhappy situation, than to remain unhappy for the rest of your life.

But as your mom was sick I did not want to leave her, so I had to make it work. It didn´t work, but I think your mom felt the same and when she met a new guy that made her happy she decided that it was time to leave.

In the end that was probably best for all of us, although I am sure it was hard to accept that at first.

I am not sure if you know, but I have visited multiple psychologists during that last year. It was an attempt to figure out if there was something I could do to change, and by changing change the course of the marriage.

It was not my initial choice, but your mom's. She thought I might have something within the autistic spectrum that caused the difficulties between us.

Your Dad Ain´t Crazy

After three psychologists and many sessions, I can tell you...I am normal..sort of. They were not able to diagnose me with any specific autistic label.

What they did all tell me was that I was so busy taking care of everything and everyone that I lost myself.

This was true, I remember when my doctor asked me what I would like to do for myself, I did not know, no clue what I liked to do. It had been too long ago and I lost myself along the way.

Every end is a new beginning

Now everyone was headed in a new direction. I remained in the house for as long as I could afford it, while your mom moved into a new place. You stayed with me for the first weeks, to make it all as smooth as possible and only moved in with her and Romet once everything was ready.

To this day I think Romet was a gift, you liked him a lot and he was crazy about you as well. I really hoped this change would be for the best for all of us, but especially for you.

At least now you would not have to come up the stairs anymore and ask me when we were going to play while I was having an intense talk with your mom.

You never really spoke to me about how you experienced this period, and I guess I did not talk to my parents about it when they got divorced,

Like my own parents, I tried to do what was best for everyone, and especially best for you.

Divorces are never fun and your mom called her lawyer a pit bull, and I guess I found a sly fox. In the end, the pit bull and the fox were able to work something out without too much fighting.

I tried to find a house near to you, so I could pick you up every other week like the judge said I could. Even though we both thought the judge was like the king, both stupid.

Soon you and I decided for ourselves when we would spend a weekend together.

I never wanted to force you to come over, I wanted you to want me...or at least want to stay at my place. Something I think worked out very well over the course of those first years.

You came when you wanted to come and often stayed a bit longer, we were finally having quality time again.

Ficzone was probably your favorite thing we did that year. How much money (that I did not have) did we spend that day?

It was awesome although I did not expect your love for manga and cosplay would develop as it did.

The fact that we found a good balance did not mean it wasn´t hard to only see you every now and then, But hey the time we had was well spent. We had a good rhythm and a great taxi driver. I only had to pay for picking you up and bringing you back, while he allowed me to go with him to pick you up and bring you back free of charge.

It took a bit of time but we worked it all out in the best way possible. Until that day your mom called to ask if you could stay with me for a week....

Thank you for reading.

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