When It Rains, It Pours.

It's been a confusing two years at best.

Not too terribly long after the last post, my wife informed me that she wanted to separate. We had an argument in the morning, and by early afternoon, she headed towards a friend's apartment, determined to move the kids in with her. That same day, animal control showed up to investigate complaints from a particularly nosy neighbor that there were too many animals in the house, and most, if not all, were diseased. Angry as I may still be at the neighbor who was quick to point fingers and castigate rather than reach out and help, our mutual clinical depression and her fixation on taking in every stray she could find while disregarding the family's health and the state of housekeeping combined to our doom. The house was declared uninhabitable, and we were forcibly removed.

We hopped from one hotel to another for several weeks, getting help from my mother in Pennsylvania towards paying for the hotels. I continued working at a Foot Locker outlet in Jackson, a daily commute of some seventy miles one way. The continued wear on the car coupled with our housing situation and the associated expenses drove me to embezzle from the company. I confessed my wrongdoing to my supervisor as the signs grew that the funds were going somewhere, and was able to avoid prosecution by repaying everything I had displaced. Regardless, the action cost me my job. The silver lining in the storm clouds was the opening at the local family shelter that became available as we drove back from Jackson that day.

We spent a little over a month at the Haven House shelter for homeless families of dependent children. The programs in place were designed to get us gainfully employed again and in a stable residence of our own, and we threw ourselves into the task, but life at the shelter was far from comfortable. Politically correct or not, we were one of two white families living with eight other black families, and were frequently treated with the attitude that we didn't deserve to be there or participate in the programs. As whites, we were welcome to pay into the system, but utilizing that same system was vociferously discouraged. We made the unforgivable error of not remaining quiet and simply assuming our places as the new minority. We spoke out when relatives with homes of their own were permitted to visit and consume the shelter food and resources before even our own children were permitted to eat. On more than one occasion, it was uncovered that several of the families conspired to turn prospective landlords against us for spite alone. We learned hatred and discrimination from the very people who claimed being hated and discriminated against, and despite preformed opinions and biases to the contrary, it was not our family who drew first blood. Nonetheless, we did our time, eventually ending up in our current jobs and in a small upper-level two-bedroom apartment in the Moores River Park neighborhood.

Things were good for a while, especially while the lower level of the house in which our apartment was made remained unrented. It was by far the smallest space in which we had ever lived, but it felt like a palace compared to the shelter, being solely ours. That ended roughly two months later when the first-floor apartment was rented to the most selfish and anti-social mental patient (and her son) that it has ever been the misfortune of this family to experience. She immediately began protesting the situations of which she was made well aware upon moving in. She complained when we walked across the kitchen floor. She complained if we spoke before 8:00am or after 10:00pm. She complained when my children used the stairs to get out to their school-bus stop. She complained whenever we ran water. The complaints eventually led our sadly weak-willed landlord to sue us for eviction citing the numerous noise complaints, even though he admitted in court to the unreasonableness of her complaints. Again, we were determined the most reasonable and therefore the easiest targets. At our proverbial eleventh-hour, we located the house in which we currently live.

The house is quite wonderful. Three bedrooms and a complete basement, larger than any home we've had before. The rent is tough, but we manage. We're seeing a family therapist for our oldest sons many discipline and behavioral issues. Now, however, old issues are coming home to roost. My wife recently expressed an interest in ending our marriage again. She's uncomfortable with the fact that I'm so uncomfortable with her new circle of friends.

While living in the house from which we were removed, my wife became associated with a group of drag queens her worked at her store. She began going out to the club where they perform, assisting with shows, driving them to pageants, and so on. She has actively excluded me from any of this, citing that they're uncomfortable around me (this group that is said to be so accepting and desiring of acceptance). I find them, frankly, the most shallow, two-faced crowd one with which one could ever hope to spend time, a group fringe even among the fringe group that sired them, namely the LGBT demographic. She argues that the two-facedness is part of the drag queen scene, which I then in turn argue is further reason not to trust them. Recently the situation degraded to the point where she was spending her days at our babysitter's apartment, and was supposed to spend her nights there as well, although she couldn't bring herself to do so. We've since progressed to talking again and sharing a bedroom, though things are far from repaired. The problems with our oldest son's behavior certainly aren't helping things, and now her best friend/adoptive "sister" is living with us for the next eight months, wearing down further the time we might be able to work on 'us' alone. I still have to compete with her 'amazing friends' for attention on our anniversary and my birthday, and her birthday is now a drag queens-only event, excluding even our children.

What a way to mark my fortieth year so far! Even as I sit here and compose this, I'm unsure if it's the marriage therapists I'll call on Monday or another lawyer. We're not going to magically heal without effort, and acknowledging that effort is needed isn't enough. I can make a hundred appointments with a hundred different therapists, and it's all for naught if she comes along just to humor me. I need a show of interest and effort, some proof that it's me she really wants to stay with and not just the physical trappings I've been able to provide.