Well, tonight I am officially homeless. Ok, let me define that. I still have that beautiful house in Gilroy. And no, I’m not sleeping in my car, though I could probably park anywhere and turn on the computer and pick up wireless signal. But I am homeless.
It’s been awhile since Carol and I declared separation. What a decision that was. I really had no clue what it would mean, but it’d soon be defined for me very quickly. Though when we agreed to separate, the odd thing about it was that I decided that I’d stay in the house. I thought that since it was really her idea to end the relationship, that I needed to be there for the kids. I really didn’t know what she was going to do and I wanted to be as completely involved as I’d been. So I was stubborn. I stayed in the house every night, never NOT coming home and always being there when the kids woke up. I wanted to make sure that this separation wasn’t going to be that hard on them and wanted to ease them into it. It wasn’t easy on me to continually be in the house, but I thought it was the best thing I could do for them and there was no way I wanted to be away from them either.
So fast forward a year (or more, I forget) and I agreed with Carol that we probably needed to take a month off just from being around each other. In that time, we’ll decide whether to sell the house or not, whether she or I can afford the house on our own (with roommates of course), or whether we should just rent it out and both find new places to live. That last one probably isn’t going to work because our mortgage is more than we could probably rent it out for.
For the first time in my life, except when I’ve had to go on business trips, or a trip with some friends, I’m sleeping away from my house, and away from my kids. 30 days. 4 weeks. And I am homeless.
I am staying at the parents house for tonight, and probably for the largest portion of the time I’m away from home. I still work from home on Monday and Wednesday and get to pick up the kids on those days and hang out with them. And I’ll get them on at least one or two weekend days every week. So I won’t be completely away from them.
My original goal was to sleep on 30 different couches in 30 nights, but thought about how hard that would be. I could probably at least do half that many houses just with the amount of combined family and friends I have and have received requests of couches with my name on them, but in the end, it’s much easier to just sleep at the parents house. I was completely against it. Who wants to come back home to live with the parents after being on your own since you were 22? It’s almost like a step down right? A failure even? Well, it can be those things and I’m not certain that it isn’t those things, but the parents are there and didn’t blink an eye when I asked (ok, maybe told) them that I was going to stay with them for a few weeks. Plus, the kids will sleep over more so and that will make them happy.
Tonight, I sleep on the same futon that my sister hated. My mom busted out sheets and was making the bed for me and I told her she didn’t need to do all that. I want to make my stay as unnoticeable as possible, but I’m sure she’ll try to make things easier for me. I don’t want her to have to cook anything she wasn’t already cooking or worry about my laundary or anything like that. I’ve been doing those things for a long time, and I don’t all of a sudden need a respite from them. But she’s mom. Mom’s like doing that stuff.
In a way, it’s an interesting situation for me. In no way do I want to be away from my kids. That will be the hardest part. But it will give me a time to reflect. Time to be by myself and figure out what I’m going to do. For the last 8 years, I’ve been one person pretty much. And now that one person definitely has to change in order to surive. It’s going to be an interesting 30 days.
I will leave you with a shot of my two Daniel-san’s. More Obon talk is coming, whenver I can get all the pictures up. Because the kachi-kachi’s will definitely get revenge.







