He's ALIVE! - BEEN DEAD; DONE THAT.

FIRSTLY  >  

I know NO gay people who would EVER have taken my path. My path was a cumulative effect* of knowing I was gay from the age of six, growing up in a VERY conservative right-wing family; after three suicide events, becoming a religious extremist (Charismatic Fundamentalist Christian) and absorbing the OVER-THE-TOP religious programming which I subjected myself to -- always knowing my life was hanging from a fragile thread. Aware that IF I was ever discovered to be who I really was, that thin thread would snap, causing everything I cared about to come tumbling down. Everyone has a different cracking point. Some would have cracked sooner, others later or never. I reached mine after living 34 years on a thin edge. My husband, never cared about anyone's acceptance - what happened with me, never would have happened with him.

*  It was much more than that I am gay, it WAS my hardline - things are black or white upbringing, ultra-conservative political views, extremist religious beliefs and that I over-emphasized the importance of the era and culture I held up as the benchmark of how to be.     -  Every parent can question, "Which would you rather have, a gay son -OR- a dead son? — That's always another option.  -    

     I was wrong. I had mental problems and I went off the deep end.

What made me go off the deep end are NOT justifications or excuses. The dam broke. When it is investigated why the dam broke and then the reason why is discovered, it is NOT a justification/excuse for not doing whatever it was that could have been done to secure the dam. I speak my "WHY" so that others will be true to their real selves and thereby avoid breaking (or even getting into the 'damn' situation in the first place). Not being true to self (eventually) always results in collateral damage...which is wrong and painful for all involved.

     I am humbly & greatly sorry for all the harm my damn situation brought to everyone.

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"Why Leave & Return 17 Years Later?" can be found under the heading 'Understanding' (scroll down just a bit).

At 3:57pm MST Wednesday, April 7th, 2010, I was declared to be legally alive - after being declared dead on March 6, 1997. Today, the 8th, the process of truly becoming 'the un-dead' with various governmental agencies begins.

Here is the statement read in Court yesterday after being declared un-dead:
It doesn’t happen often; every time some one returns from the dead – someone has something to say about it.

It’s as though I stepped out of an alternate universe, where I was fully accepted as the gay male I’ve always been, into another’s world; having to deal with issues left by another man.

That other man was so angry about being gay that he lost his family and friends. I was so busy being angry about it; I didn’t realize what I had. I was wrong.

The bigger our mistakes, the greater our possibilities for learning. To learn from our mistakes is 
THE WAY.                                                                Now learned.
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Pen & Ink Poster

WHY Leave & Return 17 Years Later?

A "MISS-MATCH" of notes to relay my thoughts to my Family as I first met them. This compilation of thoughts was prepared over many months to be able to stay composed while relaying what happened and why to each person directly. This was never intended to be read by others before meeting them personally. This is included here to help begin a bridge of understanding.
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THIS NOVEL IS BETTER READ IN SEGMENTS.

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No one lives in a bubble & my returning impacts lives that are multifaceted…filled with challenges. There is an inequity in my appearance: I was able to spend months preparing mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically and in every other way I could conceive of, for my return – no one else had that opportunity. Everyone else needs time to come to terms with my return – on their schedule and to process it as they see fit. The purpose in returning is to end pain, bring closure and hopefully provide an opportunity for healing.
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It took 34 years to break from unhealthiness – it took 17 more years to get healthy.
*Below are snippets from many notes which have been moved into place at different sittings – a compilation; not a coherent piece.
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ELM disappeared June 30, 1991
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Why?
This is written not to justify actions – only to help understand the mindset at the time the drastic turn in my life road was made (understanding is NOT agreement). In the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life," we're shown what life roads others would have taken had Jimmy Stewart's character NOT been in their lives. The lie (life) I was leading was not wonderful and my leaving was not a premonition – it did occur and we each took unique life roads thereafter. I am not returning to justify the road I chose. I am here in hopes your life roads will end happier and for everyone's closure.


The feelings, fears, shame and self-hatred that facilitated the actions taken 17 years ago were strong enough then to drastically affect my weaknesses and decisions. An apology for the pain caused all may appear insensitive and futile. None-the-less, any apology is better than none. I do apologize knowing what I did to 'save' myself, caused so much pain and there was absolutely no intention to cause others any pain. My actions were selfish; in an attempt to end my pain.


I didn't know what gay meant, though I knew I was 'that' when I was in First Grade.

(You may not understand how it could be; neither can I. Nor do I understand why I'm the only one in my family with hazel eyes. There is no one to blame for the attribute that so affected my being and the lives touched by mine.) Growing up my anger increased knowing I was different and definitely not accepted. I went to great lengths to try to be what was expected (accepted). At 13, I became a zealot Christian in hopes of exorcising the 'evil' from within. I gave it my all, made it through my teenage years and married young in hopes that following the norm would make me 'normal'. I believed the programming: "I could not have possibly been made this way." I hated whatever it was that made me gay. By not liking who I was inside, I could not possibly like me. Our family's close friends, the Tuner's son committed suicide at a young age. I watched the grief and vicariously saw myself in his coffin.                    After reading more, click the upper left back arrow.         

It Took 17 Years to Become Healthy & Whole

I was mentally ill; incapacitated by 34 years of careful hiding in a fundamentalist’s life and with a wife I did not like. Hiding from an inherited trait for which family, yourself and others reject you. Is it any less than rejecting a child for any other inherited attribute . . . blue eyes, dyslexia, intelligence, a weak heart? The turmoil of believing all my life that I was condemned for who I know myself to be had pushed me through a crack in my miserable life. Once through the crack, I believed that there was no going back. I felt it would be cruel to subject those I Love to my return. I thought they had put me to rest; in returning, I found that they had not. It took me nearly seventeen years to become healthy and whole. My purpose for returning is not to leave. I would not have returned to leave.

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My Life and relationship with A...

My Life and relationship with my  'should-be'-life-wife*  was mentally unhealthy. Our emotional/ego vibrations were on the same wavelength so we attracted what became of us. We were addicted to power & anger - we fed off of them and like all addictions, they destroyed us.

It feels so good to be mentally healthy after too many decades of mental illness.

*It was my mistake to marry her (I was not true to myself).
What I LOVE about my 'should-be' wife:

• She can be fun
• She is smart (when not motivated by anger)
• She has a good sense of humor
• She cares for our girls
• She is tenacious

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The Problem is not with the judged.

It's time to realize that the problem is not with the judged -- it's with the judge.
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"Why would someone that large wear that outfit?"
"Old men, should not wear shorts."
"People with deformities or skin discolorations, or ANYTHING THAT MAKES 'ME' UNCOMFORTABLE, should cover them up."
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When seen in print, is it any more absurd than when heard?
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This Bumper Sticker Says It Perfectly

CONTACT ME IF YOU'D LIKE ONE.

From ABC's Desperate Housewives TV Series - Season 5

"You hate me. You're still punishing me for what happened between us. You're stuck in the past; blaming me for all the ails in your life."

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"...nothing worse than losing a child. There is nothing you said that could have made me think less of myself. I knew that they'd [my daughters] be better without me."

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We all seek validation every day. It is an essential psychological need of every person.

For example, when you are at work and make a comment during a meeting, you want to know that you were heard by those present. They don't have to agree with you (although agreement can be perceived as even more validating), just hear what you had to say. To take this example a step further, imagine speaking up at a meeting and in the middle of your comment, someone else starts talking. That would be experienced as invalidating, and you would probably attempt to make your comment again.

When you come home from work that night, you tell your partner about your day. If he ignores you, falls asleep while you're talking, or immediately starts talking about his day, you'll likely feel further dismissed and invalidated. What you want from your partner at that moment is recognition....

The only type of validation that really counts...is authentic validation. ... When we are validated for a pretense, the validation is hollow, baseless, it's not at all satisfying. ...when a gay man presents a false, inauthentic self to the world and is subsequently validated for the facade, he feels hollow....

My facade of accomplished success (with a cloak of happiness) was hollow. I knew it and spent all my energy trying to make sure that no one else did. 

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Isolation Kills (emotionally or eventually physically)

"...isolation makes us sick and may even kill us. Isolation is NOT the absence of people around us; it is a feeling of being lonely and disconnected, somehow left outside of the "whole". A study of 2,320 male survivors of heart attacks showed that...lonliness was leading predictor of early death."

W.Ruberman, et al. 'Pschosocial Influences on Mortality After Mycocardial Infarction' ...connection increases longevity...

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Pen & Ink Poster

What Happened to Begin the Return?

More of WHY:

My life further blew apart with the 2005 arrival of the Mexican Caribbean hurricane Wilma. She took everything I had that I was hanging onto after losing the love of my life in 2002. For months, I sat on the beach and starred from 11 in the morning until midnight contemplating how far I could swim out and become too tired to swim back. I spent countless hours on the internet researching how to 'off' myself with the least personal impact on me. I was afraid of me and self-prescribed anti-depressants.

>>>> WHAT FOLLOWS ARE THE TWO FAXES SENT 2+ YEARS APART WHICH WERE THE INITIAL CONTACT (12+ YEARS AFTER I DEPARTED [in 2003 & 2005]) and below the faxes are emails sent to the one family member who responded.

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You can see, initially I argued that it would be wrong to return. Over the next 2 years of communication by email, "WC" (who pretended to be my Father) convinced me otherwise.*

The 1st FAX (sent in 2003) was set-up to look like I had written it before I left and that maybe someone else sent it on my behalf 12 years after my departure. This 1st FAX was all I ever intended to send;                    After reading more, click the upper left back arrow.         

Why NOW?

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There's no convenient time to die. There's no "right" time to come back from the dead.

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Before, I could not have handled it. I hope to be a tool to end pain; bring healing and closure.

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If I wanted everyone to continue to regard me as they did, I would never have come back. I don't expect anyone to admire or respect what I did. I know I am subjecting myself to judgment for lack of character, intellect, wisdom, maturity….

> 

No one can attack me more than I attacked myself for 50 years.

> 

I am here with my life-long guard down – for you to see me as I am; not as you were previously deceived into believing what you saw was me. (I was aware you liked TheAct and wouldn't like me. You understood TheAct. You wouldn't understand me. TheAct was your known. You didn't know me.)
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No Blame - Other than taught messages from an intolerant society.

My mother has repeatedly asked what she did or didn't do that she 'should' have. This note was written in an attempt to convince her that she not only did nothing, but that no one could ask for a more loving supportive mother than she is.
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Let All negative feelings (PAST) Go ! ! Or they will be your future.

Hopeless Situations Can Bring Much Desired Change

"Even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself." (Psychiatrist Victor Frankl)
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Strengths Overshadowed - No More

There are times in our lives when our strengths are overshadowed by our weaknesses. This was true of too much of my life when I allowed my strengths to be eclipsed because I felt being gay was my greatest weakness and I had to cover it at whatever cost.

When we're not true to ourselves, the odds are that a weakness will likely become the cover of our truth.

I attempted to cover with comic relief yet, I had an anger deep inside because I couldn't possibly be who I really was. The cost was huge while the anger was an ever present tension barely under the surface of nearly everything I undertook.

My new partner in 1991, one day, after seeing my internal rage directed at an inanimate object, simply said, "Why are you so angry?" That question plagued me and indirectly inspired me to find its answer and to (over a number of years) exercise it from my being. My direction is to let my strengths out-shine my weaknesses and to live Life knowing the connectedness of us all.

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What you are is way more powerful than what you used to think you are supposed to be.

ELM
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Older & Wiser

Who can say that with what they know now, they wouldn't have made the decisions they made when younger and ignorant. EVERYONE!
I can say:

• I wouldn’t have accepted a belief system that proposed that ALL who didn’t see things exactly the same (as we did) were wrong and eventually going somewhere other than Heaven.
• I wouldn’t have believed it was acceptable to hate myself and others because of differences.
• I wouldn’t have thought of killing myself at 13 because I was ‘different’.
• I would have been true to myself and God, fully accepting the attributes God gave me and been appreciative of them – knowing that they add to the flavors of the Universe.
• I would have understood that all good parents simply want their children to find someone to share their love with, be happy and fulfilled. Even if that someone was different than the parents imagined.
• I would have chosen to express love as we are created to without regards for cultural, class, gender and other man-made restrictions (this would have saved many heart-aches).

Everyone benefits from time and sought-after wisdom.
I know now that God is sooo much bigger that our limiting concepts/presumptions that try to force Him into a “role” of being perceived by all as “same”. He is thoroughly capable of being perceived differently by all and still BEING. It is quite presumptuous to believe that He wants everyone to see Him the same. As it is now; and always has been, no two people do – even if they think they do.

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Are they any less there?

We look at the sky during daylight; the stars are right above us though we cannot see them. Are they any less there? Think of all the things that are there we cannot see, hear, smell, taste - they're still there. The universe within and without is vast. God is even more so.
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"...a man's Soul-Condition cannot be judged...from the external aspect of his life alone."

"...a man's entire soul-condition (although it may be known to himself) cannot be judged by another from the external aspect of his life alone. A man may be honest in certain directions, yet suffer privations; a man may be dishonest in certain directions, yet acquire wealth; but the conclusion usually formed that the one man fails because of his particular honesty, and that the other prospers because of his particular dishonesty, is the result of a superficial judgment, which assumes that the dishonest man is almost totally corrupt, and the honest man almost entirely virtuous. In the light of a deeper knowledge and wider experience, such judgment is found to be erroneous. The dishonest man may have some admirable virtues which the other does not possess; and the honest man obnoxious vices which are absent in the other. The honest man reaps the good results of his thoughts and acts; he also brings upon himself the sufferings which his vices produce. The dishonest man likewise garners his own suffering and happiness."

"As A Man Thinketh" © 1937 Chapter 2. 'Effect of Thought On Circumstances' – James Allen


EACH OF US DIES BY OUR OWN SWORD.

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That mentality moved me down many roads.

I was arrogant -- seeking to defeat others by getting what I wanted before they did - so I could be number one.
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When I wasn't number one, I spent my life thinking like a victim - what had been done to me. That mentality moved me down many roads.  NO MORE.
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Seeing Isn't Believing

I've often heard that many can see the same event and see totally different events. Though I understood the concept, until this past year I didn't totally buy it.

I've written many (what I thought were possitive/uplifting) letters which have been received as aberations. Though the reactions to my intent have been extremely disappointing, I am now totally convinced that one's predilections guarantee that one will see things as one has already determined in their being to see them.

Being OPEN is a second-by-second option and the possibility of slipping through the OPEN window is minute.
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YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HATE my perceived enemies, to Love Me.

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 Pen & Ink Poster

It's uncomfortable to question because it takes no effort to continue to believe.

It is amazing to look at the things one believes simply because one was told them and never questioned them. It's uncomfortable to question because it takes no effort to continue to believe. So many are simply caught in repeating to themselves what they've heard.

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                           __________          __________          __________

          There is an issue with the power to bring into question the validity of handed-down-unquestioned beliefs. An issue so strong, that those who feel it is their place to protect those unquestioned beliefs, must head–off the issue before others start questioning theirs.

          Could this be the very reason for the issue?

        To cause people to reason that Love should win-out over unquestioned beliefs that separate people vs. enable people to accept all in Love.

          That issue is the issue of sameness – today – homosexuality.

          Is it a danger to Love

                   -OR-

          to unquestion beliefs?            

^   I believe this came from the Human Rights Campaign

Extreme Right Along to Suicide

My views from early on and for decades thereafter, kept me in a place of self-contempt/hate (I could not relate to me). I accept me with all my attributes (sadly, that took over 50 years); yet, I don't understand "it".

I am not here to change any one's view. I can only relay my journey and the journeys others have shared with me because of like-challenges. The general views of (previously held by me) extreme 'right' Christians are similar in their message to gays. Views can entrap us, while not changing who we are inside. I've had many discussions with gays who say they felt suicidal because of how those they cared about viewed them.

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 Pen & Ink Poster

Things I've Learned While Finding - SELF

It takes courage to ask for what you want. Courage is not the absence of fear. It’s doing what it takes despite one’s fear.
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Don’t worry about failure. Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.___ ___

This so aptly describes what happened to me: …unable to believe in the future because he didn’t believe in himself. What turned him around? “A renewed spirituality and people’s faith in me,” he said. (Marcia Evans)
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Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. (Anais Nin)
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This took me waaaay toooo loonng to learn: If you try to dominate people, you’re already defeated. (Terry Dobson)
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IT’S THE ACTION, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. 
                           After reading more, click the upper left back arrow.         

FORGIVENESS . . . is an option.

You'll Note How Much of This
is Devoted to Forgiveness, 
Because I Need So Much.
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. . . there are mistakes...that in themselves reveal yawning flaws in your character and make you wish that time in its haste would stand still, turn and give you that one critical moment back, things that cannot be erased...cleansed of their base matter, that can only be learned from knowledge gathered does not erase the mistake, for in its essence it is something done that cannot be undone. Hopefully...some sour, bitter slice of wisdom...can be drawn on to minimize the chances that one may stray so far from the light again. (Gil Schwartz)
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Forgive Everybody Everything! Now. Don't Wait. Not everyone has the time.
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... The tension of opposites.
We learn from what hurts us...as much as what Loves us, you know? (Tuesdays with Morrie)
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Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in. (Katherine Mansfield, short story writer)
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If time does heal --
then to have the results of time (the healing), one must only look forward (fast forward their perspective) to the appropriate time at which they can accept healing!
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I am not the enemy.
I am not the person you knew.
I do not need to feel superior to you by making you/me believe you/me are wrong/less worthy.
I know you have to come to your conclusions about me from a whole new set of criteria/ circumstances/ experiences.
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I seriously doubt I will attain perfection. Though much more centered than before, I remain a flawed work in progress. If any one is awaiting my arrival at perfection* -- their wait is in vain. (*I tried perfection and that's what got me into trouble. I believed I could overcome my condition of HUMAN.)
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I had been stuck for years in a place that refused to change. Everything seemed hard, solid, and unmovable. Making the most difficult and painful decision of my life, I left for seventeen years -- and started an avalanche of change that forced me down a dark and anguished patch of sadness and growth. Every time I thought I had reached the bottom, 
                       After reading more, click the upper left back arrow.         

Philosophically Speaking

Guilt is as old as dirt. It comes from the old proverb, "To enjoy is to sin."

Erma Bombeck

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When someone does not see things as you do -- most often, they are not wrong.

As simple as:

Taste

Culture

Upbringing

Education (yours, as easily as theirs)

Convictions

Perception

Insight

Experience

Age . . ..

More often than not, neither is wrong - or right; they merely see things differently.
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Why are people so caught up in convincing others of things? -- seldom do they.
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H relayed that she recently read, and wants to adhere to: "Always assume 'Best Intentions' in others' actions; you'll seldom be wrong. And when you are wrong, you'll have the best of intentions."

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It IS possible to decrease the suffering in the world by adding to the joy. It IS possible to add to the light rather than trying to destroy the darkness.

Dawna Markova, Ph.D.

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We can have a stolen car and be all upset, or we can have a stolen car and be happy. Either way, we have a stolen care. (Reactions are our choice. Choose Wisely.)

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 . . . the simple truths that I was learning, such as happiness and peace are found within . . . you had to first believe before you could eventually see the results of your belief.

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...Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of his freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Victor E. Frankl "Man's Search for Meaning"

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Being listened to and heard is one of the greatest desires of the human heart.

Richard Carlson, Ph.D.

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"We have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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...being right is almost never more important than allowing yourself to be happy.

Richard Carlson, Ph.D.

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What if you could get used to saying, "Life Is Great" even when you felt it was anything but that? Would life look different...better...no matter what? Would you actually feel it was better simply because you were in the habit of saying it was great? Would the act of saying it eventually make you feel that it was?

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. . . While there's always a better way to do something, this doesn't mean that you can't enjoy and appreciate the way things are. ... Catch yourself when you fall into you habit of insisting that things should be other than they are. Gently remind yourself 
                                                         After reading more, click the upper left back arrow.         

Weatherproofing

The ELM I used to know spent nearly every waking hour weatherproofing.

Today I read what may be the single best thing I've read about relationships and I want to share it with you:

Avoid Weatherproofing

The idea of weatherproofing as it pertains to peaceful living is a metaphor to explain one of our most neurotic, ungrateful tendencies. It comes from a friend of mind, Dr. George Pransky.

Just as we can weatherproof a home for the winter by looking for cracks, leaks, and imperfections, we can also weatherproof our relationships, even our lives, by doing the same thing. Essentially, weatherproof means that you are on the careful lookout for what needs to be fixed or repaired. It's finding the cracks and flaws of life, and either trying to fix them, or at least point them out to others. Not only does his tendency alienate you from other people, it makes you feel bad, too. It encourages you to think about what's wrong with everything and everyone — what you don't like. So, rather than appreciating our relationships and our lives, weatherproofing encourages us to end up thinking that life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Nothing is ever good enough the way it is.

In our relationships, weatherproofing typically plays itself out like this: You meet someone and all is well. You are attracted to his or her appearance, personality, intellect, sense of humor, or some combination of these traits. Initially, you not only approve of your differences with this person, you actually appreciate them. You might even be attracted to the person, in part because of how different you are. You have different opinions, preferences, tastes, and priorities.

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After a while, however, you begin to notice little quirks 
                         After reading more, click the upper left back arrow.         

Letters to My "X" & Daughters

The first email was in response to a venomous email from my "X":
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A,
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I hate many actions, beliefs and decisions I’ve made. This hating does not undo any past actions. It does change future actions, beliefs and decisions. Semantically, I don’t like the choice of the word hate in that to hate something; one must constantly give it energy and attention. Regrets do not change anything that happened.

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It is impossible to rewind life and; therefore I do agree with your friend’s statement that there is nothing I can, or will ever be able to do, to “make things right”. I will continue to pray for all the pain everyone has endured to abate.

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I can live a true life of integrity from the moment I accepted myself as a valid human being and that is what time will prove I have chosen to do.

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I also do not believe that “IT WAS NECESSARY” for self-discovery – I didn’t know what it would take; I didn’t know I would ever come to a point of acceptable ‘self-discovery’. I committed life suicide because I came to my wit’s end. I admit that I am too big of a wuss to actually kill my body – if I were not a wuss, I would have succeeded in one of the many times I intended to.

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In honor of your/anyone’s choice not to have anything to do with me, I will not force myself on anyone. AND, if anyone wants nothing to do with me, I will accept that as their choice (with no judgment – everyone is entitled to see things as they choose).

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I know “sorry”* does not undo. I understand there may be no anti-venom for the poison you feel for me 
                                                    After reading more, click the upper left back arrow.         

Just Prior TO and CONTACT

On the 30th day after my first contact, I met with one of my best friend's younger brother, G, (who lives 200+ miles away from the core of my family and friends) who agreed to keep it a secret that I had contacted him until after I got there (the secret only needed to be kept for 30 days) and he also agreed to swear in front of a notary that he'd known me for over 40 years. I needed the notary to confirm it was me on the form requesting a Certified Birth Certificate. G broke down on the 29th day and told his brother D, one of my best friends (from the age of 9) who was hiding nearby when I met with G. I later learned that when I originally spoke with G, he had quite a hang-over and he had misconstrued much of our conversation - even concocting pieces of it into my being horribly disfigured due to a botched suicide attempt. D showed up for the meeting with G to see his childhood friend for just a second because he assumed I would bolt
                     After reading more, click the upper left back arrow.         

To my family,

The more 'enlightened' I become, the more I am aware of the connectedness of all.

Originally, I thought a long chain of unrelated events, with the encouragement of S and (now known) WC, brought me home. Without too much 'out-there' stuff, now, I believe it was the collective energy of all who knew I was still out there… and wanted to have me back again. Your thoughts and prayers, in conjunction with mine, met somewhere out there* and drew events and encouragement into being; causing my return.

Thank you for your part in bringing me home. I am home. It feels right. It feels good.

In Love & joy,

ELM  * See Message to my girls in "Letters to my 'X' & Daughters"
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The number-one need IN ALL PEOPLE is acceptance.The number-one-fear IN ALL PEOPLE is rejection.

Per Phillip C. McGraw, Ph.D.

This being the case, it's easy to conclude that my daughters E & K feel my decision in 1991 was an ultimate rejection of them. Is it possible to convince them that my decision in no way was a decision to reject them?

In hindsight, I can see (though they would never want to hear) that their upbringing was not clouded with split decisions — ex-spouses differing in and implementing at-odds child rearing methods . . . court battles that would have prevented them from relocating to states chosen by their mother.

My being out-of-the-picture gave their mother full control in the directions she chose for the girls.

My decision was based on 28 years of hiding my sexuality (from the age of six), conditioning by family-friends-society-and my extreme religious beliefs that my "leanings" were debase and reprehensible. This conditioning prompted me to conclude that I was of no value IF I "chose" to be what I knew I was inside; that I would be extradited from each of these groups (my number-one-fear – rejection). The pressure to continue with the act of "dictated normalcy" by family-friends-society-and religion became intolerable at that point in my life and I jumped through a crack in my world.
 
Jumping through the crack was 100% selfish in that I considered no one else's feelings, pain, suffering but my own
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Growing Wings - By Martha Beck

What goes on in the cocoon of change isn't always pretty, but the results can be beautiful. Martha Beck talks you through the four phases of human meta-morphosis. Get ready to fly!

I used to think I knew how some caterpillars become butterflies. I assumed they weave cocoons, then sit inside growing six long legs, four wings, and so on. I figured if I were to cut open a cocoon, I'd find a butterfly-ish caterpillar, or a caterpillar-ish butterfly, depending on how far things had progressed. I was wrong. In fact, the first thing caterpillars do in their cocoons is shed their skin, leaving a soft, rubbery chrysalis. If you were to look inside the cocoon early on, you'd find nothing but a puddle of glop. But in that glop are certain cells, called imago cells, that contain the DNA-coded instructions for turning bug soup into a delicate, winged creature—the angel of the dead caterpillar.

If you've ever been through a major life transition, this may sound familiar. Humans do it, too—not physically but psychologically. All of us will experience metamorphosis several times during our lives, exchanging one identity for another. You've probably already changed from baby to child to adolescent to adult—these are obvious, well-recognized stages in the life cycle. But even after you're all grown up, your identity isn't fixed. You may change marital status, become a
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We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a new house, travel.

Then we are frustrated that our house is not how it could be and we'll be more content when it is. After that we're frustrated that we have a large payment to deal with. We will certainly be happy when this or that will be finished. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire. The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when?

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Your life will always be filled with challenges. It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway. One of my favorite quotes comes from Alfred D. Souza. He said, "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid, then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life." This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness.

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Happiness is the way. So, treasure every moment that you have. Treasure it more because you shared it with someone special (SPECTACULAR), special enough to spend your time (WORTHY OF MY TOTAL DEVOTION)...and remember that time waits for no one.... So stop waiting until you finish this or that, until you accomplish such and such, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have the home of your dreams, until you’re your life is simpler, until you start work, until you retire, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until your ship comes in, until you've had a drink, until you die, until you are born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy.... Happiness is a journey, not a destination. So dance like nobody's watching, love like you've never been hurt (AMEN, HALLELUJAH), sing like nobody's listening, and live like it's heaven on earth.

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