Posts Tagged Divorce
“Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty years.”
Posted by Steven Buehler in Uncategorized on April 20, 2009
(with apologies to Tim McGraw…)
I turn 37 on Thursday. Don’t even try to reach me—I’ll be at Walt Disney World celebrating for free.
Thirty-seven. Where has the time flown? It seems like not long ago that I was blasting Stryper’s “To Hell With the Devil” in my 1983 Ford Fairmont Futura with best-friend Ricky driving through Santa Ana on our way to Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa (which, strangely enough, was—and still is—located in Santa Ana) for the College & Career Bible Study. Like it was just last month I was sitting on the floor of the sanctuary on Saturday nights watching bands like Undercover and 4-4-1 and Youth Choir.
Dreams were huge then. I was a full-time student at Vanguard, looking toward entering full-time ministry as a teacher or a pastor or a Bible scholar. I was burning the candle on every end taking a double-load of classes and working 20-hour weekends for money to pay my dad for the car and have something left over to pay a few bills.
Those dreams are gone now. I’ve been married and divorced, the latter destroying any hopes I have here in the South of ever doing what I was trained—and I thought called—to do as my life’s work. Life has a way of being a cruel teacher as well as an inspirational coach. Instead of being in ministry I’ve worked in office and programming jobs, and right now am living without a job in a bruisingly brutal economy. I’m spending my birthday week working on bankruptcy papers to file.
Am I bitter? Maybe. Not as much as people think I should be. Depressed? Definitely; who wouldn’t be frustrated in the same situation?
Am I mad at God? Definitely NOT. I have to constantly remind myself that my limited perspective doesn’t compare to His limitless perspective. I’m still in this shoebox called Time, only able to see what’s around me; He’s outside the shoebox, holding it in His hands, able to see all of its contents. How can I be mad at Someone who truly knows what He’s doing with this shoebox, even if I can’t understand why?
8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.(Isaiah 55.8–9, NIV)
I also must accept the fact that it’s a combination of my own decisions and things I can’t control that have put me here. Today’s culture is one that always wants to blame somebody else for their problems—it was my parents’ fault for the way they raised me; I wouldn’t have done this if you hadn’t’ve [fill in the blank]. No one wants to take responsibility for their own decisions. It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it?
I choose as I turn 37 to take responsibility for what I can control, and to stop worrying about the things I can’t control. You’d be surprised how liberating that decision is.
Symbols.
Posted by Steven Buehler in Uncategorized on April 10, 2009
My one-bedroom apartment gets messy rather quickly. The point where I’m no longer able to find what I need usually is the indicator that it needs to be cleaned up. It was while I was picking up some things tonight that I found an empty tin of Copenhagen® snuff.
The tin is not mine. I’ve never smoked a cigarette or dipped chewing tobacco in my life. In a similar manner that I don’t have much of a taste for alcohol, I just can’t imagine why some people choose to purposely inhale smoke. But there’s a reason I’ve kept this tin around the apartment for what’s now going on three and a half years.
The tin belonged to one of the guys in my CR small group. While the group I facilitated was specific to men’s sexual addiction, it was certainly not usual (in fact, it was expected) that it was not the only issue that each person in the group was dealing with; sexual addiction was simply the big issue that they felt they needed to address in their lives, and I’ve found often that when it’s dealt with, the other issues like anger and other addictions sometimes resolve themselves because they can apply what they receive here in the other areas of their lives.
The tin belonged to a long-time leader of the ministry who for a while helped me out with facilitating when our particular small group was started. At the time he was off alcohol for a number of years and heavily involved in A.A., and also dealing with compulsive gambling, but also had a tobacco habit since his teens. The very last meeting in 2005 before New Year’s Eve he decided he was going to quit tobacco. Cold Turkey. He took this tin out of his pocket and dumped the contents in the trash can in front of every guy in the room. Not wanting to leave it in the trash can at a church he put the empty tin back in his pocket; on our way out of small group I took the empty tin from him. It sat at my work area at home ever since, and it moved with me when I gave up the house in the divorce and moved to this apartment. He’s been tobacco free ever since that night, and the empty tin that now sits on my shelf is a testimony to it along with other mementos from the past.
It’s also a reminder. I set it on the self within clear view as a reminder for me to pray for him, and when people ask about when they visit (not that I ever have any visitors) I can share with them this man’s story. To some it’s an empty throw-away; for me it symbolizes a restored/recycled life—much like the process I’m still going through.
In all of our lives there are symbols—things, physical objects that may seem mundane or meaningless to others, but has significant, life-altering meaning for those who know the story behind it. This little tin sits on my late grandfather’s jewelry box, which is full of tie pins and cuff links, an old watch that no longer works, old name badges from when he worked at Ralphs as a meat cutter and Anaheim Stadium as a vendor, gun club pins, and two Catholic rosaries that belonged to my late grandmother (even though I’m a former Catholic). There are even a couple of bullets in there from when my late grandfather shot at the ranges. Everything in that box has a meaning of some kind attached to it. I also have a small toiletry case that belonged to my grandmother that has old letters I’ve received, cards, old driver’s licenses, Disneyland brochures from the times I used to go as an annual passholder, letters from Vee, etc. They all have meaning. Even though I’m not Catholic, I have a lot of my late grandmother’s religious items (she was devoutly Catholic) and display them around the apartment. One of those items is a “sick kit” that is used by Catholic priests to administer last rites to the sick.
What do you keep around your life as reminders? Not just pictures, but what physical objects from the past do you still have as reminders and symbols to you? What do they mean to you? Have we become so much of a “throw away” culture that we’ve forgotten about the generations and friends that went before us?
How we study.
Posted by Steven Buehler in Uncategorized on April 4, 2009
Oops. 
I think I put a local pastor on the defensive with a reply to his Facebook status update about what looks to me like “cramming” on Saturday night in preparation for preaching the next morning. A lot of times preachers get stuck in the habit of having to cram on Saturday nights because the rest of the week gets too packed with other “pastoral” things; some preachers can handle only having the night before to prepare.
I have to admit, a lot of pentecostal preaching can get away with a Saturday night cram. I’ve had to do it a few times preparing for online studies, but I just can’t work that way week in, week out when I’m preparing to teach or preach (which hasn’t happened lately, now that I’m pretty much disqualified from any kind of pulpit ministry in most churches because of the divorce last year—knocked out of the running before I even apply).
My preparation has always involved a day of intensive research and study and mind-mapping, then a day of writing out my material (because I’ve always been a better writer with my social anxiety, and I’m more comfortable talking with it even if I hardly look at it at a pulpit).
The research time is spent digging not just into the scripture I want to talk on, but also digging into the “academy”—journals, lexicons, old commentaries, ancient, rabbinical, and intertestamental writings—because I realize that the scriptures were sourced at least 2,000 years ago, and I want to find a way to immerse myself into that culture, that time. I want to know as much as possible about what these things would have meant to them before I even think about what it would mean to me in the 21st century. This is especially true when I lead talks about the parables (like the entry I posted earlier about the Talents) because knowing the culture and times of the people who heard these the first time brings some very important (and sometimes paradigm-changing) insight into what it should mean to me today. Studying the stilling of the storm (Mark 4:35-41) took a major turn in my thinking when I discovered that the language Jesus used to stop the storm was, in the original Greek that Mark used, the technical language of an exorcism; then I dug even further to see that there was so much more in that moment then Jesus simply telling the sea of Galilee to shut up (that’s for a whole other post). I read, I hilite, I write down notes and start sketching together what the points will be. For a lot of preachers it’s laborious and tedious, and boring. For me, it’s incredible fun. 
The next day is spent taking the starting points from my study time and coalescing it into a paper that is the base text for what happens at the pulpit.
Pastor/Teachers: I’m interested in hearing about your preparation time. There’s no right or wrong way to prepare, unless of course you’re missing out on the key text for preaching, which is the Scriptures.
Job search frustrations.
Posted by Steven Buehler in Uncategorized on March 31, 2009
Part of President Obama’s recent stimulus package was an increase in weekly unemployment benefits of up to $25 a week. The above was a retroactive payment from Florida for the three weeks between when the increase went into effect and when they got their system updated to issue the higher amount.
I really could use it this week—I was down to thirteen cents total in my bank accounts (not including an old account that’s currently overdrawn) and anticipating living on 16¢ packs of ramen noodles and the bulk pack of microwave popcorn I had in the pantry.
I’m getting further and further behind on paying the child support I’m obligated to, because of the lack of a job. I got a letter from the local DCF (Department of Children & Families) office stating they intended to take my tax refund when it came to pay the back support. Unfortunately, they’re about three weeks too late—it already came and got used to get the Burgman back in proper service so I can have reliable transportation for interviews (whenever someone decides to give me one) and commuting. I think not being able to honor my obligations to my boy (and thus being labeled a “deadbeat”) is the most frustrating part of the current situation.
The public benefit system is frustrating, more so to a single male with no children in the apartment. Because I’m a single male with no children in the apartment, I’m ineligible for state medicaid after my COBRA insurance expires today. Because I’m a single male whose unemployment benefits exceed 130% of the federal poverty level, I don’t qualify for food stamps. That said, though, I have to do a phone interview with the state to hopefully get some. It’ll be a temporary help until I’m back working again should they decide to approve me. Otherwise, essentially the only help a single male can expect is from the nearby homeless soup kitchen.
I count 71 jobs that I’ve applied for just in the past thirteen days since I started tracking them in Evernote instead of trying to organize them in Gmail. Received a rejection on one; no responses on any others. On the average I’ve been applying to twenty to thirty job postings a week on every internet job board I can find.
The way job hunting works in today’s internet age, one could be competing with literally hundreds—if not thousands—of applicants for the same job. Very few employers ask to receive a résumé by post or fax anymore. That makes getting one’s foot in the door a longshot at best unless there’s some way that we can really stand out or unless one already has “friends in high places.” It also makes it very difficult for people like me, who may not have the years of paid experience but who does have the ability to do the job or the ability to learn it quickly (something I’ve been noted for in nearly every position I’ve had in my career, ranging from secretarial/admin to programming and data analysis). I’m in that middle strata of applicants who are overqualified for entry-level work but don’t have enough paid experience for the “good” jobs.
I read somewhere a year or so ago that the typical worker in today’s market will change careers—not just jobs—at least five times during their working years. It makes me wonder how a worker in today’s market can be expected to become the best at a single field.
I’m sure I’m not speaking for myself in this frustration.
Thirteen months.
Posted by Steven Buehler in Uncategorized on March 18, 2009
This weekend will be a year and a month since the divorce was finalized. It seems life has both blown by quite fast but that in the end I really haven’t gone anywhere (like riding on Test Track). I managed to find work, then lost it, and find myself back where I had started, but without the hefty severance package to live off of (today I live off of $225 a week in unemployment benefits—it covers the rent and the basic necessities). I was blessed to have enough of a federal tax refund to finally get the Burgman back up-to-date on its maintenance.
I went back this morning and read the “Dear John” email (for lack of a better description). If anything, it’s a crib sheet on what not to do in my new relationship (although I find myself in those same ruts anyway, like not answering the telephone).
Apart from the new relationship I’m in (with someone I’ve known since junior high school, so there is some actual history this time), I’ve pretty much gone back to being the same loner I was before I met the now-ex-wife. I do make an effort to attend the Bike Nights that the local F.A.I.T.H. Riders put on here in Plant City and use the annual passes to the various theme parks that I bought when I was actually working, but otherwise I don’t do very much else.
On the positive side, I have been blessed this past year to be able to make some trips and meet some very exciting people in places like PodCamp Boston and even here in Tampa Bay at the Second Life Community Convention. I’ve been able to reconnect with old friends from Saddleback and from Southern California, including the person that I’ve concluded I should’ve stuck with in the first place. Sitting on the front steps of that apartment in Fullerton, California and talking like time had never passed, but realizing that a lot of time had indeed passed, and our lives had all changed in very significant ways, was both refreshing but also indicative of the fact that “home” had changed too, and not necessarily for the better.
The primary goal for this year is getting back to work, so I can get caught up on the support that I owe my son and make sure he is properly cared for—something I really have no worries about, as from what I have heard second-hand his grandfather has been the role model I could have never been; to get my finances finally back on track and start paying off the debt I took from the marriage instead of drowning in it; and, most importantly, cultivating the new relationships that are taking root in my life.
My angel sent me a short Irish poem the other day. It’s worth repeating.
May those who love us, love us.
And those who don’t love us—
may God turn their hearts.
And if He cannot turn their hearts,
may He turn their ankles,
so that we may know them by their limping.
Thanksgiving Thoughts
Posted by Steven Buehler in Uncategorized on November 26, 2008
For the second year in a row I won’t be celebrating a Thanksgiving, at least not formally. Last year I was separated; this year I’ll have been divorced for nine months. Of course, I’ve been living by myself since April of 2007, so I should be used to this by now. I had thought of flying up to Michigan to spend it with my dad and his wife, but decided that it would be smarter to hang on to the money to pay down things, especially since I’ve been on three air trips already this year (Atlanta, which my employer paid for, in May; Boston, in July; and So. Cal. to visit my sweetheart, earlier this month).
The fact is that I’ve lost a lot this year. I started the year without a job, and while on the job hunt I lost my family and my home to a divorce process that seemed to pass like a blur. On January 6, she filed, and on February 21st, it was final. I walked away from everything that day. Lately, it’s all about money—the third of my net income that gets sent to the state every month for child support; the debts that I’m several months behind on in a few cases and are going into collection due to my being out of work for nine months and having to move out of the house on top of it, from which things never recovered.
That’s not say it’s totally depressing this holiday. I do have things to be grateful for in the midst of such a stormy season. I have a place to call home, even if it’s a small apartment in the middle of hickville. I have a job in spite of living in one of the worst IT job markets in the country when places are seeing layoffs in the thousands and tens of thousands, so at least my essential living expenses are getting paid. If the bank comes to repossess the little scoot, I still have the larger Burgman, paid in full, to get me from Point A to Point B. Most of all I’m incredibly grateful to have Vee in my life after so many years, and to be constantly overwhelmed and humbled by the love and passion she constantly lays on me across the miles. This last item alone has made life much more bearable and worth hanging on to.
So, let’s hear from you: What are you grateful for this year?
Is life worth living?
Posted by Steven Buehler in Uncategorized on October 25, 2008
Before all my recovery friends start trying to ring my cell phone, I am not suicidal. I’m actually doing quite well at this moment.
But that title sure grabbed your attention, didn’t it?
Why did that title grab your attention so readily?
Perhaps it’s because that’s a question everybody has asked themselves at some point. Like when the layoff notice hits the desk. Or when your supposed “love of a lifetime” serves you with the divorce petition and you suddenly have no family. Or when the local Sheriff shows up at your door step with foreclosure and eviction papers. Or when that once-in-a-generation recession hits and you lose everything but the shirt on your back. I’ve been through the first three, although being forced to move out of the family home into my own apartment didn’t require the Sheriff or foreclosure.
Let’s face it—generally speaking, we’re in unprecedented low times in our generation. We’re in times that are lately being compared to the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s, a time that only ended because the United States went to war. This time, unlike last time, the “contagion” has spread around the globe. Much of it is paying the price for the excesses we took when the economy was in much better circumstances. It’s not entirely the fault of politicians, so when laying the blame it helps to take a good look into the mirror as well as through the binoculars. Times like these, when the bills are piling up and the money in the checkbook doesn’t seem to pile anywhere near the stack of bills, it’s easy to ask the question.
Some—like the father of one of my nieces—answered in the negative and ended his (Godspeed, Joseph). Others—like the new sweetheart of mine that I hope to be able to introduce to you sometime in the future—chose to hang on and keep moving, even though doing so involves a tremendous amount of emotional, physical, and spiritual pain. (Note, it is the general “policy” in this blog that I respect the privacy of those dear in my life, so no names or photos of that special individual here without consent).
This brings me to this question: What would be the difference if we choose to hang on for just a bit longer?
If there is one thing that we try to hammer into the minds of people in recovery, it’s not to quit. Hang on, because the breakthrough can be just around that next corner. If you were to stop now just before it comes, what will you miss!
It turns out that if Joseph (true story, from what I know) would have waited a mere half hour more, and had his cell phone on his person instead of left in his truck, he would have gotten that call from his former boss offering him his old job back. Things would have turned around, but he missed out by mere minutes. And to even begin to think of the friends and family that will miss him because of one selfish decision.
The first step to gaining back the peace, stability, and serenity we desperately seek is to accept the fact that sometimes life just sucks. It’s the nature of the fallen world we live in. And you and I are imperfect, flawed human beings in the midst of that fallen world. Nobody is completely perfect on this planet; there is not a single person on the face of this earth who will not disappoint or hurt us at some time, either intentionally or unintentionally. This is reality; when we can accept that it is, we finally stop beating ourselves up when things screw up. We accept ourselves as we are, but at the same time keep hope and drive to continue to grow and learn from mistakes. Even better, we finally understand that the “power to grow and change” is outside ourselves. In the end, it comes from the people we put around us who encourage us and challenge us, and it is the product of our faith.
Growth is the product of cherishing every sacred moment of life. And every moment of life is sacred.
Withdrawal—an important lesson learned
Posted by Steven Buehler in Uncategorized on October 6, 2008
Anyone who has ever struggled with an addiction knows the meaning of “withdrawal.” It’s the usually unpleasant way that the body struggles to adjust itself when the addictive substance is cut off from it. We’ve heard of “the shakes,” “the sweats,” you name it.
Love is addictive, too—perhaps even in the same way as a narcotic drug. It’s emotionally addictive. And the withdrawal symptoms can be just as severe, just as painful. Withdrawal symptoms can include depression, anger, grief, sometimes even physical illness.
The past several months since the divorce have been the throes of withdrawal from 9½ years of living with that drug called “Love.” There have been a lot of symptoms: the grief of loss, the depression, the anger, the regret that maybe I didn’t do enough or did too much, the times of thinking “If I had only…”. There’s been the emotional—and perhaps physical—withdrawal from things like sex, intimacy, closeness. There is the desire to hole up in my own cave and never trust anyone with my emotions and self again. I guess that is pretty much what I have done since then. “I Walk Alone”—the song makes perfect sense to me after the past several months.
From having tasted of the past 9½ years I’ve learned other things along the way.
I have many “online” and “virtual” friends thanks to social media and virtual world hangouts like Flickr®, Facebook, MySpace®, Second Life®, etc. The problem is that none of those relationships—as “real” as they may seem—can ever replace physical, face-to-face intimacy. They can’t curl up and snuggle with you at night and keep you warm in bed. They are not hearts that you can rest your head on and relax to the sound of their beating at the end of a busy and stressful day, or when things aren’t right and you need a real shoulder to cry on and a real ear to listen to you. They just can’t fill that void that was opened up in the loss of a real, physical, long-term, intimate relationship.
And perhaps this is my biggest regret.
But, like drug withdrawal, the symptoms do pass with time. How long depends on how grateful I am for what I do have and for the opportunities that lie ahead, and how willing I am not to fall into the trap of withdrawing completely from other people.
I guess for me it may take longer than I thought.
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About Me
I'm a 30-something blogger, sometimes writer/musician, and geek-of-all-trades starting life over in Plant City, Florida, with the faith of my youth, the love of my life, and prayers for a job before my unemployment compensation runs out in April 2010. I'm also the host of The Sacred Project Podcast—This Ain't Your Grandma's Church Music!
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