December 15th 8:00pm
As I was sitting in the bar at the Matador in downtown Tacoma waiting for my phone to blow up while noticing beautiful lady after beautiful lady keep walking by, I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself…more than proud, I was ecstatic and overjoyed because I had just completed the greatest personal achievement of my life.
With the help of a buddy and a Uhaul, I had just moved all my personal belongings, my embroidery business, my furniture business, my music gear, my office equipment, my brewery supplies etc. out of the home I shared with my wife Tracy and into my moms garage while my wife was at work, without her knowing. I got the embroidery machine up and running and even got Gracies gym bag embroidered with her name on it in time for her birthday…all in 7 hours.
I had just been thru the most difficult, lengthy, painful 2 month experience that I have ever been through and I did good…I behaved well and did not act out…I finally did it… no, not move out, but I had changed my subconsious mind.
I have been reading and studying how to do this for almost 4 years but it is said that to be successful, you must fail several times…like Abe Linclon, The Wright Brothers, Henry Ford etc. So I must be on the verge of something big cuz I have just failed at my second marriage. In fact, I have failed at every relationship I have ever had with any woman!
The truth is that until I read the book The Secret almost 4 years ago, I have never been able to learn how to control my anger on a consistent basis…I scare people when I get mad. I have been arrested 2 times because someone had to call 911 because of my inability to snuff my internal fires.
I have taken classes, talked to pastors, prayed, quit drinking, went to church regularly…nothing worked. I could leave church on a Sunday afternoon as high as a kite with the Spirit but then get home and throw a wrench across the garage and curse because the lawnmower wouldn’t start. I could hide it for awhile but sooner or later anyone close to me, like a wife, would see my fault.
As I wrote in a previous blog on Oct. 11th, Columbus Day, Tracy, my wife of 14 years said she did not want to be married any longer. I was completely shocked and thought it was a joke…but it wasn’t. She told me she was dead inside and that she didn’t know what the future held, she still loved me and this is just how she felt.
How could this be I thought? Where did I go wrong? I was getting better and better, in fact I was doing great at controlling my thoughts and anger…because that’s immediatley what came to mind…how did I screw this up? I thought we were doing good.
Because she said “she loved me and didn’t know what the future held” I had false hope. I thought certainley we could fix this and stayed in the house for 2 more months for two reasons…#1… I thought I could, like I said, fix this and #2… I had nowhere to go!
I met Tracy when she was 23 years old..I was divorced, 35 and had 3 kids. My oldest daughter will be 23 this year…I can’t imagine my daughter ever having to go thru what I put Tracy thru.
Don’t get me wrong…marriage is a 2-way street, but I can only control, evaluate, punish, and correct me. But the bottom line is she checked out along time ago and no matter how much improvement I had made to this point, I couldn’t undo the damage that was already done.
I was raised by extremely loving and kind parents. I was one of 4 boys. But I learned at a very early age through competitve sports that I played that it was ok to raise your voice to get results.
This was in the late 60’s and thru the 70’s and I never knew a coach (and I probably had over 30) that didn’t loose it now and then…it was accepted. In fact, it is still accepted. Just watch any college basketball or football game and tell me if you don’t see a coach screaming at either an official or a player during the game in an effort to get positive results..and when they do scream, guess what? Every fan, including the announcers BELIEVE it is because the coach is PASSIONATE!! Ya know what happens if I do that?...I scare the shit out of my wife and I get arrested!
Certainly this behavior pattern has not effected every athlete that has ever played for a coach nor does every coach behave that way. And I am definitley not blaming anyone for my behavior but I know that to carry over that behavior into a marriage or any other environment involving women or men is unacceptable….and that is what I was doing. And not for a lack of trying, I couldn’t, and didn’t know how to change this pattern of behavior I had until I read the Secret.
Thru all the counseling etc, that I took… I learned, basically, to identify my feelings and once I could identify how I felt, then just simply take a time out until I cooled off. Well, that doesn’t work. Never did I analyze my thoughts, which caused the feelings in the first place and change those. And not just change my thoughts when I’m pissed but change them every second of every day…the answer for me was to change the negative thoughts before they created negative feelings. I had to change my brain…my subconscious mind…I had to start thinking right ALL THE TIME not just when I am angry. I had to learn to identify a negative thought and instantly replace it with a positive thought…and I have proven to myself that I have finally done that.
For 5 decades I have been unable to control my behavior from being abusive at times and for 5 decades I have beaten myself up for it. But now I have vindicated myself. Here is how I know….
The days that followed Oct. 11th were extremely painful. What I was taught in domestic violence class is that first comes hurt then comes anger…well I was hurting, big time. Yikes.
Here was the girl, who I thought hung the moon, telling me it was over…and she couldn’t even give me a reason, all she said was that she was dead inside..no reason? what? Perfect grounds to punch a wall right? Perfect time to call her a name right?...nope. I didn’t.
Nope, instead I replaced those fearful thoughts of what I wanted…I started thinking of my dream. I would purposley drain my mind of all thoughts of fear, anxiety, jealousy and insecurity and actually visualize those thoughts leaving my mind then I would replace them and fill my mind with thoughts of peace, love, hope and my dream for Count Gilbert and visons of me laughing..serious!
but I didn’t do it just once a day…I had to guard my mind of negative thoughts every minute of every day for 2 months because the sad and fearful thougths just kept coming and coming like a hurricane so I had to keep switching them till they went away…cuz if I couldn’t do it this time… I would be in jail for awhile. I still have to do it cuz pain still lingers…but its much easier now.
For the next 6 weeks that followed Oct. 11 I was in complete limbo. Tracy dropped 20 lbs, was working longer hours and was looking incredible…hottest I ever seen her. She has to be seeing someone I thought..BAM, so I replaced those thoughts time and time again. But sooner or later something had to give. Either we needed to get back together or one of us needed to move out because she wasn’t changing her mind no matter how nice I was being.
Then on Thanksgiving we had a heart to heart. I asked her if she was seeing someone and she kinda said nothing…uh oh..Finally she admitted that she would like to start seeing other people and specifically one person that she had fancied..WOW..we are still living in the same house…this is brutal news especially cuz I was still madly in love with her.
Imagine the fear she must of had after telling me that! And she WAS scared.
So instead of being a dick to her, I thought it was a good time for me to come clean on a few things since she was being so honest with me. I said I had been with a few girls that she didn’t know about and actually kissed probably 3 or 4 over the past couple years but nothing ever amounted to anything because everytime I realized how much I loved being married to her so always broke it off. Hey, all I did was kiss after having beers..nothing else…That’s not cheating! Especially since I always came back to her??? Does that fly well? Obviously…now looking back…our marriage was a little tweaked.
I had been sleeping downstairs this whole time since Oct. 11 and almost every night I would go up and tell her that she was safe and could sleep in peace cuz even tho I was hurt and sad I would not scare her.
For the next 2 weeks after Thanksgiving Tracy was extremely busy at work and kept getting home later and later. And she was busy, which was good because that means I’m busy as we run a business together. But it still hurt, and now I’m really thinking she has started to see someone…but I would replace those thoughts with my Gilbert dreams…
Then on Monday, Dec 12, as we walked her dogs in the morning she told me that she was starting to date someone…and that they had went out 3 times..OUCH…Again, I can imagine how scared she was telling me, but I didn’t loose it! I said “who are you seeing”?
She said she couldn’t tell me that cuz she was scared I’d go attack him…but that she also didn’t want to tell me cuz I “might laugh”…”Laugh!” I said. Why would I laugh about a guy who’s dating MY wife?...I said “well, then tell me what he does for a living?” she said he worked for the city of Gig Harbor…huh, okay …he must drive one of those red city trucks around town…
At this point it was definitely a challenge to not come completely unglued…my gosh …I’m still living in the same house as her and she is openely seeing someone else…has just sent me an email saying she does want a divorce and does love me but is not “in love” with me…OUCH again…damn…Unbelievable…So I decided I would move in with my brother in Seattle the next day,,,I had to get out of the house.
So the next day, Tuesday, I reserved a Uhaul to move the following morning at 7:00am on Wed.
However, approx. 2am Wed. morning, I thought,..”why am I moving?…why doesn’t she move?” so I went upstairs…just 5 hours before I was gonna load the truck for Seattle and told her that she should move and she said okay….but she said “you gotta give me a couple weeks cuz xmas is our busiest time of the year”…So we agreed that she would move and I cancelled the Uhaul move to Seattle.
The following evening..Wednesday night, she told me she was going to a Christmas play after work and then back to the office to work late on a VA loan and if I could take care of the dogs while she was gone for the evening. Our old flying shihtzu Gizmo needs help going outside to potty…every other hour. I said sure.
She said she’d be home around 9:30 but as it was getting closer to 11:00 pm and she still wasn’t home.
Up to this point I have never stalked my wife…never “checked up” on her, but something told me to take a little drive into town where her office is…I had been wanting clarity and was gonna get it.
I drove to her work which is a two-story office building with a rear entrance. I drove around to the back of the building and I am to this day blown away at what I saw…I saw a Gig Harbor Police car! I thought ‘what the???” and thought I was being set up…thought I was busted! So then as I started to back up out of the driveway, I realized no one was in the cop car…”phew” I thought, cuz I had had about 4-5 beers…then I thought…holy shit!…it dawned on me…city worker??? I drove around to the front of the building and saw a cop in uniform in her office! She’s seeing a COP! OMG…I DID LAUGH!
My heart was beating 250 per minute at this point as I sped on home as if I had never been there. I was plotting my exit for the next day. I would not tell her I was there cuz I still wasn’t absolutley positive she was seeing the guy.
But when she got home I did say to her “ya know, being a married women seeing while seeing a local cop in a small town cant be good for business” and she looked at me like “what the f?” “how’d you know?” type look and then I could tell my hunch was correct. I dropped it and plotted my exit strategy for the next morning as I went to sleep.
The next morning I acted like everything was normal, well normal for us!, and after she left to work I grabbed everything and moved it into my moms garage and then went to Tacoma and waited at the Matador for my phone to go crazy from her calls, which it did, as I didn’t answer till the next day.
During this whole time…after I found out a cop was involved and as I felt as if I was a fleeing felon, I kept getting texts from Tracy, my brother, my sister-in-law, my mother all asking me if I got Gracies bag embroidered! and asking me how I spelled Gracie, what color of thread I used, if I was gonna be able to get the embroidery machine set up in time to do Gracies bag…here I am on the run, with nowhere to sleep or live, with this underlying all important Seinfeld type subplot going on…then after her birthday I kept getting texts and thank yous of how well the bag turned out and how much she like it blah blah blah…it was hysterical. No one really seemed to care about anything else! Truth is that Gracie is a total little sweeheart.
I guess Im still shaking from how close I was to jail…I think of those past few weeks, if I would have punched one door, got pissed off one time…I would have been busted. I felt as if I was wearing a vest loaded with dynamite this whole time and if I made just ONE wrong move I would have been McGruberized…phew.
But I didn’t!! And Tracy will be the first to say how amazing I have maintained thru this experience…I AM VINDICATED! And all those negative thoughts that were replaced by my dream for Count Gilbert? I am one step closer!! Read on…
SERENDIPITY:
Websters: luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for.
Wikipedia: means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise"; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it.
Two days later I began the hunt for a new home…this time in Tacoma. I went to look at house in So. 12th street…I was not excited about this partiicular house but it would work, So I asked my friend who lives in Tacoma to come take a look at it as he knows the market here much better than I.
It was Friday at 4:00 pm and he needed 20 more minutes at his job before he could meet me. He said meet me at the E9..which is the Engine House Brewery that was close by and in the heart of the amazing Tacoma nightlife and art district.
I drove the few blocks to the E9, walked in and bellied up to the bar, I ordered a Racer 5 which is a beer introduced to me by my good friend Dr. John whom I met in Belgium as we became great friends when we got our hips replaced in Ghent. Dr. John is the person who came up with the name Count Gilbert (a long story in a past blog), This is the 1st time I had ever had a Racer 5 since he bought me one when I visited him in San Francisco, where he and his family live, a few years back…I was sitting there and as I had my first sip a guy came in and sat down next to me. The bartender asked him “how were your finals Eric (he was a student at UPS)?” he said “they’re done!” and then he ordered his beer. As I sat there I thought, hey , im gonna say hi to this guy, just gonna go out on a limb and be nice..so I did.
Once we got into conversation I mentioned I was looking for a house to rent and was moving from Gig Harbor. He said “oh, there is one right around the corner for $900 with a basement” I said “what? …$900 bucks? In this neighborhood?” he said “ya, they just put a sign up yesterday, I walk by that house everyday on my way to school...it's a great neighborhood” ..I said “shut up?!” then he showed me on his iphone which street it was on and as I grabbed my car keys I said “watch my beer, I’ll be right back, I gotta go look at it!” he said “dude, you don’t need your keys, its right around the corner, 1 1/2 blocks from here”…to make along story short I ran down the street and saw it…the cutest house ever with a full basement for my business. Needless to say the landlord had many inquiries just from the sign and never even put it on Craiglist…aaaand he gave it to me!
This house is 2 blocks behind Jazzbones, Chopstyx, the E9 and blocks to all the incredible nightlife Tacoma has to offer…all within walking or stumbling distance. My good buddy Wayne who worked several years for my older brother Greg before he passed said the word “serendipity” when we walked into the new rental for the first time. What a freaking blessing. It was meant to be.
I have turned the old unused basement, which looks like a castle dungeon, into an embroidery shop, furniture shop, brewery and a music studio…its like free commercial space in the heart of the heartbeat of TacomAHH!!…my Count Gilbert dream is ALIVE!!!
Ps: I am getting along great with Tracy as we are running one of the business’s together and today we remain best of friends, none of this is her fault and I can not blame her for wanting to experience life to the fullest after living her whole adult life with me and my issues,…in fact I am extremely grateful for her.
the dungeon!
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