"You were inside, I was outside. You were supposed to keep in touch with the blog. I kept asking you if you were gonna write again."
"What was I gonna do? Take away your only hope? Take away the very thing that kept you going out there? I took the liberty of bullshitting you."
"You lied to me."
"Wasn't lies, it was just... bullshit."
So, yeah, I've taken the ill-advised step of trying to kick start the blog again. And I find myself in another part of the world. And I find myself in a beautiful house. With a beautiful...uh...garden. And you may ask yourself: well...how did I get here?
Same as it ever was.
So most of you know by now that my family shrunk a little last summer. I am now happily ensconced in single-dad land, waiting for all the paperwork to finally make it official.
I am also, due to the twists and turns of the custody process, no longer raising my kids in New Orleans. We're back in Austin. It wasn't my idea, and was not totally my choice, but my kids and I are happy as bugs here right now. We all miss New Orleans, and I'm sad that I won't be able to raise my kids as New Orleanians, see them graduate from my old school, all that. But they spent enough time there that they've got the bug, and I'm sure life will bring them back around that way often. And in the meantime, we've got a lot of life to catch up on after years of not living it to its fullest.
Sorry to disappoint, but I seriously doubt the divorce will be much of a topic of discussion here, and I won't be entertaining such discussions in the comments, so this blog will probably be a lot less confessional than it used to be. Despite that, I hope that I can still find a way to make it personal and engaging.
My blog will stay at this location, although the title bar might change from time to time depending on my mood. Maybe at some point some of the archives which I corrupted last year will be able to be salvaged.
It feels good to be back. It feels good to not have to limit my sharing to 140-characters, or to squeeze them into a Facebook YouTube link with emotionally relevant subtext.
I am Ray From New Orleans, In Austin, In Exile, and the future feels fucking awesome from here, even if I don't know exactly what it looks like.
Good to see you back.