Ok…I guess I can fess up now. I’m writing to you from the U.S. I had a dispute with my former employer in California and didn’t want to write too much about it. I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t show up to mediation thinking, there’s no way Rick would fly from the Middle East to this. But they did show up. It was strange but cool. Here we were in front of a mediator trying to settle an old dispute so you think we would have been adversarial, right? Wrong. It was really nice to see them again. We got caught up on all the things that were happening. We met with the mediator and we settled…which is a good thing for all parties involved. Now that this is settled, hopefully we can go back to being really good friends again. That’s the issue when the line between business and friendships become blurred. One of the former employers said something that made me feel really great today. I mentioned that a certain person reads the blog everyday, and he mentioned that he does too. That was a nice thing for him to say.
I flew back to the U.S. yesterday. Im only taking a week off from work. The flight was tough. There is a non-stop that goes from Dubai to San Francisco. It’s a 16 hour flight that travels due north over the north pole. Economy was jammed. I couldn’t justify yet, flying business class. It was something like $3000 more for the business class ticket. Next time I come back to the U.S. I’ll have enough miles to automatically upgrade. That I think is the way to go. Yesterday, when I was just about asleep, invariably, somebody would walk down the aisle and bump me, waking me up. I watched about 5 movies on the plane that I’ve been itchin to see. So I’m all caught up on all the Oscar nominated films. Except for Milk. I don’t think with the subject matter, it will be played on an Arabic country or airline anytime soon. The flight back was actually quite reasonable. It wound up costing about $1100 which I didn’t think was too outrageous. Before when I flew, I would have to go through London, and with a layover of 23 hours coming and 7 hours coming back, it was always a 2-3 day journey. This way through Emirates airline, its only about a 24 hour commitment in flying. So its much more efficient for me. I’ve been working and doing emails while im here, so I feel like Im not that far away from the office. I am also getting pretty good at overcoming jetlag. I’ve been flying across the world so often, that I have it down to a science. My trick is that I try to stay awake as long as possible with a few one hour cat naps on the plane. I got to San Francisco at 3:00 pm, visited with my mom (dad is in Virginia getting back Wed.) and tried to stay awake til 9. I was quite delirious and feeling a little goofy after some 60 hours of being awake. So I crashed and slept the whole night through. Im feeling pretty acclimated today.
In addition to the mediation hearing, I came back to meet a girl. I have not spoken of her that much. She is the Czech Girl, who wasn’t too attracted to me, I wrote about her a few weeks ago. Well we have been chatting and emailing, and skype videoconferencing since then and our relationship I think has grown. Im realistic, I’m no Brad Pitt, but I do have a huge heart. Since she could be a model, I understand that there might not be the physical attraction on her part, but there is certainly spiritual, mental, and emotional attraction. So we’re going to meet to see if the sparks fly. She gets here in about two hours. We are going to spend the week in No. Ca. together staying at my parent’s place amongst other places.
I tried to arrange to fly into Houston to meet my children, but it didn’t work out. That is where I got all the emotional angst of the past couple of weeks. I might have made a mistake with them, Im not sure. I tried to see them next weekend, but X wouldn’t allow it, since my weekends are the 1st, 3rd, and 5th, the weekend I was visiting fell on the 4th weekend, legally her weekend. She also said I couldn’t see them on the 5th weekend, because they weren’t in school and off for summer so technically that wasn’t my weekend either. She did say she would make them available on the 3rd weekend. However, my kids called and told me they already had plans to visit New Hubby’s parents on the 3rd weekend and they didn’t want to change their plans just because I was coming in on the last minute. (X knew they had plans on the 3rd weekend, why she couldn’t compromise and let me see them on the 4th weekend is kind of indicative of the fight that I’ve had to wage to keep my relationship with them). So the kids and I had a big talk, they were only willing to give me from Sat. 6pm to Sunday at 6, with my daughter only giving me one hour on Sunday after church. They were so angry with me on the phone. Now this is where I might have made a mistake. I told them, if they weren’t going to give me more than one day, and more than one hour, it was not worth me flying across the world to see them. They didn’t care, they said take it or leave it. So I didn’t get a chance to see them. That absolutely breaks my heart. I get choked up just thinking about it. When I talk to them, I know the struggles they must feel to keep a relationship established me. Right now its 5 against 1 in that house. I know they are being heavily influenced, a fact that they all vigorously deny. My 13 year old told me…”its not like we are being brainwashed or anything” What kind of 13 year old talks like that. Those are words he got from X. This is something Im just going to have to let go and they’ll realize what kind of character I have someday. I don’t think I have many enemies in the world, because I truly like everybody. It just amazes me, how much hatred and bitterness flow from X and new hubby my way. It undoubtedly affects and damages the children, but that is beyond my control. If everything holds to form, they’ll have the children read this blog (X and hubby read everyday) and they’ll coerce the children into defending them or attacking me somehow. I thought the relationship with X couldn’t get any worse…but it just seems to be headed that way. It sucks. Never ever ever get divorced if you are married now. The pain and resentment it causes is devastating for all the parties involved. I don’t think Im bitter. I just grieve because I miss the children. I wish there was someway I could fix it.
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