i'm risking the sin of pride over how far hubs and i have come in settling our domestic SNAFUs far enough to pull together for our 3 orphans. 5 years ago, when this trail of tears began about a year before our son and his wife died died, i was living alone in another state, happily getting my feet wet (pun intended) on my river research. hubs and i were still deeply devoted to our shared family, but we pretty much needed that 800 mile buffer to head off our passionate tit-for-tat skirmishes. working out ways to avoid those tit-for-tat skirmishes has been the primary focus of our relationship work.

an analogy which has been helpful in the discussion is, "the inter-library exchange program." the meanest of our tit-for-tat skirmishes are when we agree from different libraries. e.g. an adolescant child has just been arrested. both the rising executive and the construction worker agree that this is bad news and something needs to be done. the exec and the constructo have considerably different resources and views to expostulate from. yes, but. . . but, yes. . . and the skirmish begins while the adolescant child runs angrily to hide in the bedroom. that was 1995. hubs and i never did accomplish a civil dialogue on the subject, but i quit my construction work to take charge of out-of-control adolescants. toughest crew i ever ran. . . the rising exec continued rising on the 70+ hours he devoted to the accomplishment. i did what i could to keep the out-of-control adolescants from short circuiting on further tit-for-tat skirmishes. talking about the 4 years dead son has become comparatively easy. his children want to know. we are only now accomplishing civil convos about the now 43 year old, homeless crackhead. far enough to head off a few of the bad habits formed during our first parenting career here in our second parenting career.

methinks i am in danger of rambling. my hope --just hoping-- is to develop the library analogy. am i making sense?

thoughts? opines? unsolicited advice?