To start, I put on a pound. I sort of expected that being that we had a family get together on Sunday. We celebrated my nephew's birthday with tons of food like we usually do. At that point I was just so off kilter that I said, 'Fuck it, eat.'
I got very little exercise in last week. I think I did yoga twice but that's about it. I need to change that. The crazy part is that my calves are so as if I went running a lot last week. I didn't run at all but my calves are still killing me. Not even sure why.
With school coming up we decided to do some school shopping. We're breaking up our shopping into 3 trips so we aren't spending a ton all at once. Having 4 kids to shop for gets pricey, especially since 3 of 4 kids wear adult sized clothing and shoes. It just makes more sense that way.
This trip was shoes. We went to the Nike outlet near us and didn't find anything. My oldest son was looking for a particular pair of Nike's but they didn't have them there. Normally we have pretty good luck finding good shoes at the Nike outlet but it was cleaned out from all the other families with the same idea. From there we headed to the mall.
I was quickly reminded how much I hate the mall this time of year. It's crowded. It's busy. It's picked over. None of which I care for at all. It's not too bad for girls so my daughter has a really good luck finding stuff. For my oldest boy it kind of sucked. He's at an age where he doesn't want to necessarily look like every one else. A lot of the kids wear the same brands here. He wants to wear similar styles but different brands. He wants to be a trendsetter. Shopping online works better for him. That being said we were at the mall strictly for shoes.
My oldest boy found some shoes. One down. My daughter found a killer deal on boots and ended up getting two pairs. My youngest settled on a pair of Vans, he already has one pair of sneakers for school that we've been saving for 3 years. I found a pair of Nikes 3 years ago at the outlet and bought them for a screaming deal. I've been storing them until the day he fits them. I do that for a lot of sneakers. If I find them cheap I buy them even if they don't fit them knowing they will one day. My youngest has a really nice collection of vintage sneakers thanks to me.
After we left the store, the girls went into another store. The boys waited outside. We see them coming out and we get up to leave. We get about 10 feet away and my youngest forgot his bag. We go back and it's GONE. Someone swiped it. Of course no on turned it in. Luckily it was only $35 but I was still pissed that my youngest forgot them. He has a tendency to be forgetful. We're working on that.
So we walk the mall looking for kids/teens that have the same bag. I fully understood that we weren't going to find his shoes but I needed to walk off my anger. The kids stop to use the restroom and I'm standing in the middle of the mall, my eyes scanning everyone's bag as they pass.
Suddenly I see this kid walk by with a girl. I look at him. We make eye contact and my brain fires. I know this kid, but it doesn't immediately register where I know him from. My brain was still angry at my son for losing the shoes we just bought and yet it was calming down because my son is still my baby boy. As you can imaging it was a real conflict.
The familiar kid walks by without a change of expression.
The kids come out of the bathroom and it clicks. That's my long lost, estranged son. I tell my daughter that I think I just saw my son, her brother. She would know because she ran into him at the same mall roughly a year ago and introduced her self.
A little background on this son. I was in my early 20s I dated this girl. Then I met another girl who would become my now ex wife. How ghetto does that sound? I ended up getting the first girl pregnant when I met my ex. I really wanted to be with my ex. So the 'other' woman and I split up while she was pregnant. I told her that I would be there for the baby but I wouldn't date her. She agreed, at the time. As things with the now ex got more serious the other woman got more and more upset. Long story short, I ended up getting a restraining order on her due to an assault and some property damage. The other woman went crazy. I told her that if this kept up I would be gone completely. I left.
Fucked up. I know. At the time it was all that I could think of doing. I wanted to marry the now ex but I didn't want to deal with all the craziness that came with having a kid with the other woman. Hindsight is 20/20 and I should've toughed it out. The now ex and I went on to get married and have 3 kids. We were together for many years before divorcing. The other woman haunted me every day.
I never saw my son. I did find him through various sources. I kept tabs on him from a distance thanks to social networking and the internet. I paid child support all those years but I never actually saw him. He led a good life. He grew up to be a wonderful kid. He played sports and was his school's ASB vice president.
On a whim one day I looked him up. Turns out they moved back to our town after being on the east coast for most of his life. I reached out to him and we started corresponding online. It went well. We had so much in common. He even looks like me, just more handsome. Then one day it stopped. Out of the blue he just stopped talking to me. I can only imagine why. My guess is that his mom, the other woman, found out. I told him that I wanted to keep things above board. If he felt comfortable, tell his mom we talked. I think she flipped out, rightfully so, at us talking and forbade him from talking to me again. His loyalty to his mom is probably the clincher. I can't blame him.
What would I do if my biological father suddenly showed up in my life? I can't answer that because I don't know. (Maybe this was more than a little background but consider yourself informed now!)
Back to the mall...
We decide to head his direction. I decided to approach him. I see him in the distance and make my way towards him. I walk up to him and call his name as I approach. He nods as if to acknowledge what's about to happen. I then ask if we could talk outside. He simply looks at me with a confused face and says, "I can't do this right now." I ask if he was sure he didn't want to talk, he repeats that he can't do it right now and takes off. He didn't so much run as he did walk quickly away. The look on his face broke my heart. He looked as confused as one could be in this situation. The fixer in me wanted to make things right. The other part of me wanted to let him go to process all that happened in that 10 second encounter. Imagine 18 years of anger, guilt, and questions all rolled into 10 seconds. That's what it probably felt like. I'm sorry that he had to go through that. I silently apologized to him.
On the plus side I did manage to forget my youngest losing his brand new shoes.
I don't know how I feel about things. Part of me wants to just say fuck it, I tried. It makes me want to close that part of my life down permanently. The other part of me keeps hope alive.
My weekend.
Goals for this week:
- Vacuum car...I know...I know
- Yoga 3 times
- Run twice
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