Father's Day

My whole life, June has been a very busy month. 

When I was a little kid, it was because my little brother, mom, dad, and I all have June birthdays. 

Now, it's also got two of my best friends' birthdays, Father's Day, and my wedding anniversary. 

Suffice to say, while it's a busy and (sometimes) expensive month, it's also a very fun one - all things considered. 

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This week Shelly and I celebrated our fourth anniversary. 

Four years ago I married the love of my life, and the crush that I had on her back then has only intensified since then. 

Being married, like so many other worthwhile things in life, is very challenging. It's not enough to just love someone - or to want someone to love you back. You have to actively work together to make a marriage work. 

We fight, we gripe, we frustrate and often want to shake the hell out of each other - but at the root of it all through those times, we know that when the dust settles, we still want to be us. 

And that's a powerful thing. I think, because people are imperfect. 

We both know that we have bad days (also bad habits, memories, and baggage) - so when they happen, we tie ourselves to the nearest solid structure like Bill Paxton in Twister and wait for the storm to pass. 

Because on the other side of the scale from all that bad is a world of wonderful things that we both have together - and that side is always heavier. 

People always say that they married their best friend, and I get it. 

And, while we typically go spend the night in Tulsa for our anniversary, this year we had to put it off for a couple of weeks because of work and a couple of other responsibilities. Thankfully though, this year our Tulsa trip also contains a Chris Stapleton concert - so expect to read about that in the near future. 

(One of my anniversary gifts from Shelly was a keychain with the coordinates of where we first met - at the conference table where I interviewed for my first job in the mental health field.)

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This weekend we went to a good family friend's house for a cookout. 

When I married Shelly, meeting her family was a bit overwhelming - strictly due to the sheer number of individuals that meeting her "family" entailed. 

It wasn't until after we'd been together for some time that I realized many of the family I'd been meeting weren't biologically related. 

There were "cousins", "uncles", and even "brothers" that while they weren't related by blood - they had been around for so long that they were counted as family. 

Suffice to say, it took me a long time to get to know everyone - but now that I have, with the size of this group, there are always things going on. 

The cookout was a blast, though - minus the flies. 

In addition to having fun whenever we go to Brad and Tanya's house, I have to say there's a part of my brain that freaks out whenever their son is home from college. 

Rocky has spent the better part of his life collecting video games, so his room is like a shrine to electronic entertainment. He has nearly every system ever made with a ton of games for each setup. Inevitably, any time we go out there for an event, a handful of us always end up in Rocky's room playing some game together. 

It's gotten so predictable that whenever Shelly looks around and realizes that I'm missing from the conversation, she just knows that I'm off playing games with the rest of the adult children. 

(When we got home, the kids wanted to try crawling from the trunk of my car into the front - something they saw as we were putting lawn chairs in at the end of the cookout.)

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Other than that, it was  pretty uneventful weekend. 

The thunderstorm that nobody expected threw off my plans to mow; so we stayed in and spent the majority of the weekend acting lazy. 

We finished the new season of Orange is the New Black. I caught up on Better Call Saul. I played some xbox with my friends. 

All in all, not a bad way to spend a weekend. 

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Today though, is Father's Day. 

Father's Day has turned into somewhat of a bittersweet day for me these last couple of years. 

Being a step dad, it's hard to know what role to play on Father's Day. 

Due to Shelly's custody agreement, the kids always spend the bulk of the day (or at least the first half) with their biological dad. Thankfully though, he and I have always had a functional/respectful relationship - so he always brings them home with time for me to spend with them. 

I don't speak of it often, but my own dad and I had a falling out a couple of years ago. After a series of disagreements and fights, we decided to cut ties and I haven't talked to him for two years this month. 

Father's Day is hard, because it always reminds me of what could be. 

I made the decision to sever that relationship after it became clear that it had become toxic - and while I didn't make the decision lightly or flippantly, it's been really hard for some people to accept for what it is. I get told to "Just call him" regularly, but in his own way - he's made it clear that he doesn't want a relationship either. 

I did try to write him a letter a few months ago, but he didn't reply. I've learned second hand that he's quoted me as saying hateful things that never left my mouth (or entered my mind) - and two weeks ago I learned he tried to block my contact from my grandmother's phone so I couldn't talk to her either -which was pretty much the last nail in an already airtight coffin. 

As a therapist, I know that sometimes you have to cut your losses. Sometimes when a relationship becomes unhealthy, you do more damage trying to fix it repeatedly when damage is done. 

When I married Shelly and inherited two children in the process, the world became that much more real - and that much scarier. I'm still the same loving person that I was before we got together - but my priorities have shifted in a way that I'll do anything to protect the people I've promised to care for, and things that threaten them or their happiness have no place in my life. 

...long story short, Father's Day is kind of a rough day. 

Last year I got drunk and watched Netflix all day feeling sorry for myself. 

This year, I decided to spend the day doing things that were more fun. I played xbox, opened gifts from Shelly and the kids, called and talked to my step dad (seriously one of the best men I've ever met) and my grandparents. I worked on a page from the book I'm half way through, and I also took a nap. 

(Seriously, between my anniversary and Father's Day, I got some amazing new t shirts.) 

We also rented and watched Big Daddy (which the kids hadn't seen) and I took Jade to the store to spend some money she had earned. 

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This evening, we met Shelly's parents at Braum's for a Father's Day dinner, and now we're home relaxing and preparing for the week to start. 

This week we've got the aforementioned concert on Thursday night, then we're spending the night in Tulsa and doing anniversary things while we're there. Next weekend we're meeting my parents and my brother and his fiancée in Tulsa for dinner and some form probably either a movie or to go to the comedy club.

I'm speaking to a group this week about a therapy group that I put on at work, and then next week I'm actually going out of the state for a work training. 

So, while the next couple of weeks are going to be hectic - there's a lot of opportunity in there for some fun and memorable experiences. 

Wherever you are as you're reading this, I hope that your day was beautiful, and spent with someone you care about. While not every relationship in my life is perfect or the way that I'd have it if given the choice, I do have some amazing people around me to help the bumps and bruises make less of an impact. 

Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there. See you guys next week.