2003 - The Year of Change

Change is a fascinating thing. It seems the more we avoid it, the more it pursues us. The more we chase after change, the more things seem even more the same. 2003 was the year I was ready to settle into my life and establish a status quo. I loved my job, my newfound independence, my little three bedroom apartment, things seemed pretty good. The only down side to my life "As Is" is that my husband was constantly coming to my home and banging on the doors and shouting outside. My neighbors had threatened to call the police on him more than once. They were very understanding with me, but they wanted to make sure we were safe. I hated that he still had so much of an impact on my life.

January 3 I nervously waited at work for my somewhat blind date to show up. Sure we had met online and sent photos back and forth, and yes, by this point we had enjoyed nightly phone conversations that lasted for hours on end. But you just never really know what a person is going to be like until you meet face to face and really know. I had asked him to pick me up at work since I didn't like the idea of strange men knowing where I lived. The teen center was closed that day so I was just there waiting for him, counting the minutes until 10:00 am our scheduled meeting time. He showed up at 9:58, hmm, not bad. I like someone who is just a little bit early, shows respect for the person they are meeting.

For our first date, we had decided to walk around my home town. Ashland Oregon is a beautiful town to explore. It is a bit eclectic, one store could be all used 'treasures' for sale for just dimes, and the next store displays priceless antiques or designer fashions with price stickers so high you have to stand on a ladder to read them. Anyone who lives in Ashland is smart enough to drive twenty minutes to Medford for their own shopping. The only people who actually shop in Ashland are tourists. So though I had lived there for half my life, I hadn't really spent much time in the local stores. It sounded like a fun first date to be a tourist in my own home town.

My very first impression of Charles was mixed. From his photos I thought he would be taller and have more hair. Not exactly the physical characteristics of my usual dates, but hey, my usual dates hadn't worked out well had they? Thinking back now, I guess I was looking for someone who was as opposite of my ex husband as I could find. Charles was definitely that! My first husband was a 6 foot 2 inch power lifter with no sense of humor and even less common sense. He wasn't real bright and usually cruel. Charles was the same height as me at 5 feet 8 inches. He is smart, and knows enough to let a person know when he doesn't know what they are talking about. He loves to sing along to the radio, a trait I found endearing. And he is by far the funniest person I have ever known.

I am not sure if you would say that for us it was love at first sight. I am not sure that happens in your mid thirties after you have lost your youthful looks. But it was love at first knowledge. Knowing his joy, his zeal for life, his intelligence, his passion for things I knew nothing about, made me want to know him more. Charles began looking for jobs in Ashland right away. If we were going to explore where this relationship could take us, we needed to be closer together. The two hour drive was going to be tough.

We spent the weekends when I had my sons with me in Ashland and the weekends when they were with their dad in Redding California, his home. I loved Redding, but my job was in Ashland. I couldn't even consider leaving the job that had won me my first freedom. Charles was working in Redding at the Shasta County Women's Refuge as a violence prevention educator.

March 15th I got a shocking phone call from my Program Director at our agency's headquarters in Medford. Because of statewide budget cuts the grants that had been paying for my job position were ending. Everyone was being laid off in thirty days! The teen center would be closing, the case managers were being laid off. The entire program as we knew it was going. People who had worked there for many years longer than I had were losing their jobs. I knew that my immediate job prospects doing anything similar to what I had been doing were gone.

I called Charles very upset. How would I support my kids? His attempts at finding work in Ashland had not been fruitful. What would we do? He told me that there was a job opening in his agency and asked if I had considered moving to Redding. I really hadn't considered that. I loved my job in Ashland, but now that that was ending, I thought, it couldn't hurt to try. I just wanted to find any job that could keep food on the table. I applied for the position, though the requirements were pretty high. I wasn't sure I was qualified. The job position was for a domestic violence specialist at Child Protective Services. A couple of weeks after submitting my resume, I was asked to come for an interview. The interview went well, and two weeks after that, I found out that I had received the position! Wow, I guess that meant we were moving to California. My new job started May 18 and the kids had school until June 3rd so in the beginning the logistics got a bit tricky. My new job was willing to work with me as we transitioned.

My sons' father tried to prevent me from moving. He got a restraining order to prevent me from taking the boys to California. On June 23rd we went to court for what should have been a custody hearing and final divorce judgment, but he 'forgot' many of his necessary documents. So all we were able to tackle that day was custody. The divorce hearing was moved to November. I was a bucket of nerves at the hearing terrified that I may not be allowed to have my sons with me in California. The judge asked to speak to the boys in his chambers. While in there, I am told that Christopher told the judge he never wanted to see his father again. Benjamin and Zachary said that they would be both happy and sad no matter where the judge chose to put them. After speaking with the kids, the judge only asked one question. He asked their father, "Do you think it is possible to fix your relationship with Christopher?" His father's reply was "If I could keep him away from HER." After that reply the judge hit his gavel and gave his decision. The boys would be living with me in Redding! Their father was ordered into counseling which he never did.

In one year, I changed my job, my home and even what state I lived in. I got custody of my sons, and put them in new and wonderful schools. We moved from our small apartment to a 5 bedroom house! Charles' Mom embraced the kids as her own grandkids from the very first time she met them. She couldn't have been any sweeter. Since they had lost my Mom as a proper grandmother, they now had "Grandma Sharon" to do all of the fun grandmother things with. She would teach them jokes and card tricks and take them to movies and arcades. She took me under her loving wing too. It felt nice to have a Mom to hug again.

Charles and I began to plan for a wedding, but we had to finish the divorce process still. The November court date came and his lawyer showed us the papers all ready for signature so we agreed to the terms. Of course when he sent them to us, they were completely different than the ones he had in the courthouse. We had to schedule a new court date and couldn't get on the calendar until April of 2004! In April he showed up without his proof of income but declaring that his income had fallen by hundreds of dollars per month. The judge stated that all documents needed to be in by 5 pm. Of course he did not follow this order so the judge gave him two weeks to have everything signed. He did not sign any papers in that time period. Finally May 7, 2004, the judge ordered the divorce final despite my ex husband's feet dragging. He also ordered back child support and future support to be paid. At long last he had absolutely no control over my life.

So much changed in that year, and as I look back now, I see that God didn't hate me at all. I see that he allowed my husband's behavior to get worse in order for me to find freedom. I see that God did not abandon me in my time of heartache, he carried me through it. I can see now, how much my life has improved, and the only way to get to this point was to travel through that desert of pain in 2001. God was not casting me into darkness, he was leading me to the light. As I look around my home today, I see my sons are happy well adjusted boys. I see our beautiful home and my loving husband cooking in the kitchen. But wait I am getting ahead of myself. First I have to tell you about the next two years. Those years can not be tackled together or even as whole years. There is just too much there. I will have to divide them up into smaller morsels. Otherwise the bitterness, sweetness and pain and joy would be too much to digest.