59,000 Miles, cont.

Well, long distance is turning into medium long distance; I took the job in Northern Virginia and will be moving in less than two weeks. I was going to spent some time this afternoon packing, but I'm instead sitting here writing this entry--my priorities are obvious. So that's good news, right? I'm taking a great job with an impressive sounding title, a much higher salary than I've ever before earned, 25 miles from where I grew up and, yes, 600 miles closer to my children. But my wife isn't coming right away, as she has to sell her house and anyhow she wants her daughter to finish the school year in Georgia and spend the next six months saying goodbye to everyone she knows (she's moved here to go to college 19 years ago and has never left). It's going to be a tiring and expensive few months as I live and work in one city and have to travel back and forth to Maine and Georgia. I'm not looking forward to that.

Even once my new family does join me in Virginia, then what? I'll still be 500 miles away from my kids and I'll have a full-time, high-pressure job with little ability to take random long weekends or week-long trips like I got to do. I'll have the money to see them now, but what about the time? It's got to be one or the other it seems. And my wife? She'll be in a new, strange place far from everything she knows, and is already feeling guilty about taking her daughter away from their extended family (mother, 3 sisters, 7 nieces/nephews, untold numbers of friends).

There's another issue: her ex-husband and his family (mother, stepfather, 2 sisters, son who's a half-brother to my stepdaughter, 4 cousins). I've found myself being so angry over the past two years about my ex-wife replacing me. Even ignoring the particulars of the new man in her house (see about 12 other of my entries for more on him), the fact is that, to my kids, Daddy doesn't live with us and we only see him every couple of months. Now I'm going to be responsible for making a six-year old girl move 600 miles away from her father.

Now I have every reason to be OK with this--her father is just this side of a deadbeat. Even though he has visitation rights every other weekend, he generally only sees her about once every six weeks, and even on the weekends when he does see her, he spends about 4 hours with her and then drops her off at his mother's or sister's house. He's perpetually two months behind on child support, and owes my ex $15,000 in marital debt. He doesn't come to his daughter's soccer games and has only ever set foot in her school one time. He is now married to the woman with whom he had an affair during his marriage to my wife, and she happens to be an illegal alien. He's also willingly cut ties with his 13 year-old daughter from his first marriage because he couldn't afford to pay child support for her. The guy's not exactly father of the year.

In spite of all of this, I can't help but feeling terrible. Yes, he's a poor excuse for a parent, but he's still her dad. How can I sit here and feel so terribly wronged about semi-voluntarily moving away from my kids and then have a clear conscience about taking another man's daughter away from him?

I'm trying very hard to focus on the facts at hand: 1) I need a good career so I can financially support my son, daughter, and stepdaughter. 2) I have failed to find this career path in Maine or Atlanta. 3) I have found a great job that could hold the key to my future in a third place, one that's halfway between the other two. 4) My wife's ex-husband doesn't even really try to be a parent, in spite of living 15 minutes away right now. 5) My wife has chosen to be with me, and understands facts 1-4 very clearly. I know that taking this job is the right thing to do. No matter how hard it will be over the next few months, I have to believe that the long-term benefits will be worthwhile. It certainly will make for some interesting blogging.