88,000 Miles

This summer put a lot of miles on the frequentfatherometer, which I'll get to.  I only got five weeks this year, not by choice, but due to my ex-wife's unique combination of dishonesty and inflexibility.  The divorce judgment grants me visitation "beginning one week after the end of the school year and ending on the first Saturday in August."  Last year that was six weeks.  I wasn't so lucky this year.

This year, the school calendar showed that school would end on a Wednesday in June, so I asked if I could get them on the following Sunday, but my ex refused, saying "that's not a week...you can wait until the following Wednesday."  Of course she knows that I can't come to get them in the middle of the week, so I made plans to get them 10 days later, on the ensuing Saturday.  Well imagine my surprise when, three weeks before the school year ends, my son tells me on the phone that school would be ending two days early, on a Monday, as there were two fewer snow days than expected (global warming again?)  I then asked my ex if I could get them on the following Sunday, since that was six days after school ended, and she breezily refused, saying I could come on Monday.  Well, I suppose I could have done that, but I am new at my job and can't just blow off days, so I gritted my teeth and kept to the plan.

So five weeks it was, but being the Frequent Father, I had to pack everything into that amount of time.  The rundown:
Fly to Maine to get kids
Fly to Atlanta for July 4th week with my wife's family, gamely attempt to work while a hired babysitter watches six kids upstairs.
Drive back to Virginia, put the kids in day camp for three weeks, try to work, but leave early every day so as to not miss out on any fun with the kids.  Go swimming nearly every night, and take lots of fun field trips on weekends.
Fly to Orlando for a week at Disney World, the first time my kids have been there, and hopefully fill them with a desire to see the real world, the one beyond their mother's bubble.
Fly back to Maine, arriving at their mother's house at midnight, because she didn't want to pick them up at the airport, citing her fear of driving at night.
Take the first flight home in the morning after three hours of sleep, and feel jet-lagged in spite of never leaving Eastern Daylight Time.

And then...what?  My credit card bill just came, with the tab for all of this fun now coming due.  I consider it the price of getting on with my life.  If I had stayed in Maine, I'd be making half (or less) of what I'm making in Virginia.  I have calculated that the Frequent Father lifestyle costs roughly one-third of the difference, leaving me the rest to have a nice home for my kids--as opposed to the two-room divorce apartment I had in Maine--and to save for their future.  The financial side is under control.

It's everything else that has me up early in the morning to spill more virtual ink.  I worry about the world of insulation and isolation that my ex has constructed around my children, a world in which they go to third-world schools that can't give them what they need, never go more than five miles from home, never have playdates, never have excitement, and never get to see anything new.  I worry about my ex's psychotic quest to breastfeed my daughter until she hits puberty (made far worse by the fact that she obviously pumped every day over the past five weeks to keep the flow going...that's just unfathomable).  Most of all, I worry about the stinking drunk SOB who still lives with them, and what he's going to do someday when he's in a bad mood.

As for me, the odometer keeps rising, but I'm not sure if I'm getting anywhere.  On paper, I should be content.  Four years ago I was stuck in a backward small town with a dead-end career, few friends, and a bad marriage to a controlling tyrant.  Now I am living in a big city, with a great job, a nice home, a bright future, and married to my long-lost love.  Two and a half years ago, in the depths of my depression, I made a list of things I want to change in my life before turning 40.  Well, I turn 40 this coming weekend, and it turns out that I've accomplished most of those changes.  But so long as my kids live 500 miles away under the iron fist of their demented mother, I'll always struggle to move forward.  No matter how many miles I travel in the right direction, this way of life will always cause me to spin my wheels.

Nevertheless, I guess another year of Frequent Father adventures awaits.  As with each year before, I will hope and pray that this is the last year of living this way, that next year my kids will be unpacking their suitcases and decorating their rooms in Daddy's house, getting ready for the school year.  I know it's not healthy to have such thoughts, but I can't help it.  Well, there's no point to it anyhow, so all I can do is prepare myself for the long year and the thousands of miles ahead.