Flailing About…
A few words on the delay since the last post (my mother’s eulogy, notwithstanding). My post where I outed myself for engaging a “Facebook Affair” did not go over very well with my children, which shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but it was because in my haste to get it off my chest and move the story along, I did not give sufficient thought to what the effects would be closer to home. I should have handled things differently. I am very sorry I did not. We got through the rough spots and I will just blame it on Amy, my ex-wife (kidding!). She actually did recommend running it by my daughters before posting, which I did. What I did not do was provide enough (as in “any”) time for the digestion of this very emotionally charged subject and any discussion that might have ensued. Mistake made. I will not repeat it. That said, I have definitely found light to be the best disinfectant. Like bleach, it may not always be pleasant for the dirt that it is removing, however it is quite effective.
Prior to the little interregnum of 2021, I last left things in late 2011 or so, at which time I was recovering from divorce, bankruptcy and an impending foreclosure. Not content with dipping my toe in the dating pool, I pretty much dove in off the 10m board and bellyflopped. By my records, in 2011 and 2012 I went on nearly 50 first dates. Sometimes I’d have two in one day. It was nuts. Truly insane. In late 2011 I met a pediatrician from the North Shore who happened to be a solid tennis player. We dated for about a month. She was wrong for me in so many ways, it would be hard to add them up. Madness. Talk about desperately seeking Susan… or Kathy, or Mary, or Sheila. I wanted nothing more than to show the world (and myself) I was OK. And I was trying to do this by getting into a relationship, when what I really needed was to get into a relationship with myself.
My early, obsessive days of tennis. If only the clay were red. Photo by Steve Green
Tennis was a huge part of my life at this point. I was playing 3-6 times a week. I managed to rack up not insignificant bills (relative to my meager income) at an indoor club with court time and lessons. Here too, I was determined to “fix” the past. I so regretted not discovering tennis earlier in life that I was doing everything in my power to be the best possible player I could be – private lessons, drills, the ball machine. There’s one day I’ll long remember. I was playing outdoors in the middle of the afternoon at our quaint little neighborhood tennis club where you have to wear tennis whites. I was absolutely miserable and I remember thinking that somebody driving by might be inclined to think, “Geez, look at that guy. He must have it made, playing tennis in the middle of the afternoon.” And nothing could have been further from the truth. I was flat broke, lonely as hell with absolutely no idea of what to do to earn a living and very little interest in trying to find out. The moral of this little tale – things aren’t always what they seem, especially based on appearances. The corollary – be kind always, you never know what somebody is going through.
You see, the fire that had run my life for at least 25 years – the quest for money – had gone out. And I did not know how to re-ignite the pilot light, much less find another source of fuel. Things continued like this for several years. I had some income from selling my clients to a friend who ran another photo lab, yet it wasn’t enough. I was bumping along with a bit of children’s photography and dipping my toe into corporate events thanks to my good friend Steve. I was refraining from just enough self-sabotage to put food on the table (and play tennis). Pay rent and taxes? Not so much. Next year I’d make it up…. This was the story I told myself. The place where I lived was in pretty bad shape. I painted the girls’ room and did my best with furniture from Craigslist. Squirrels chewed their way through the porch roof. It leaked. Half the windows were missing screens. The landlord had won her foreclosure fight but had no money nor interest in keeping the place up. When it needed a new toilet, the not-so-handyman bought the wrong size. Instead of returning it, he simply bashed out the plaster wall in the back and never bothered to patch it. So, I quit paying rent somewhere in there; a theme that will be repeated.
Somehow, I managed to pull together some dough to visit my sister in France. It helped that her husband at the time was a pilot and my ticket and lodging were free. I attended the French Open for two days and it was really cool. Not necessarily life-changing, but very fun! It was also an excuse to buy a long lens. As if I needed an excuse to buy camera gear.
Sitting courtside at the outer courts at Roland-Garros. | May 2011
On New Year’s Eve 2013, I went over to a friend’s house with the kids for dinner. He’s a chef, she’s a singer and after he cooked a great dinner, we went to Fitzgerald’s, a road house, where she and her band were performing, while the kids stayed up at their house to celebrate the Eve. There was a woman there whom I’d seen at the indoor tennis club; whereby “seen” I mean “I was really attracted to”. We ended up dancing and even smooching a little at the stroke of midnight. Hmmmmmm…
