Time to share some about myself.

I am not going back all the way, just a few years.

In my Junior year of high school I traveled to Europe for the summer. It was the most exciting trip I've ever taken, and also the farthest I've ever traveled in my life. Over a six-week period, with the help of a Eurail pass, my teacher and several classmates visited Copenhagen, a large part of France, Germany, some of Austria, Switzerland and Italy. In France, we saw Paris, Normandy, Mont St. Michel, the Loire Valley, the cities of Chartres and Tours, Versailles. Then we traveled south by train to visit the Roman aqueduct at Pont du Gard, As well as the cities of Nice and Arles, where we saw more Roman ruins. We then took the train to Carcassonne, an ancient medieval walled city, and traveled south into Italy, where we went to Rome, Venice and Florence. After several days there we traveled north into Austria and Switzerland for several days. In Austria we saw the castle where the Sound of Music was filmed. Finally we traveled to Germany, where we saw Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria, and the concentration camp at Dachau. We went to Berlin, which at that time was still divided into East and West. Finally we returned to Paris for the end of our trip.

After graduating from Woodway in 1989, I went two years at Cornish Arts College in Seattle. I took many courses there, but did not graduate. I did not like the way the program was taught- I felt there was not enough hands on education. Unfortunately, at that time, computers were very new and there was no Internet, so I did not get any computer arts training. I now believe that dropping out of there was a huge mistake, but we can't change the past nor live in regret. I then went to Shoreline Community College and got a general two year A.A. degree. It was nice but that has been a dead degree for me, it only served to get me into the UW. I went to the UW for four years, and studied French Literature and Linguistics, and took one year of Spanish there. I had taken one year of German at Shoreline C.C. I received my B.A. in French from UW in 1997, but was still not entirely sure what I wanted to do with my life. So I continued in the graduate program in French for two more years. I thought I might want to become a French teacher. I also wanted to study Medieval French under a certain eminent prof, as I had already taken several courses in Medieval French and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, neither of these things panned out and my hopes were dashed when the same professor called me into his office one day and verbally lambasted me; In addition to my inability to give good presentations, which I already knew to be my huge weakness, he tore me apart, saying that my French sucked. This really crushed me and I felt like I did not want to stay in the program any longer. Also,
I had been dating this gal for three years and we were talking about getting married; I did not see how God was in anything I was doing, so I dropped out and got married. This was my second huge mistake. Due to communication problems from my Asperger's syndrome autism, our relationship was shaky at best at the start of the marriage. We also had numerous problems, as she was epileptic. I do not blame her at all for the epilepsy, I loved her in spite of it, but our lack of money soon racked up a lot of bills for us early on, as a result of frequent hospital visits due to the epilepsy. It might have been easier had I waited to finish school before getting married, I may have been able to get a decent job. As it was, I was working on a custodian's salary, and we could never get caught up. To make matters worse, our attempts to live on our own failed miserably, and we ended up moving in with her parents, which only exacerbated the situation further. She deeply resented her mom's presence in our lives, and when my daughter was born in 2003, three years into the marriage, that birth was the only joy we had. Raising our precious child in my mother-in-law's home became more and more difficult. I will NEVER regret in the least the birth of my daughter. She is my precious angel, and I love her with all of my heart. She was not to blame for any of our problems. Unfortunately, it was a difficult delivery, and my wife had severe postpartum depression and was never the same afterwards. We soon began to argue and bicker constantly, and life became miserable. What is worse, a severe argument between my wife and my family in 2004 caused CPS to become involved. We attended CPS visits and were warned that should things not improve, our daughter would be remanded to foster care. We tried for some time to follow CPS' guidelines, but a violent argument between my wife and her father in 2005 over at my wife's parents led to my daughter being taken from us and put into foster care. Soon after, she was adopted into another very loving family. I still have a great relationship with them and my daughter is flourishing with her new mom and dad. I am still her dad, she knows me as her second dad. I did not say 'we' for reasons I will explain shortly.

At the end of 2005 my wife and I managed to get an apartment in Northgate, where we lived until early 2006. I thought things might actually get better between us. I was one year into a new job as a custodian at Cedar Park, and I tried to remain hopeful. However, in April 2006, the constant arguing came to a head. I tell you right now, constant criticism WILL gradually kill a marriage. I have seen it happen. I had had enough of the living hell I was enduring daily, and our marriage counseling was not working. Part of the problem was that my autism and her bipolar was a terrible combination. I left for two months to go live with a friend. The mistake I made was I did not tell her whether I was coming back. Judge me as you will, but I did not care one way or the other at that point. No great surprise to find that when I returned in June, I found she had been traveling regularly to Spokane to see her new boyfriend. I wanted her to try and decide who she wanted to be with, him or me. She wasn't sure, she said she still loved me. One day in June, I came by the apartment in a last attempt to salvage the marriage. I was sitting outside thinking of all the loss I was enduring, when I stubbed my toe on the pavement and it started to bleed. I used this 'injury' as an excuse to curry sympathy in her. When none was to be found, I used poor judgment and shouted up at the outside of her second story balcony that she was a 'bad wife', because she would not accompany me to the hospital to have my toe looked at. I left and went over to her parents' house, fearing she would call the police if I did not leave. She in fact did, and at about 11 or so that evening the police came to my in-laws and arrested me; I spent two days in King County Jail. It was humiliating, and I had to agree to attend Domestic Violence classes. It was an awful experience, and part of the agreement was that my wife and I separated and were not allowed to speak to each other for two full years. We finally divorced in November of 2008, and the whole ugly mess was over. I learned from the experience that no matter how much you are hurting, or desperate, you do not get to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Even if, as in my case, your significant other drives you to want to snap.

So all of this is what has led me to become a custodian at Cedar Park Church. No woes necessary; now you know the whole story. Yes, my life is complete and utter crap. But God still loves me, he is still on the throne, and he still loves me. So no matter what happens, I still have that joy.