Author's Notes

Sometimes, my poems are just a way for me to open up a line of communication with Kodi, a way for me to tell her how I'm feeling without actually having to say the words, and that was definitely the case here.

As you can probably surmise from the poem, life has gotten very interesting lately. In order to comment on the poem, I feel as though I need to explain what's been going on. For starters, Kodi proposed to me on the evening of January 17th. She totally surprised me, and of course, my answer was yes. We were both very happy.

But unfortunately, my happiness was short-lived, as I realized there was something I needed to take care of first. My ex and I had a commitment ceremony in 1992, but when we separated five years ago, we didn't go through a divorce or a parting ceremony that would have made it official. I believe it is for that reason that a sense of responsibility still exists between us. So, I felt as though I needed to divorce my ex before I could marry Kodi.

Kodi and I talked about this and she was very supportive of Wolfmoon and I having some sort of parting ceremony. I wasn't sure of just what to do, or how to go about it, until Kodi and I found the perfect how-to book. It's called "A Healing Divorce: Transforming the End of Your Relationship with Ritual and Ceremony" written by Phil and Barbara Penningroth (http://www.healingdivorce.com). A week later, I explained to Wolfmoon that I wanted to have a parting ceremony and why. I also asked if she would like to join me. She was very receptive to the idea. The ceremony has been planned for mid-June of this year. That will give my ex and I plenty of time to read the book and write the ceremony.

On the other hand, Kodi and I have set the wedding date for August of 2004. She also wants us to write our own wedding vows, which I am cool with. Since we're both writers, it will be very interesting to see what each of us comes up with.

Now, as for the event that inspired the poem, I've recently been diagnosed with glaucoma and I've seen my eye doctor each week or two since the beginning of January. His office staff is quite nice, but there is this one woman that just seems to be a little nicer to me than the rest. And when she handed me some paperwork the other day, her actions just caught me off guard and I wasn't sure if she was coming on to me or not. She became all I could think about for several hours, which really confused me. I mean come on, I am in a committed relationship and we're supposed to be getting married next year. So, why are my thoughts those of a single woman on the prowl?

It took me a few days to figure out that I was just using her as a distraction from reality. For the past month, I've been making notes for the parting ceremony, but when the emotions started to become more than I cared to handle, I began to work on the wedding vows instead. I think trying to write out all these different emotions just became a little too overwhelming. So my mind decided to add a new option to the mix and give me something else to think about. Luckily, I realized that I needed to figure out what was causing me to have those kinds of thoughts in the first place and didn't do anything stupid.

After Kodi read the poem, she pointed out that I was beginning to recognize my behavior pattern. Whenever I get too stressed out, I have a tendency to become obsessed over someone new. This could also be called self-sabotage. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right; I've done that before. And I definitely don't want to go back there again. In no way do I want to sabotage my relationship, or my future, with Kodi.

So, I decided that I needed to alleviate some of the stress that I've been feeling. I'm going to take a break from trying to write the wedding vows, since they're not needed until next year anyway, and just focus on the divorce ceremony for now.

As a side note, although the book "A Healing Divorce" has mainly a heterosexual slant, I believe it could also be a very powerful tool for the gay community as well. Since, in most states, gays have no legal rights to marry or to divorce, I believe we still must do what we must do. And it is up to us to find ways to do that for ourselves. This book would be very helpful for anyone searching for a way to ease the pain of divorce and to end a relationship with forgiveness and healing.

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