How Stupid Can A Person Be?

So, we get this house. I know at this point, my marriage is through and of course I continue to reconstruct this albatross of a house. I actually found the skeletal remains of one entombed in a wall.......I live there by myself, affectively in a construction zone, but happy to be let alone and certain that the money made from the sale of the home would ensure freedom......yep.....I really did believe it.

We began seeing a mediator to "settle" how things will be divided....I was really not a conscious participant in the process, and it drug on and on, for months. This was supposed to be the simple solution. I just wanted it over and would have agreed to anything...and did. Remember, we all despise them, but get a lawyer.

In in the interim, my ex-wife hired my cousin to help with the renovations on the house to speed things along. He helped....he helped himself to my ex-wife, which was ok, because he learned the same lessons I did, only much quicker. What he did do was procure all my tools, basically, my livelihood. Best of all, my ex actually paid him for his time. I wonder just how long he was"on-the-clock". Based on my past experience with her....She really should have paid him for his effort. It gives new meaning to erectile dysfunction. I actually threw up once upon seeing her nipples, but that's a different story.....

The breaking point came one evening. I was in the house working alone and I had a moment of clairity ....I opened the safe, grabbed a handful of cash and a pillow, ( I think ), and walked down the street at about 10:00pm. I stopped at the first "For Rent" sign I saw and pounded on the door of the managers unit. I shoved cash in her sleepy, bloated face and grasped the key to my new apartment, not realizing what I had done.

I turned the key to my new home. The door swung open into the darkness, my eyes straining to adjust as there was no power. I listened for the scurrying of small creatures, but heard none. I fumbled my way to what looked like a fireplace and flipped the switch on the wall. The gas flame ignited, illuminating my new home in a very pleasant amber glow.

I didn't bother taking a look around. I laid down on the carpet, damp from it's recent cleaning and stared at the ceiling.

Something miraculous happened. I wasn't sad, nor did I feel a sense of loss or loneliness. I was free. Although I've never been to jail, I thought, "This must be what getting out of prison feels like." That is still one of my happiest memories.

What I didn't realize at that time, that I had traded one cage for another and despite all the guidance I was about to receive,.....it was a cage of my own making...