Reality vs. what the heart wants

I realized a bittersweet reality today. It pains me to say this, but I won't be visiting (or staying) with the kids as soon as I would like.

And it comes down to money. My heart, however, aches for those children. I was set to leave Fresno, where my sister and parents leave, this weekend. I could conceivably do it. I want to.

I don't think I will. I want to be with the kids more than anything else in the world. My family says they understand, but I must be honest. They don't. They don't know what it's like to be away from the people you love most of all on Earth for more than a year and a half. I wouldn't expect them to. This is not simply like waiting a few extra months for Christmas to arrive or a bonus check or a promotion at work or the chance to buy a new car. We're talking about being with the two people I love more than anyone else on earth and being with them. Working far away from them, in a way, holds them hostage from me.

Waiting a few more months until I get more money does the same. While I am grateful for the chance to live possibly rent-free and collect either unemployment or a small paycheck from a crappy job, the pull to be with my children is absolutely the strongest emotion I have ever felt in my life. It makes me sad to think that I have to wait as much as six months to be with them. Who knows what can happen in six months?

Don't get me wrong. I love my mom, my dad, my sister and brother and their respective significant others and children and the opportunity to live virtually free of charge. It's an unbelievably kind gesture on their part. But here's the deal: They all live with the people they love, or are close enough to them that they can visit practically any time they want.

I don't.

Imagine having children only to have them snatched away from you and effectively being told you can't have them anymore. And then, realize there is a good chance you could have them, that circumstances have changed and you could at least have the chance to see them every day.

Wouldn't that make you euphoric? It certainly would me. Those children are as much mine as they are Cherie's, and every day I'm away from them is a day that I can never get back. Now, I've been told effectively, by my wallet, that, no, seeing the kids or being with them isn't a possibility right now.

I would be happy begging for food at a soup kitchen if I could just have the opportunity to see my kids. If I had to clean toilets with my bare hands or work to dig footings in the snow, I would do it, just to see my children.

I know my family means well, but they don't understand. I don't expect them to. I've been living a nightmare for the past 19 months, and the chance for it to end is palpable, and worth just about anything I would be willing to give up on Earth, right up to my own life. Unless you've been in my situation, I wouldn't expect anyone to understand.

But I will swallow my urge to do something with a potentially giant downside and take my money and do what I can to salt away as much as possible.

It doesn't give me any comfort to know that my children will have to wait that much longer before Daddy comes home for good. I'm glad at this point that none of them know how to read. They'd probably be heartbroken.

I'm not, but I'm pretty darn close right now.