I gave up most everything in the divorce, including the house, in exchange for always having access to my kids with the most relaxed and flexible custody schedule one could ask for. (We co-parent well enough I suppose).

It’s taken some time and a lot of hard work but today I move back into a house. My new home! I can’t wait to build a space my kids and I can enjoy and create memories. Apartment life has been tough but things are looking up again!!

Keep your heads up dads, you never know when the pieces will fall into place.

I'm almost through 'Independence Day' by Richard Ford. It's relevant in a lot of ways for I think where we are in things, the narrator Frank Bascombe, is essentially out of his kids life post divorce and wants badly to be back in, but isn't really sure how to do it. The book was very critically acclaimed at the time and it takes place in the late 80s so some of the themes are a little dated, but I've enjoyed it immensely, and I think that one of the real themes he hits on hard is what he calls a "existence period". I think it sums up a lot of where we are as divorced guys with kids. We don't really know exactly where we fit in a lot of the time, but what is known is that we are hurting and we're looking for answers and the truth is our kids are hurting too. There's only one answer as far as I can tell and that's love ourselves and love them as best we know how.