Abundant Spirituality + codependency recovery + inner child healing + Love = Joy2MeU2

A summary of the years since I have updated this page. 

I  stopped updating it primarily for the same reason I stopped doing Update Newsletters.  I have this whole family I am involved with now, and telling my story now involves other people.  I didn't think I could go into detailed processing about what was going on in my life without taking the risk of violating other people's confidentiality.  I am just giving a bare bones summary here - hopefully none of the people involved will be offended with how I relate the story of those years.

From April of 2006 until the spring of 2013, I was Darien's primary caregiver.  He was living with Susan and I, but she was gone quite a bit - first working in Orange County for a period of time, then doing promotions and Landmark Education and meetings and various things.  So, I was the one that scheduled my life around the little man.  I got him up in the morning, got him to school, picked him up, fed him, bathed him, got him to sleep at night.  As I said above “So far, because Susan is working and we are not at a financial position to put Darien in daycare yet - I have been primarily a nanny.  Which is an ongoing, and special gift, in my life.”

In the Spring of 2013 Susan and I started the process of separating.  By that time, Darien's mother had returned to San Diego and given birth to a little brother for Darien.  She and his brother, London, were living in subsidized housing - and because Susan and I were having difficulties we allowed Darien to go back to live with his mother.  By the time Susan and I separated in the summer, Darien, his mom and little brother had moved to Fallbrook where I live now.  I moved here to be close to him and because the rent was cheaper here than elsewhere in the North San Diego County.  I moved my son Abe - who had been living in a sober living home - in with me in a 2 bedroom apartment in August 2013.

Darien's mother got involved with a marine, got pregnant again and they got married in December 2013 (I performed the ceremony.) They moved into a house on Camp Pendalton.  His little brother was born on Feb. 13th at almost midnight - and thus was named Valentine.

Susan and I were separated - and she and her new boyfriend moved to the Bay Area - but we were still co-parenting and co-grandparenting.  We still are to this day, and we stayed married in large part to give me more legal rights with Darien if it was ever necessary for me to take care of him again.

In January 2015, his mother was unwilling to go to rehab and lost custody of her kids - and Darien lived for awhile on Pendalton with his stepfather and brothers.  (His stepfather eventually got a divorce and got out of the Marines - moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado with the two younger boys in the fall of 2015.)   Darien started living with his father in the Spring of 2015.  His father had been in the army in Afghanistan and Alaska, and he and Darien had not lived together since April of 2006.  I was getting to spend time with him twice a week - picking him up on his short day, Wednesday, and after school on Friday when he would spend the night with me.

His father was seemingly doing a great job with Darien until late in 2016 when some warning signals started showing up.  When it became obvious that his Dad had relapsed and that the situation was deteriorating I picked Darien up on April 11th during his Easter Break to take him with Cambria with  me.  When we came back his father agreed to let me take him - and we picked up his books and school clothes and he has been living with me ever since.  His father subsequently signed guardianship papers giving Susan and I custody of Darien.

I was focused then on getting him through the school year.  He was going to a school that was on Camp Pendalton, so I was making the half hour to 45 minute drive in heavy traffic every morning and afternoon to get him and pick him up from school.  He finished the school year with much improvement with his grades which had plummeted when he was going through a difficult time at home.

He will be entering the 7th grade next year - talk about a difficult time in a kids life.  He was wanting to go to a different school anyway, because he was tired of his friends moving away all the time as they do when their parents are in the service.  He and his Dad were focused on moving to Fallbrook where I live before the problems arose in their situation.

Susan and I have been discussing for the last few months whether Darien would keep living with me or would go up north to where she is living now.  Neither one of us is in position where it would be financially easy.  We have decided that because of the superior schools it would be best for him to start junior high up on the Central Coast - but that financially probably the best bet is for us to stay where I am living now.

The situation was complicated somewhat by the fact that my son Abe moved back to New Mexico at the end of May.  He has a physical disability and needs hip replacement surgery, which was proving very hard to get organized here in California - so he moved back there because it seems more probable that he will get what he needs sooner.  He was contributing towards the rent while he was here however - so that makes things a little tougher.

My birthday is on the 23rd, and Darien and I are going to take a trip to Cambria and Morro Bay for my birthday.  We will look at apartments while we are up there - and see how things will unfold.  

There is something I say to people in my phone counseling and in my workshops that I don't know if I have ever written about in quite the same way.  I talk about how I learned that the way the Universe works is that “More Will Be Revealed - on a need to know basis”, and it is not my idea of when I need to know.  My ego always wants to know NOW!  Often, the Universe / My Higher Power's idea of when I need to know, feels to me like “the last f------ second!”

So, school starts here in Fallbrook on August 14th - and in the Morro Bay school on August 21st.   If the Universe wants me back on the Central Coast at this time, then it will be made apparent by how things work out in the next two weeks.  More will be revealed at what undoubtedly will feel like the last second! - RB 7/12/17

I posted this a few weeks ago:
**For the first time in quite awhile, I am having to work the third step by asking for help.  I posted the following in part on that page in May: 
"5/20/17 - On April 11th I rescued my grandson Darien from an environment that had deteriorated to being one that I could no longer allow him to be subjected to.  So, I now have custody of him full time, and among other things that involves getting up at 5:30 am and getting him up at 6:30 am to take him 20 miles to his school in heavy traffic.  The extra expenses for gas and food and such have put a real strain on my finances - and this week my son Abraham is leaving to go back to live in New Mexico, which means losing a sum of money that he was contributing towards my rent and expenses.  Thus finances are especially tight right now - and I could use some help.  I am very glad to have him living with me.  As I say on my page that is dedicated to him, I believe we had a soul contract to be in each others life this lifetime and that "I can see clearly now that Darien is the first human being - since my parents when I was an infant - that I have ever opened up my heart to completely."  So, it is perfect that he is back in my care."  So, I needed to put a message out into the Universe that I need some help.**