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#Post#: 9301--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: Zyngaru Date: October 11, 2018, 8:03 am
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[quote author=Jack link=topic=53.msg9299#msg9299
date=1539248263]
Really not much going on with him, but he seems to be doing well
and be happy. He has promised to help out here on Halloween
this year, so I'll have to make sure he's off that night.
[/quote]
It's good when you get volunteers, so need to make sure he is
available. Someone else might want that night off, for a party
or something, but hey? They will just have to suck it up and
work, so Garrett is available to help you.
#Post#: 9308--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: Jack Date: October 11, 2018, 3:21 pm
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[quote author=Zyngaru link=topic=53.msg9301#msg9301
date=1539263015]
[quote author=Jack link=topic=53.msg9299#msg9299
date=1539248263]
Really not much going on with him, but he seems to be doing well
and be happy. He has promised to help out here on Halloween
this year, so I'll have to make sure he's off that night.
[/quote]
It's good when you get volunteers, so need to make sure he is
available. Someone else might want that night off, for a party
or something, but hey? They will just have to suck it up and
work, so Garrett is available to help you.
[/quote]
Halloween is on a Wednesday this year, so I doubt there will be
many parties to conflict with trick or treating. Now, when
Halloween is on an actually weekend night, it might be a
different question. Besides, when he's 'helping me', he gets to
dress up, wonder around the graveyard into which my front yard
is transformed, and help scare trick or treaters. That's worth
a party or two!
#Post#: 11069--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: Jack Date: January 10, 2019, 5:04 pm
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I wanted to start my updates here.
Garrett is doing very good right now.
As you might know from reading previous posts, Garrett is pretty
much completely estranged from his biological family (mother and
older brother, who's in prison). He has a lot of issues to
deal with, but he's building friendships with a lot of the folk
from work and with a lot of my kids. While he seems to be
nervous about a few guys, those who are bigger and/or older than
him (like Noah or Huck), he's good with a lot of the guys.
He spent a lot of the holidays with us. While he didn't come
Christmas morning, he did hang out Christmas afternoon, and he
came to the tribal party, Christmas Eve, and Cousins Night. He
had a small tree and some decorations in his apartment, and I
know he had a few gifts to open Christmas morning. I happen to
know that he got a comic he'd really been wanting, some fudge,
and some caramel corn, so he probably had a fun, but sticky
Christmas morning before he did come over.
Garrett has pretty much agreed to start working on an associates
degree next fall. He's decided that an associates in computer
science would give him something solid on it's own, but also
prepare him for something more specialized, if he wants. The
basics of an associate degree also mean he can change his mind
after a year without too many lost classes.
Other than that, there's really not a lot going on. He's doing
great at work. He's come way out of his shell, though he still
likes spending time by himself. He has a pretty good schedule,
and it seems to work for him, so he's spending time by himself,
working, spending time with his friends, and spending 'family
time' here.
#Post#: 15027--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: Jack Date: September 15, 2019, 9:14 am
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Didn't realize how long it had been since I updated this!
Garrett is doing well. New comics day last week wasn't very
big, so I had him ride along with me on the secondary
deliveries, and we had lunch together (I was dying for onion
rings, so we ate at Whataburger, instead of the deli, which is
our regular stop).
He has gone back to college. Since he's not that interested in
a night life, he's taking evening courses this semester. I told
him I need workers all the time, so I'm happy to work around his
school schedule, but he seems happy with this so far.
He's still seeing a therapist, and he seems to be a lot more
stable/less jumpy than he was for a while.
there's really not much more to say about him specifically. I
just mentioned in chat that he and I had had lunch, and it was
pointed out how long since I'd really said anything about him,
so....
#Post#: 15037--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: Leti Date: September 15, 2019, 5:57 pm
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Great to hear about Garret. I am glad that he is doing good.
Hugs
Leti
#Post#: 15044--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: kalico Date: September 16, 2019, 8:59 am
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I’m happy he’s doing good and everything seems to be going good
for him....
Thanks for sharing jack
Hugs kal
#Post#: 30384--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: Jack Date: February 20, 2025, 10:43 pm
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I wasn't sure what to do with this, but I felt it would be
better to keep all the information together.
To start, Garret was born 10/22/96, and he's now 28 years old -
nearly 7 1/2 years since I first re-met him.
Garret started work on his associates degree in the fall of
2019. You can already see how things are going.
Garret had a plan to take four years to get his degree, while
working full-time. He did finish his first year, but took a
semester off. He finally completed it last year.
There were a lot of changes in Magicat while I wasn't doing much
updating (and some of those changes are more reasons I was
dealing with so much emotional baggage). i don't know where
else to share this so - I've known Herman since 1992, and Tim
since 1993. They two of them were married for nearly ten years
when they divorced. Tim left town after the divorce, and Herman
didn't stay much longer, so I was down two managers. Garret was
not ready to be a manager, but he did become the floating
assistant manager, who really keeps things running (I'm pretty
sure that happened in late 2021, when I had to start doing a lot
more work in the stores for a while). In the meantime, Andrew,
who had handled all my computer stuff for years, started working
for himself. While he's still available to me for emergencies
and upgrades, he wasn't interested in working day to day
anymore. That's what Garret is doing now - overseeing all our
web stuff, then filling in as an assistant manager if needed.
It's been more than five years since I updated this, and - like
so much other stuff I've missed - there's no way I can even
remember it all, much less detail it, so...
1) In 2020, the stores were mostly closed (we did weekly comics
as a curbside service for the most part), but our mail order was
going super strong. Garrett was doing great there, but I could
tell there was something bothering him, and I made him take me
home. He'd always been fairly clean and well organized, but his
apartment was a mess this time. Remembering what I'd been told,
I tried to talk calmly with him, while I would have just chewed
out most people. Even from that, he broke down. it was
frustrating, because he switched back and forth between needing
to be hugged and refusing to let me do it.
Eventually, Garret started confessing to me, and it felt like he
was a lapsed Catholic going to confession for the first time in
years. I was overwhelmed, but he just seemed to need me to
listen. Finally, he asked if I was going to spank him. That
was a LONG conversation, but we finally agreed it was what he
needed. He'd been around enough to know the basics of how I did
it, and that's what he expected. He allowed me to undress him,
then I put him over my lap. It was 'only' a hand spanking, but
he was bawling like an 8-year old getting a long, hard paddling
with a big Lexan.
I guess he needed the relief.
2) After that spanking, Garret and I slept together... and I do
mean slept - not a euphemism for s e x. We have continued that
for years on an intermittent basis.
3) Garret did finally start dating. He's had two boyfriends and
a girlfriend, with whom he had s e x (separately) (and safely).
He never could sleep with any of them, which I think is why
things didn't work out.
4) Garret currently lives in the garage apartment. He could
afford his own place, but we're both happy to have him close,
he's happy to watch the kids when something's going on, and it
lets him save money for a major purchase (he just finished
paying off his first car a few months ago - he's now saving to
get a new one).
5) Garret and I had a bit of trouble when he first moved in
here, because it's his own apartment and separate from our
house, but he's still part of our household, still eats with us
and hangs out with us on a regular basis, and his actions often
effect us. He and I finally sat down and came up with a list of
rules. Since then, I've spanked him three times. Each time was
for a rule violation. I don't think he's a spanko, and I don't
think he does it on purpose, but he hasn't been interested in
changing things (or moving on his own again), so I guess it
gives him something he needs (maybe just the catharsis - he
still has problems expressing his emotions to most people).
6) He and Zeke have become close friends, and I've tried a
couple of times to get the two of them to share an apartment. I
think Zeke would be happy with that, but Garret seems to be
happy where he is for now.
#Post#: 30393--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: Zyngaru Date: February 22, 2025, 5:38 pm
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It sounds like Garrett has minor security issues. He can live
on his own, but he feels more secure living where he knows
someone else is actually making the big decisions, so he doesn't
have to. I think this might be evidenced by him breaking a rule
every now and again. He slips up on the boundaries, but he knows
you are there to catch him when it happens.
#Post#: 30404--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: Jack Date: February 23, 2025, 1:05 am
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One thing that I've noticed over and over again is that people
who have had a bad childhood, especially when they were forced
to grow up to fast, do best when they have a place where they
can kind of get a do over on parts of it.
I'm planning on making a post about my own mental health issues,
if I can open up enough, but I've realized that I've been
mourning the life I might have lived if just one or two little
things had been different or happened decently. With Garret, I
think he's come to trust me enough that he can allow himself to
be vulnerable when I'm there to protect him.
And yes, my armchair is a licensed therapist. Why do you ask?
#Post#: 30421--------------------------------------------------
Re: Garret Riley
By: Zyngaru Date: February 23, 2025, 4:27 pm
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[quote author=Jack link=topic=53.msg30404#msg30404
date=1740294322]
...but I've realized that I've been mourning the life I might
have lived if just one or two little things had been different
or happened decently.
[/quote]
I call it regret. Things I would have loved to have experienced
as a boy but because of my life, I couldn't experience those
things. In my case was that I had to grow up fast almost from
the time I was born. By the time I was three, I was the man of
the house. So, the things others remember so fondly from their
childhoods, I never experienced.
So, Jack it is like morning the loss of our childhood. There is
this huge hole in our life. I tried to fill that hole with
youth ministry work. You tried to fill that hole with raising
boys. There is temporary relief as we live sort of vicariously
through the kids in our lives, but it still doesn't fill the
hole.
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