Not quite in midseason form...yet

[MadeToSucceed]

Yesterday I got quite a bit of stuff done during the day in the way of GAL'ing before class.

I received information on my assignment for the college football game I'll be working this Saturday. Really excited about that opportunity this weekend. And on top of that, I'll drive to Houston on Saturday night to meet up with my brother and 4 of my friends for the Texans/Steelers game on Sunday. I scheduled a face to face meeting with a potential employer (that came about from my networking a few weeks back). That meeting will take place on my anniversary next Monday so that'll be a good distraction. I contacted someone for info about potential mission work. I even took some pants to be altered. I'm down 40 pounds since April so rather than go out and buy a whole new wardrobe, I figured I could start trying to make the stuff work that I have now.

Random question here: how many of you still wear your wedding rings? I only ask because I still do but sometimes feel foolish for doing so. I see it is that my W and I are still married so not wearing it is pretending that we aren't. It does feel kind of awkward though...I once went out to eat lunch with a female friend and just felt weird for being somewhere with another woman that wasn't my W...even though we were just eating in broad daylight. As if eyes were on me and my wedding ring and my friend without hers. Does anyone else ever struggle with this? I know it "shouldn't matter" what others think but its a human emotion for me and one I'm working on getting past.

I sometimes even will find myself putting my hand in my pocket because I feel some shame in the fact that my M has "failed" when I'm around other M people. Oddly enough, I recall the last time I saw my W face to face...she continually glanced at my ring on my finger. Her eyes darted back and forth to it. That was over a month ago and that conversation didn't turn out well because of all my pursuing behavior at the time but I still think about that observation. I assume for the WAS a wedding ring is like poison at this point. It's still odd that for the longest my W actually traveled with her rings in her purse. I'm just conflicted on it sometimes. I end up feeling guilty for stuff I know I shouldn't.

This all dawned on me when I was walking across the parking lot yesterday from washing clothes at my complex and a woman who my W used to train with and her mother pulled up to the leasing office. They were one of the first people we ran in to the day after I proposed. My W and her had a falling out of sorts a while back and we were never really close before or after that but it just was an awkward moment. It was as if we both were trying to figure out if the other person was who we thought but we didn't want to stop to ask. I found myself looking back when I walked through the gate to see if it was her and sure enough, she and her mother were still sitting in the car looking at me too. Pretty sure it was her. At any rate...that's when the wedding ring question kind of dawned on me...I guess since I don't know what the woman and her mother know (although I'm sure she's caught wind of the talk) it just made me feel somewhat uncomfortable.

And to top it off, a classmate of mine came up to me last night to tell me the following: "I was telling my friend about you and how you played football in college and all he could talk about is how good of an athlete your W is!" I kind of laughed it off. It really didn't make me feel any kind of way except on the end of the wedding ring thing again. Am I delaying my detachment/not "moving on" by still wearing it and/or showing my W a person who is still "clinging" if she sees me with it on or sees it on my finger in a picture or something?