Maybell 40

[Maybell]

Well, Vanilla... I really don't want to feel like that anymore.

I've been feeling a lot of heaviness on my heart and I can't quite pin down what it's from. I'm sad. Maybe the thing with Mr. Fantastic and my D13 over the weekend hurt me more than I'm willing to admit.

And My Guy was telling me more about his ex. It blows my mind. If I'd had the marriage they had I'd still be married. (I think). They did so many wonderful things together and they still spend time together. Which grates on me but everyone says how much that says about his character so I'm trying to get my heart around it.

I can't think of a single untainted memory of Mr. Fantastic. Every single thing that I thought was a happy moment is now poisoned with how the story turned out, and little things that seemed like "just how he was" at the time are now huge and sinister red flags in my memory. It makes it hard to relax with My Guy -- I feel like I'm constantly watching for red flags.

I lost an uncle in the spring. A great uncle about ten days ago. A third uncle is terminally ill and not expected to live past the holidays. I feel sad and alone. My FOO is scattered and no support to me, the family I made with Mr. Fantastic is broken, whatever it is I'm building with My Guy isn't well enough defined for me to be willing to lean too hard on him.

My Guy wants me to travel with him over the Thanksgiving holiday and I don't have the kids so I'm willing to. My parents want me to travel to the Midwest to say goodbye to the terminally ill uncle and participate in my mom's extended family's holiday celebrations. My parents spoke so rudely of this uncle my whole life, calling him names behind his back and criticizing how he acted, choices he made, whatever. Now suddenly he's dying and they're going to tell me how I should go and weep by his bedside. On my own account, I am sorry, He's WAY too young to be dying, and while it's true that he didn't always make awesome choices, it's also true that he did no worse than anyone else would have in his situation, and I can't see that he did any particular harm in his life. He leaves behind a very, very close knit family... Which is more, I think, than my parents can say. One of his daughters had a baby when she was seventeen, and that baby has grown up to be a 22 year old special education teacher, and my cousin is still married to the baby's father. Something went right there. Things went wrong, too with the other daughter, but just the same...

I'm rambling. This post was supposed to be about forgiveness.

Here's what I want, Vanilla. I can't go total NC with Mr. Fantastic, we have three kids together. I'm going to have to figure out how to heal myself without that tool. But I can't keep letting myself get twisted in knots on his account. He's so far beneath my energy. I have much bigger fish to fry. I need my energy and my strength for the things that are worth it.

I think I do need to start thinking about forgiving my parents for being who they are. They hurt my heart. But I can't live in anger with them either. I don't know the first step so the cd's Betsey suggested are probably what I should do. I don't want to live with all this heaviness and fear any more. I would rather bequeath some other legacy to my kids.