On Higher Ground

[HaWho]

Bttrfly - no, h wanted to be the one in 3rd grade watching Scooby-Doo.

Job - yes, I am sure he does have many secrets. In his hazy fog days he told me just what he wanted to do. I wonder how far he took things.

Cali - Thanks for those reassuring words. They mean a lot.

Gordie and Ownit - I appreciate the kind words.

Roist - thanks for the check-in.

Well, family is here and they stay for 2 more days. How is h handling it? Well, 95% of the time he seems to work pretty hard to be by himself.

Day 2 of their arrival, the guests asked where h was. He was in the dorm room (of course). I played dumb: hmm, not sure where he is. Day 3 was the same scenario. Guests ask where is h? I look confused and play dumb. By day 4 they no longer ask. I have no idea if they put together that he sleeps downstairs as they go to bed super early.

My niece also visited. And for most of that portion h also was in the dorm room. She did not ask about it. Maybe with all the commotion she did not notice?

The good news is more paranoia has not bubbled up and h did ask how he can help. He took over some tasks with the kids that allowed me to focus more on the guests.

The bad news is he is not a host at all and that is super weird. The guests are doing x and need help and h just sits and watches TV (a few times he was in the livingroom watching). H seems to be in his own little world.

Once though he did mimic hosting. I made a new tea for my cousin's wife and told her to tell me if she disliked it so I could make her a different one. A few minutes later I heard h ask if she liked the tea and should he make her a different one.

He seems to work hard to be out of the home, too. He reminds me of a kid who just got his license and is always willing to run errands. He must be desperate to be out of here because tonight he even took s13 to buy new shoes. Hah!

Between finding excuses to get and being in that dorm room, he has had minimal interaction with family. It's sad as he has missed a lot.

He did play a bit with my cousin's little girl and he really came alive during that.

Unfortunately, he most came alive when we were all out and ran into his MLC bestie. This is the Viagra popping guy h started hanging with all the time. When h saw him he made a bee line to the guy and h sure seemed like a different person: animated, laughing, etc. Of course when he is with us he looks like he is a pallbearer in a funeral.

I went over to my nice and talked to her for a bit. We walked and thank goodness for sunglasses because a few traffic roll down my face. Remnember h wrote me a letter that intimated that he realized this guy was gross and he said he no longer associated with him. Clearly that was a lie as he was practically chest bumping when they ran into each other.

H looked over at me at some point when he was talking to loser friend. And his body language changed. The guy is a trigger for me, reminding me off the hardcore replay days.

The sadness hit me like a wall. I know h wants this guy's single, responsibility free life. And that really hurts.

Yesterday we were all in the dining room and my cousin saw our wedding photo and asked me how long we'd been married. I answered and I felt h's eyes on me. I answered matter-of-factly and gave nothing more. It was probably awkward because I was detached in my response--I gave no cute story of detail. But actually, I didn't feel uncomfortable. It just felt like a fact, nothing more.

There was one off moment where my niece saw h's MLC car. She joked she wanted to borrow it unless h was going on a midnight joy ride. H got visibly sullen and said no he wasn't. It was hard to tell if he was sad those days have passed or if he was worried niece knew about the replay days. I couldn't tell.