Squinting at the morning sun

[ciluzen]

Shoot, I hit submit. Well, I wanted to update on the XH thing.

So, I had yet another wedding to attend yesterday. This was my D26's best friend since sixth grade. My "other daughter". I'm close to her family and friends and a lot of my former soccer girls were to be there. I taught a pleinaire painting class right before at a local park (20 people showed up!) and had to change surfer-style by my car into wedding clothes. The wedding was over an hour away, north of my former home, but at the home of my D26's other besty...a log cabin by a creek surrounded by cedar and fir trees.

I met D25 and her boyfriend at a McDonalds on the way so they could follow, even though we'd been there a hundred times. Got there just as XH and another man were walking back to his car. The only space for me was right next to his car, lol. I actually got out shaking my head, saying "We always seem to end up parking right next to each other!". I was immediately surrounded by a bearhug from the other guy...my ex-bro in-law. I hadn't seen him since my D26's wedding two years ago. Surprise...a pleasant one, though. I had brought a couple of XH's things I found in my boxes as I unpacked, so I handed those off to him politely, then started walking with BIL and catching up, greeting people I knew along the way. My family sat together except for D26, who was a bridesmaid. Beautiful ceremony. We all managed to sit at the same table for the reception, BIL next to me so we could catch up, XH across the table. Its funny, people kept coming up to me to talk and hug...I felt so much love there in this very familiar setting, naturally beatiful but enhanced by the subtle wedding decor. I excused myself to seek out certain people and sit with them for a bit. We got up to get food and XH kept trying to stand by me...not always successful. He finally said, "Everyone knows you here...I don't really recognize many." I explained that I spent a lot of time with my kids and their friends, their parents and families, and still kept up with some of them. He said, "I was fixing teeth." I told him "Yes, and you are very good at it and very busy. This is what I did, though." He had an interesting, eye-opened look to him most of the time, and never left our table except to get food or drink. He brought me things each time.

At one point a young man came over to say hi, very excited to see us and said, "I heard you guys sold the house?!" XH got all awkward and quickly glanced at me as we said "yep!". Then the guy asked where we had moved to, and XH again got awkward and said, "We're in town now" which moved into small talk about living in town versus country. Funny, I have no problem telling people we're not together now. I thought he was over it. I guess it was a happy occassion not warranting openness about a downer topic, but to me perpetuating the idea that we just sold the house to move together into town seemed dishonest.And if he'd heard we sold the house, I'm sure his source (maid of honor) told him why. The kid did say he missed my cooking and our big barbecues...I agreed I fed him a lot, lol.

I gave BIL a huge hug as they were leaving,and a sincere invitation to stay at his place when in town visiting. He went through a terrible divorce (wife's affair) and two very bad breakups with long term girlfriends who also cheated on him. He went through major depression with all of them. He told me he was very concerned about me, but that I seemed to be thriving.I didn't disagree...I am. XH stepped in to give me a big hug, too. Well, ok...I'll take it. I looked darn good and received a lot of compliments, but once again, none from XH.

So that's it. No more weddings or moves or appointments with mother...no more ties to XH. I'm almost done getting things from our storage locker. Then I can see how much rope dropping will actually happen.