/journaling while at RE Congress, taking a break between sessions
Will be going by Adoration and Confession in a little bit, and then the ‘Contemplative Dating’ workshop as my last workshop of the day today.
It’s really great to be with FF, even if it’s only for the weekend. She’s a help around the place, asking what needs to be done, offering to help cook, and is great with the boys, and even when we parked this morning, she took a pic of where we parked (I did that yesterday, and again today—I explained to her that that’s what I do so I remember where I parked). I’m also doing my best to help her—I’ve been walking / guiding her around to her sessions—it’s difficult to get through sometimes even on good days. She told me she really appreciated my doing that for her—I’ve been there, trying to make it on my own at stuff like this, and I always tried to be very receptive and grateful for the help, so I’m trying to pay it forward.
Like I mentioned earlier, it’s really nice to be with a woman around my age with whom I can have mature conversations. I’m also reminded of deep her spirituality is, which is refreshing. FF still doesn’t know anything about my sitch, but one thing she has brought up a few times during spending time with her is that she has experience doing annulments (she was trained to do annulments for a previous parish position). /gulp It’s gonna be rough telling her about my sitch when I do.
I know yesterday I talked about the potential of asking W about Retrouvaille—and I’ll admit, I’m not sure how good of an idea it is. That is something I will continue to take to continued prayer / reflection / thought. One thing one of the H’s at the Retrouvaille booth asked me yesterday was: “You two still in the same house?” Me: Yes. He then asked what living arrangements will look like once the D goes through. I’ve given it some thought; I’m not sure if she has.
But then, she may also have a plan that I don’t know about. One thing I’ll have to watch in the next few days is our joint bank account—today is her pay day, and I noticed her payroll hasn’t hit yet. To be fair, some days it appears later—it takes a few hours on a Saturday, or it may even show up on Sunday or later. What is most likely, and what I’m concerned about, is that she has cut me off financially, and diverted her direct-deposit paycheck to another account. If she does, then I will have to be the responsible party for the rent, and I’ll have to keep track of it and have her half of it into the D judgment (she still lives under the roof with us). I’ll have to check with L on this one, but probably after I see how this weekend shakes out. Good thing I’ll be on Spring Break, so I can get cracking on stuff like that.
There is a book here at one of the vendors about Pope Francis and annulments, and I’ll have to take a look at it. I forgot to mention this, but last week at the library book sale, I picked up a book about meditations for singles. Talks about being single in a couples’ world.
That said, I’m going to talk out of both sides of my mouth, and it is also nice to see around me all sorts of lovely-looking women. I know I still have miles to go in my sitch, and who knows what will happen next, but there is at least a flicker of hope, in general. If this makes me sound like a WAS on my own, then so be it.
