Hope you had a nice trip! I've never heard of "yarn shopping" before but hey, why not
The road trip overall was great! It was good to just have plans and to not be at home. "Yarn Shopping" was success. If you want high end Peruvian alpaca to make a garment that will last a lifetime you have to get to specialty stores. I bought enough yarn to make 2 sweaters - 1 for winter and a lighter one with linen for summer.
Spent some time actually knitting - currently doing a heavily cabled thigh high socks for someone and its been a challenge but they are gorgeous!
Really sat with a lot of my feelings. Started accepting that while H shows being nice/kinder which makes my brain thinks there a chance, UGH, but really there have been zero moves to show any vacillation from his current path.
As I sat with my feelings I realized that I would not be very forgiving if H blew off S18's party. H knows how unreliable his father has been over the years and H ultimately had more influence over him than anything. H doesn't want to go because he feels it would be awkward, but seeing how his own mother and nephews will be there and possibly his son and gf I think there would be lots of opportunity to avoid my family and still stay for at least 30-40mn.
BUT, its completely 100% up to him. I will not ask again. I will not apply any pressure but I'm certain I would be done with him. Its one thing to hurt me but its completely another to hurt S18. This is a once in a lifetime celebration achievement that even if H came back I would be resentful and would have trouble making peace that he did not attend. (By being done with him... I would walk but still would do nothing to help him with HIS D.)
I also sat and reflected on the fact that I had ignored his Bday but 6 days later he wished me Happy Bday in a text. He also made sure to text S18 that the next day was Mother's Day and on Mother's Day he simply texted Happy Mother's Day ( I did not reply.) If I'm so willing to mentally draw a line in the sand over H not coming to party to be the end all, then I should really mirror his efforts (but nothing MORE.)
I texted "Happy Father's Day" @9:30pm at night. - I put the phone on the nightstand and rolled over to go to sleep.
I only texted because I was 100% certain I knew how he would respond. I knew he would immediately respond with - thank you. I knew that there would be nothing more. He knew I was out of town all weekend and I knew he would not ask a single question - such as how was your weekend, etc. Because i knew this to be how it would go down and I accepted it meant nothing more than social niceties I texted. I was tempted to send this old funny 3sec video of all the kids, BUT I did not because that would not be mirroring his effort but instead doing more.
2min later my phone dinged for a text message. I 100% knew it was H and as I said I already knew what it would say. I never bothered to roll over to pick up the phone. It just really didn't matter to me what the text said period. I went to sleep.
I didn't even bother to look at the phone until I was already up for awhile and getting ready to head out the door. Yup, text from H saying "thank you". Shoulder shrug and out the door.
I was pretty ambivalent to all of this. I completely understand now that H reaching out with Happy Birthday/Mother's Day AND his response to Happy Father's Day ALL come from a place of compassion AND not a place of attraction. And only when things come from a place of attraction do they mean anything. I accept this and for that reason don't feel that this set me back at all. I am continuing radio silence unless something important warrants it.
Other than that I'm planning my next trip in September which needs to have a PLAN A and a PLAN B because up in the air if the ports will even be open at that time.
