blast from the past

This morning I enjoyed a seriously delicious brunch to celebrate Jill's birthday, no pictures, but smashed avocado on toast with egg, tomato, red onion and feta - and also splitting the Michigan pancakes, super fluffy with dried cherries and walnuts. August was mostly pretty good and we ladies got to sit and eat and chat. Wonderful!

Afterwards I took August for a quick stop into Trader Joes. While I was there perusing the freshly made sandwiches I saw my ex-sister-in-law, Andrew's sister. And she saw me. She came over saying "it doesn't have to be weird" as she gave me a hug. And I felt like saying, I didn't think it was weird. But maybe it's just a thing you say. She was there with a couple of her kids, and they we're like "who's that?" and she said "someone I knew a long time ago", which was odd, but it would've also been odd to say "your ex-aunt". I don't know. Maybe she told them in the car or something later, but it just felt odd. Like my past just didn't exist at all. So just a short and sweet chitchat. She knew August's name so that was kind of a surprise, must have been from Facebook (which I can never understand anymore why I see the same 10 people only?!?). But anyway. I just left feeling kind of odd. And here I am writing trying to figure out my feelings.

I called Doug as I was driving home to talk about it too. I remember as Andrew was filing for divorce I felt like she "unfriended" me at the time, which really hurt me- I didn't feel like I did anything wrong! But when I checked, we are facebook friends still, so did that not even happen?? I don't know. I just remember feeling not only abandoned by Andrew, but also his family as well. Although now I just feel like they probably didn't know what to do about anything either. One other thing bugging me is it seems weird to me that I didn't ask about Andrew. But I also thought it would've seemed weird to ask about him too! I don't know. Can't win. It's been 6 years. All I know is that he moved to a new state. Is he re-married? Is he happy? I don't know, and like I was saying with Doug, I don't really need to know- it's just a strange feeling. I still feel like I never did get a ton of closure, but in the end I guess all it takes is someone saying they don't want to be married to you. Period. You can't fight that.

So who knows. I used to think about him a lot and pray for him, now I almost never do. And when I think about it I just think about how good God has been to me. I remember feeling like I might never be married again, or I lost the chance to be a mother. But God has been so generous and good to me. So, despite all the tears and the hardship that it was, I'm thankful to be here on the other side.