Today I’m grateful for feeling…

grief that Ludvig’s wife didn’t respond to me when I told her months ago that I’d be in-state. It’s hard being in the same place and not seeing her, two years ago I would have thought that inconceivable. I used to spend CHRISTMAS with them, how am I up here now and unwanted? It really hits on my abandonment complex. I know it isn’t personal and people shift in and out of our lives. And if I’m honest with myself, I haven’t wanted a relationship with her for a while. The more I work on myself, the more tense it would get between us as I put up boundaries. I guess it’s the pain of losing the assumption that this family would always be my family. A reminder that my foster families are just that: unbound by the cement that blood seems to have. Then again, I’ve distanced myself from my blood family too. So maybe I should just work on appreciating the relationships I do have while I have them. 

Rushed and woken too early this morning to get to the next thing on time. I was snapping at Cubu, who was just waking up and moving at a reasonable speed on his vacation. I felt overbearing and in a tight spot that I didn’t know how to get out of, stuck between an important schedule and respecting Cubu’s time and vacation-mode.

Disappointed that Eliza holds me at such a distance, even though I expected it. The difference in her body language/our conversation quality between the last time I saw her in person and now is deflating. I don’t know if I wish for things to be as they were or if I’m just sad at the juxtaposition compared to now. We had a complicated history of being unrequited lovers before I moved. Her being Christian and therefore not allowed to be gay kept us from pursuing anything and I hated feeling like I was influencing her towards eternal damnation. I got this weird feeling from her today that gave me this gut intuition that she’s confessed this to someone, which might account for the extra distance she seems to be holding space for. I would ask but in the past year, any attempt on my part to emotionally connect or find answers has been met with polite deference. 

Guilty for Cubu just having to hang around for most of the day. The Brazilians and I would talk about people and things he has no context for, and there were kids screaming and shouting all over the house. He took it like a real champ, not even seeming to mind it much because he wanted me to have that time. I just wished I could incorporate him more, there just wasn’t a lot of common ground between them and him and small talk can only go on for so long. For most of the day it was him surrounded by five grown women and eight playing girls below the age of eight. I know the guilt is a codependent reaction now, I just don’t know what to do with that feeling yet. I’m trying to not make it my problem. He is his own person and could have chosen to do something else?

Resentful of Eliza’s father purely for his status as the recognized Patriarch of their family and for feeling like I need to give him the same level of deference that his daughters and wife do. I don’t like his body language and conversational assumptions that show his power, that he’s had it for a long time and takes it as an assumption. It rubbed me the wrong way in a big way. I’m just beginning to uncover my issues with authority, so I don’t know how much this ties into it. But it was a real struggle to be neutral with him, not deferring but also not being obstinate. To treat him as an equal because in my world, he is. Maybe I resent that my friend allows herself to be submissive when I can see how powerful she would be if she’d take a leap of her own. BUT that submission is what gains her access to her rich and supportive church community. So who am I, community-less that I am, to judge. 

Feelin’ good…

• Cubu and I went on an adventure with Eliza’s family, as is typical with her group. Her sister has a knack for finding hidden nature gems that have possibly been untouched by other humans, even in the middle of a city. This time it was a swimming pool that you find by following a deer trail then doubling back at a fork in the river. I felt so at home with them, with the kids, out in nature doing another adventure. Like no time had passed. I’m grateful to have met Eliza’s sister, who has a really inspiring explorer’s spirit.
• we went to this crystal clear spring that’s a favorite of mine up there. The water is a frigid 47° year-round and an absolute delight in summer. You pick a hot day, jump from the dock and swim maybe 25 yards to the dam. When you get out huffing, dripping ice, that bright summer sun drapes over you like a cloak and you’ve never felt more alive. Eliza and I are both huge fans of this, and we warm up in communal silence, reverent at the wonders of how nature can make you feel. I’m grateful to have been shown this place, that it is preserved, and that I had the ability to visit again.