Journaling has been a helpful mental health tool for me since I was a teenager: over the years, I’ve filled multiple notebooks; I regret in a fit of pique I burned a stack of my old ones after H1 read a few & gave me shit about it (actually used that sensitive info as a blunt-force weapon during our ongoing marital wars - he even stole a volume during our divorce & tried to present it is “evidence” that I was an unfit mother! Fortunately the judge wouldn’t allow that “evidence” to be admitted)
I’ve got a separate blog chronicling those last couple of years of the Custody War & Zach’s tumultuous young adulthood; at some point I’ve contemplated having it printed out as I have done several other volumes of my “work”, ha ha! and gifting it to Zach… I just haven’t figured out the appropriate age? 21 was too young; at 25 he was just getting settled into grown-up life with Victoria (not to mention striving for the finish line of college) - maybe age 30?? And would it be considered a poison-pen gift? I don’t want to cause him additional trauma, above all. But as he asks questions about his father & my’s relationship, as well as my current views as he & Victoria try to navigate forging a marriage - perhaps reading my “Reports from Ground Zero” would be most helpful? It’ll certainly be something to read during his travels!
No relationship is perfect; everyone makes compromises (duh!) - I called my “childhood boyfriend” to catch up last weekend (we never actually dated, much to my chagrin! since he is 4 yrs older than me - my godmother‘s next-to-youngest son; we were big playmates when we were young) We spoke for an hour & a half on the phone, a “mental health break” for me as anxiety has been gnawing away. His younger brother (3 months younger than me, yikes!) is suffering from early-onset dementia & a big challenge there will be convincing his wife to seek appropriate care for him in their isolated location in SW Texas… As always, “it’s complicated” as I need to fill in a lot of backstory to make it all makes sense!
(Warning: long superfluous backstory here, so you may want to skip to next paragraph!)
My godparents, being good, observant Catholics, had six children. My godmother & Mom were BFFs since junior high - both got married shortly after HS graduation, but JoPat got quite the head start - having 5 kids before my mom managed to retain her pregnancy with me! I am 3 months older than Paul, but it took me a while to catch up, being a premature infant & all, so my mom delighted in taking out her “twins”, much to my godmother’s chagrin!
Everyone thought Paul & I would end up together, but I guess we had too much familial closeness during our upbringing - Eeew! It would’ve been like kissing your brother for real! I had my romantic sights set on Paul’s older brother Chris, but with our 4-yr age gap, by the time I joined him in high school, Chris already had a girlfriend - alas! The years passed, Chris married Paula, I married Michael & of course we diverged in our own lives’ directions, touching base briefly at such family events as other weddings, our parents’ 50th anniversaries, then the steady progression of funerals. I can’t help but imagine one of these “paths not taken”…
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