midnight on a sunday
A handful of thoughts from around midnight on a Sunday:
Heading to the suburbs to see my mom (i.e. we did Mother's Day with her today) feels like an ass-ache until I'm there and then it feels like what it is: precious time spent with someone precious. Family is easy to take for granted, but when they're gone they're gone. That said, my mom is in good health and, tbh, doesn't seem like someone who will ever... not be alive.
In June, a bunch of my family will be getting together to celebrate my mom's 80th. It will be the first time all four siblings will be in the same room at the same time in a very, very long time. It will be weird and could be explosive. I haven't talked to one of my brothers (on purpose) since 2019 (valid reasons, not something stupid), so I'm sure everyone is taking bets whether or not we'll get into it, but I suspect it'll be fine. We'll pretend if we have to, because that weekend is for our mom, not for squabbling. (That will come after that weekend.)
Seeing friends you don't see very often can feel awkward in that oh, we have nothing in common way -- but if you have the right friends it can feel like the breath of fresh air you didn't know you needed until after you felt it. The friends of mine we saw made every choice I/we didn't. They got married young (I was at the wedding and the reception was also a costume party), had a family, stayed in the suburbs, didn't travel much, and so on, and yet the conversation was great, and it flowed, and when it got to the "what are you watching" part we got to talk to them about The Residence (which we just finished) and they told us about Farm Crime which will be our new fascination this week.
On Saturday, I was sitting at a table in a local pizza joint with my partner and a friend of mine whom I used to date when in walked my girlfriend from 20 years ago (GF20) whom I hadn't seen in about 15 years. It was funny and I felt kinda slutty. Oddly, I had been thinking about GF20 the day before, when I had gone uptown to meet my partner after her physiotherapy appointment. (GF20 grew up nearby, and I had remembered that, and her, while I was up there). It was weird and great to see GF20 (which I told her and her group several times —— because sativa is sativa —— but also because I was truly overjoyed to see her). Thing is, tomorrow I'm going to be tempted to shoot her a "hey, great seeing you, if you ever want to hang out" message on like, IG or LinkedIn because I really would like to be friends all these years later but I don't want to come across as weird or creepy, and I definitely don't want to gloss over the fact that I wasn't a good boyfriend, and definitely hurt her. I suppose I'm just hopeful that an actual friendship can happen. I'm hopeful about a lot of things lately.
The older I get the more I realize how many things I got (and continually get) wrong about what adulthood was. The way I grew up and the people I grew up around shaped my understanding and expectations of adulthood and as such, I feel like I can draw a straight line between that understanding and those expectations and grown-up me being miserable for a long time -- including when I was with GF20.
Blogging again feels good.
I hope I keep going.