Thursday, January 21/16
The lack of entries does not mean I've decided to end the blog nor that there are any health concerns so please stop sending messages asking if I'm ok. Appreciate the concern but I'm pretty confident the last entry explained the lack of recent posts.
I've always been one to react to things right off the bat and through my relationship with the mother of my children learned to reign this in a bit as reacting too quickly can have consequences. As my ex liked to say, "I'll always forgive but never forget, thus I'll never respond in the heat of the moment lest I say something I can't take back"
That has always stuck with me and while it's served me well to follow that strategy most times there have been a couple of times where it worked to my detriment, including my last few days with C.
What I failed to take into account was that there are times we need to temper what we've learned or done in the past to fit the workings of a new relationship. Time has shown me that C is one of those rare people who prefers to get things dealt with when they come up and tried her best to adjust how she dealt with me and my own way of dealing with things by sitting on them for a short time until I felt my emotions were under control. This was foreign to her and reminded her of some issues that she had with her own ex and while it helped me deal with my own thoughts and emotions it didn't do the same for her and in fact caused her some worries.
What should have happened was a merging of our approaches to one that met both of our needs but that hadn't happened yet, and maybe might not have as I wasn't seeing the problem as well as I should have and been as supportive as a boyfriend should be to his partner, not as supportive as C was to me when I needing it that's for sure.
My issue Sunday was related to the amount of things that constantly remind me of C and not being able to ignore them and move on with my life. Sometimes they are things I actually know are coming up like driving past a restaurant that became a favourite for us that I now tend to avoid like Milestones and Zak's Diner and other times things that just come up out of the blue and reach deep inside my chest to squeeze my heart.
One such unexpected reminder happened on Sunday when I came out of Chapters with my daughter to head over to the Landmark Theatre to watch Sisters. As we walked down the parking lot aisle to her car I froze and felt time stand still. She laughed and said "It's this one pops" and when I didn't respond she walked back around and asked me what was wrong. My daughter drives a black SUV and she forgot that C drives the exact same model only a few years older but I remembered and I have to say I was convinced it was C's SUV parked right next to my daughters and it sort of freaked me out. I felt her hand on my shoulder and turned to see a look of concern in her eyes and she asked me "everything ok?" I sighed, said I was sorry, and explained what had happened. She didn't say a word at first but instead gave me a big hug and told me she loved me. She asked if I was still up for going to the movies and I said "absolutely, lets go see Tina & Amy get their freak on"
Once at the theatre we got our tickets, treats, and found good seats and got settled in for the previews, one of my favourite parts to seeing movies. She leaned over and asked me "Does that happen often dad, the thinking of C thing?" I took a moment to think about it and said "All the time"
The movie came on and we enjoyed a good movie and I think my daughter sensed I was a bit inside my head and didn't ask me too many questions on the drive back to my place but when she came inside to see Moki she looked around and asked me "How many things in your house remind you of C?"
I sort of laughed and asked if she wanted that list by room? She sort of frowned and said she didn't realize how deep my connection went and wished she could do something to ease the pain.
The truth is that I know both my kids would gladly take the pain onto themselves if they could but that isn't their role to play as my children. Knowing how much they care and worry about me reminds me of one of the benefits of being a parent.
I'm sure there will come a day when I can drive past the Centrum, walk into my bedroom, cook a meal and not think of C.........just going to be a lot of time needed before that day arrives.....
Marcus
No comments:
Post a Comment