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2007-05-21 - 2:20 p.m.

It is a strange thing to confront your past. It�s not always what you expect. I had several timelines cross over this weekend.

The wedding I attended was a College friend turned adult friend (reconnecting after a ten year disconnect) who was also the Maid of honor at my first wedding. She was a close friend during my worst years and still maintains a similar lifestyle to the one I have abandoned (although I suspect she has never fallen to the depths I once trolled). She has always supported my decisions despite her complaint that she has lost one of her best �party buddies�. I could not be where I am if I were still living that life.

Many of the folks who attended only knew me and my ex and never met my Darling husband and the person I am now. Some people only knew of me. And one person (besides the bride) knew me very well when I was in College. We were best friends once, sharing our hopes and dreams, fears and insecurities and holding each others hand through an extremely difficult time in both of our lives. We fell easily into the comfort of banter. Trading insults and laughing but beneath his glib exterior lay a dormant sadness. At the wedding, with the addition of alcohol (to expose misery simple add alcohol) he became more and out of control unable to sit still, saying in appropriate things and seeming so very sad I wished there was something I could do to make him feel better. The trouble is I can not help him for he can�t see a problem other than things in his life do not make him happy. We continued to exchange insults and laugh but I felt like there was a calliope playing in the background; the sound of discord under the laughter of the clown.

Being pregnant I was somewhat confined to my chair (I got up for one dance with my best friend and onetime dancing buddy only to have to sit down again in the middle of the song out of breath). This meant that folks had to seek me out in order to socialize which they did in more than I would have expected. I was also stopped several times during my frequent bathroom trips by folks who remembered me and my ex and having spent the day observing My Darling and I made comment on the transformation and the consideration My Darling paid me. I believe he is a good man and that I have chosen wisely but it is nice to have that assumption reinforced but neutral observers.

I was seated with my best friend and her man along with my College friend and two wonderful ladies whom I had only previously known through the Bride. I had looked forward to having the opportunity to know them only to have the large table and loud music foil any attempts to share anything other than cordial exchanges. I was the wall flower but this suited me fine because I was able to socialize with my best friend whom I have missed desperately. I had feared that she too would go the way of another friend back at the beginning of my descent into hell leaving me again to wonder if I was somehow difficult to befriend, perhaps simply too much effort to stay entangled to. What silliness, she has been busy in her life (as we all get) and it is all my silly imagination that I had destroyed another friendship.

Because of my condition and the long day that proceeded the wonderful evening I was forced to leave before the end of the event. My days of �partying to the bitter end� are over traded for early evenings, naps and the addition soon of feedings, diapers and rocking to sleep. As I said my good byes I was scooped up into a hug by my college friend who whispered �you know I love you right?� to which I responded �of course sweetie, I love you too�. When I attempted to pull away he held me tight not once or twice but three times before he queried �why is it so hard to let go of your past�. The moment tore at my heart. This man, who I will forever hold in my heart as the young, confused boy, clung to me as though he could somehow recapture that time in our life. That time in our life that I view with bitterness for all the damage that was done to our emotional beings, damage that I have finally begun to repair, has become for him a golden time. What has his life become to alter his perception to one so different from mine?

How lucky am I to be able to let go of the past? Even the bitterness I hold for that time has lessened to the point where I simply view it as part of the trip. Good, bad or indifferent these events and experiences have molded the sculpture that is me. Sometimes scraping away what doesn�t benefit me and sometimes transforming me completely. While I am no phoenix rising reborn, I have been burned and though the scars fade they do remain to remind me of how my path has wandered through this landscape.

As I rest my hand on my belly (a gesture common amongst us breeders) and contemplate the past I also consider the future, shrouded in mystery and yet somehow still promising to me. So many stages of my life and still there is so much to come.

As for the lovely Ladies across the table, friends of my friend, I was fortunate enough to cross paths with them the next morning at the continental breakfast offered by the hotel. Happy chance had brought us together again and I was so pleased that I could now know a little more about these women my friend held in such esteem. They were all that I had been lead to believe. Although I felt as though I babbled incessantly about myself (a bad habit I can�t seem to eliminate) I still managed to learn a little more about them and also admire them for their obvious affection for each other. How lucky they are to have found each other, how lucky we all are to find anyone to share our humanness. Not only was I pleased to hear about writing from someone who spends her life teaching the art but she also told me that her mother was 40 when she gave birth to her. What wonderful encouragement for me as I still worry about the effect of my age on my child both before and after he is born. She turned out just great if you ask me. The best part is that they were both willing to exchange their contact information with me! How I have come to know so many wonderful people even just a little I will never know but lucky me.

Past and future colliding and in the middle waddlesome little me, still learning, still wrapping my brain around change as the singular constant of the universe and grateful for the experiences that let me release the past and face the future.

To old friends and new�

I wish you Peace

~alison~


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