I was invited to participate in a scrapbooking day by a woman that I really like. I don't know her extremely well ... but she's a genuinely sweet person. And hey ... she is letting me share her "husband" so ... there's that.
Anyhow ... scrapbooking. It's for charity and I really, really want to go. But ... I have a problem. I never had babies ... and although I have three beautiful, amazing grown step-daughters, most of the pictures that involve them involve my ex. Which leaves me with a conundrum ... what do you scrapbook about when you want to forget nearly half your life?
So tonight I forced myself to take out the external hard drive that holds all the old pictures from my life before. I set a goal to find at least 50 pictures of myself on various vacations ... pictures of the girls ... things that are worth remembering. What did I find instead?
Folders full of pictures that I wish I'd never seen. No, not porn. Hah ... I wish it were porn. I don't give a rat's ass about porn. No ... pictures of a necklace in a Roger's and Holland's box ... with a note laying next to it addressed to someone who wasn't me. Pictures of a ring sitting on a table in one folder. Pictures of a woman at a nice restaurant wearing that ring in the next folder. The pictures are chaotic and random ... one of a full garbage can in the pantry ... another of a bug strip in the basement with crickets on it. Pictures taken by someone who clearly wasn't well.
I'm not crying and I'm not heartbroken anymore. Whatever feelings I had surrounding all that are long gone and I am past caring. I have a boyfriend now who is so unlike anyone I've ever dated. He's handsome and sweet ... and funny and smart. Last week he said something that made me sad. We were on a date night and he mentioned that he used to go to movies some weekend mornings because he's an early riser ... and the hardest thing to having a girlfriend was that he's woken up and wanted to go ... but he hasn't because he didn't know if I would be angry.
It made me sad because ... God, if he only knew. That's what he worries that I'll get angry over? I didn't know whether to hug him or to cry. I'm not going to get angry because he goes to a movie without me. He doesn't cheat on me? He doesn't expect me to pay for everything? Shit ... unless I find a dead hooker in his bed, I'm thinking we're good.
I get angry over things like being forced to take over paying the credit card my ex used to buy the things in those pictures ... jewelry and dinners. I get angry over paying off the car he bought, crashed a month later, and let the bank repossess without making a single payment. I get angry that he got to walk away debt-free while I was left to fix everything.
Ugh ... fucking pictures. All of this nonsense because I was looking for pictures. Aside from my ex's flotsam and jetsam, I also feel ... lost. What am I supposed to scrapbook about?! I have a ton of childhood pictures. I guess I'll go through and scan a bunch of them and make something with those. I can't back out now ... I already filled out the paperwork. And I really do want to something "girly" with them. I guess scrapbooking just isn't in my wheelhouse ...
I pray a flower pot falls from a window sill
And knocks you in the head like I'd like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you're flyin' high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are, honey, I pray for you
Jaron & The Long Road to Love - I Pray For You
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