I went to a wedding this evening. I didn't bring my husband with me. He doesn't come with me, anywhere.Sometimes I mourn the lack of him at weddings and other events. The other women bring their husbands. Other women dress up and have nice husbands who come, too. My husband is the handsomest of all the husbands, and I don't get to dress him up and bring him with me.
Mostly, though, I enjoy dressing up and going somewhere without him. He's difficult to be around, and he doesn't really enjoy anything. He'd be too hot or too cold, and the chairs would be wrong, and he wouldn't want to have to talk to anyone, and he'd believe that everyone was looking at him or talking about him. He would tell a lot of lies, too, and he might steal.
One thing that gets to me, though, is when people ask. "Where's he? How's he doing?" And they ask, knowingly...knowing he's probably somewhere embarrassing, doing poorly. People ask with a look of sympathy in their eyes, and behind the sympathy, a kind of crow-like hunger, and a kind of curiosity at my seeming indifference to my pain.
I'm learning to stay out of everyone else's head. My sponsor often says it's not her business what other people think of her. It's a wise sentiment.
Art by Leonard Morales
