First off, I have to say thank you to my amazing friends and family who succeeded in throwing my teenager a surprise birthday party this weekend. We had absolutely no clue until the afternoon of that anything was going on and it turned out to be awesome. I love you guys.
Second, my trip to New Orleans is officially off until at least late next week, unless yet another hurricane sets its sights on that part of the country. Hopefully, people get out safely and it isn't a repeat of Katrina (FEMA already showed up, so we're one better already but we'll see how they do this time).
And third, and most troubling, I found out that one of my friends is unknowingly dating one of my ex-girlfriends. This friend and I have been down a long, sometimes hellish, road together over the last 17 years. We fell out in 2005 when he basically discovered that I wasn't Superman and I couldn't fix everything, the way he always thought I could. His addictions were another factor. He finally went into rehab last year and spent almost the entire year cleaning himself up. We started talking and doing therapy sessions for his recovery in December and it has helped our relationship so much more than I thought it would. We're in a nice place right now. We're not as close as we used to be and we'll probably never be that close again but that's fine with us. Things change and evolve and you deal with it.
The ex-girlfriend is one of the more forgettable parts of my life. I admit it was totally lust on my part and we dated for about three months or so. It was a time when my demons were getting the best of me and I shouldn't have stuck around as long as I did. She wanted more. She wanted to be a legitimate couple and give it a shot and, unfortunately, she fell in love with me. And I didn't feel the same way at all and she knew it but she refused to walk away. I think part of the reason she liked me so much was because her parents, mostly mom, hated me. She was only around 23 or 24 when we were dating and she was still living with her parents and I remember thinking to myself at the time, "What the f*ck am I doing?". She was the first person I ever dated who was younger than me. I finally broke it off and we lingered for awhile until I finally had to just get mean and tell her we were done. She still tried to convince me to try again for nearly a year afterward. She's one of those who thinks she can "save" someone and I didn't need to be saved.
We dated at a time when I wasn't speaking to my friend so he really has no clue who or what I did during those few years we had sporadic contact. Imagine my shock yesterday morning when I ran by his place to pick up something and he introduced me to her and said they'd met at work a few days ago and were technically on a date when I came by. She and I had a second alone and what was said was not pretty but essentially came down to she tells him or I will. It's not a coincidence like I know she's gonna try and play it off as. She knew we were friends before she started dating him. I don't believe she's with him because he's her type. He's much worse off than I am and I know she doesn't wanna deal with his issues and his recovery. I don't even think she really understands what it's like to live with someone who's in recovery. I don't know what the motive is here, I know it isn't to get to me. Although, you could see the wind knocked outta her sails when I told her I have a child and a girlfriend, so who knows. I guess I'm just thrown because I want to protect him. He's doing so well and I don't wanna jeopardize how far we've come and I don't want him to get hurt. He has no clue about any of this. I know when he finds out about us, he's gonna end it and I'm worried she's not going to "get around" to saying anything and then it's anybody's guess how he's gonna feel about her by then. *sigh* Never a dull moment in this court...
