Ok, so it’s the day before my birthday and I’m feeling a little philosophical and sentimental today. It’s probably because my birthday is tomorrow and so you sort of feel obligated to look back and see what things have happened. Because I am turning 30, it seems to be a bit more so even though in my mind, I’m still a kid, and I think I always will be.
The sentimental thing is really about a birthday card I got last night. I came home from work and read my mail like I always do, and there was an envelope with no return address but with a Moncton postmark. I had dropped a letter off to my former mother-in-law a few weeks back so to be honest, I thought it was from her. I opened it up to find a birthday card reading Happy 30th Birthday. Inside it read, “Love Marjorie & Raymond. We miss you”. Marjorie & Raymond Fergusson. My ex-wife’s grandparents.
It really hit home. Not in a way that is very easy to explain unless you have been through a major split or loss. One of the things that a lot of people don’t realize is that when a marriage ends, so do your relationships with your spouses family, whether you want it to or not. It just sort of happens.
I loved her family very much and enjoyed spending time with them. They are a great group of people and we all got along quite well together. But when the marriage ended, so did my association with her family. There were a few times I went to visit my former mother-in-law. It was nice and we enjoyed talking. In fact, I was invited to a dinner at the grandparents place and it went very well. They were very happy to see me and just couldn’t stop smiling about me being there and even said that Christmas wasn’t the same without me around. It all felt very nice to know that I was still thought of in that family, regardless of how things ended up.
So when I got that card yesterday, it sort of hurt. It reminded me of a lot of the good times I had with them and others in my ex’s family. Her brother came to see me at work and that was nice. But there’s this underlying feeling of loss because you become part of another person’s family, and then you lose that. It’s not just a single person you’re losing, you’re losing a whole family.
And you can’t continue to see them. At first, I was ok with going to visit some of them, but now, too much time has passed and I’m not part of that anymore. It just seems wrong to show up or call them and say hi because I’m not part of their lives anymore, and it’s sad. For me, it would feel like an intrusion on someone else’s turf. It may sound stupid, but I’m not the son-in-law anymore so I shouldn’t be visiting these people. There’s not much that can be done about it as this is the way life goes. I know of other people that have experienced similar situations whether it be through marriages ending, or the death of a spouse.
Regardless, it did make me feel pretty good to know that even after all this time, I’m still thought of by people in her family, and that makes me feel good because I know I made a good, lasting impression. There are other things that do pop into my head but this isn’t the place to voice that kind of thing.
Anyway, it bugged me a bit but that’s life eh? Whatdya do? Push forward and remember the good…
So there, I’ve had my say.
