Freedom

Today brought lots of laughter, and all that laughter, along with some news I received today, lifted some sort of veil I didn’t know was covering my eyes and now everything looks brighter and better. I’m not sure what I mean by better; some things that have bothered me no longer seem to, and I realized that they shouldn’t have bothered me to begin with. My perspective feels like it has changed, and I don’t feel so bad anymore. The future looks brilliant, and I’m super excited for it. I wish I could explain it all with clarity and vividness, but I don’t think I have it in me right now.

But I’ll try it anyway.

As I’m thinking about it, the ending of my thought process makes me feel petty, but I’ll make you, dear reader, be the judge of that. There’s somebody I used to know. A girld. A friend of her, so not her. We had a thing — a fling — over a year ago. It was fun, we got to know each other, and it looked like we were going to become good friends. Things slowed down, though, until one day she disappeared from my life earlier this year. Over the following months, I tried talking to her, invited her to hang out, have food and whatnot, but either she didn’t reply or refused. It didn’t feel like I was pushing her, but that’s what she would later tell me. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. Point is, we never developed the friendship I thought we were capable of, and because of the drama with her spilled over into this other girl’s life, she blocked me from her life. It was actually my anger toward her that I brought over to her that started this whole mess.

Today I found out she — not her¹ — was pregnant. At first, I was hurt. Maybe hurt’s the wrong word. More like disappointed. The father’s somebody she’s only known for a few months, and I don’t know anything about their relationship so I won’t get into that here. I know of the guy, too, and he seems like a good guy. As the day’s progressed and this news has sunk in some more, I was to surprised to feel happy for her. I’m never going to get back in touch with her, and I’ve known this for a while now, so this feeling is surprising me. I’ve thought about her on and off now for a while, but this news made me evaluate those thoughts from the past, and all I did was know I’m probably never going to think about her again, and that’s totally fine. It feels good, actually. Again, that veil. So then I thought about her, looked at a picture of her, and knew that I was done with her, too. I actually laughed aloud when I saw her picture. Like, this person made me feel this way? For this long? Why? This person? This Person?

That space between this paragraph and the last one is filled with me laughing. Is that petty? I’ve been dealing with children, and I’m just now realizing that. People have told me I have been, but I guess it never registered until now. I really, really, wanted to avoid personal gossipy type of entries for this blog because of how petty it makes me feel while writing them. But when there’s no bigger thought on my mind but this, I had to write about it. And this one’s a good, necessary, entry because of what it means for me and my future.

I feel free. It’s Christmas week, which means it’s a short work week. I leave for San Diego this Sunday. I’m going to let loose for one week, spend the transition from this year to the next one in California, and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I feel free. I can do anything, and I think I will. God, this feels amazing.