I am an unhappy mess.
Lately I hate hanging out at Missy and Red’s house when
there are normal everyday family things going on, because it makes me feel even
more like an outsider than usual (and I usually feel a LOT like an outsider). I am the elephant in the corner that
everyone is afraid to mention. I imagine
their kids are wondering what the heck I am doing there all the time. It doesn’t help that I practically have to sit on
my hands in order to not hug or kiss someone off-handedly, or say something
that would blow our cover – which makes me want to be there even less. Missy
and Red are the step-mom and the dad…I am…the Chloe. I have no role, and it makes me sad. I don't belong. No, I don’t want Red to tell them about us – even if he actually WANTED
to, his ex-wife is a raging…meanie. She would
figure out how to take the kids away or get more money or do something else to
make his life a living Hell.
Also, I have been worrying lately about what they say
about decision making (whoever "they" are). You know…that
thing about how we keep making the same mistakes over and over again without realizing it? I have had two ten-year marriages that didn’t
work out. I must be making a mistake. Clearly I can’t be making the
SAME mistake this time, but am I making some version of a
mistake that I’ve made in the past? How would I even know what that mistake was? While Missy and Red are in the Trifecta,
their marriage is continuing, their family is stable, their retirement accounts
are growing... Meanwhile, at least to
the outside world (which is unbelievably difficult to ignore), it appears as though
my life is at a standstill. I am a
middle-aged mother living with a college student in an apartment with
paper-thin walls. I drive a used car that
requires constant maintenance, I have a job with no future (or insurance or
retirement fund), and I don’t date. It
appears as though I hang out a lot with a married couple who can’t seem to get rid
of me. If the Trifecta doesn’t last, I
will be in worse shape than before, because I will be all that...and older.
Man, am I being a big baby about all of this?
