Strange Relations

OK - I have to admit to being worried, and I know those who know me well will understand, but I still feel strange. My ex-husband's got Lymphoma. He's on treatment three - or is it four? and he's finally had to shave his head as he's been threatening and says he aches in his bones all the time. He's been putting on a brave front on his blog, but I see where he hasn't posted this week since his last Chemo treatment and so I called him on my lunch break. No answer.

I know he's probably at home feeling miserable and with the three dogs staring at him and wishing he'd pet them. I know he fell down and can't get up and doesn't have one of those little necklace thingys. I know he fell down a well and Lassy needs to go rescue him, I know I feel guilty because I'm his ex-wife and he should have someone with him right now and he's single and bored with his daily regiment and can't have folks over much due to his low immune system and...... I know. That's just dumb. We're divorced after all right?

But those of you who don't know us, won't realize that my partner Terri and I call Doug "Our Ex-Husband," and he and I paid like $76 bucks in some legal office with one legal guy and said, "divorce is done, you take the cat, I'll take that cooking pan, Phew! Let's go to lunch!" and he came to My and Terri's wedding and gifted us with a beautiful krokinole board he made (We'll need another post to explain krokinole, which I'm sure I'm mis-spelling) and he's one of my favorite people in the world and he deserves to have a partner with him at his side right now, hanging in there with him and... I know... I'm being dumb.

So, I'll just wait to hear from him when he's feeling better, 'cause I'm sure if I were home feeling crappy I wouldn't answer my phone either.

It's funny because most people who have only met me since I've lived in Montpelier have to hear that whole story with a puzzled look and they go "Oh! You were married before I didn't know that!" and it always makes me feel strange that folks don't GET that a woman who lives with and is in a committed relationship with a woman might actually have not been attacked, run over, molested, or raped by a zillion men to get there and/or just hate them out of some genetic requirement.

The fact is, I have been in love many times in my life. Never has the requirement been that the person had to be one gender or the other. So yes, Doug and I found eventually that though we cared about each other we just were miserable living together. We found after a short period of adjustment we could be friends, and it turned out to be the basis for why we weren't breaking up. I mean, we felt like "If I still like you I can't get a divorce 'cause we'll be required to hate each other..." Maybe that's the more idiotic idea, and we didn't make that one up.

I remember actually going to the therapist after my divorce - she was our couples therapist while we tried to work things out - and saying - "Man am I NORMAL? I'm happy. I'm not trying to break into my ex husband's house and steal the cat or the car or some conch shell we picked up on our honey moon and I'm not trailing him with a private eye or something..." and she said "Yeah. You're normal. Those other things people do are the abnormal behavior. That'll be $50." Hey, and I gladly paid that. Why not?

Relations are strange... But hey, Some day before I die I'll start to accept that actually, that fact is also the norm.