i'm leaving out the whistles and bells

I've been very lucky where it comes to in-laws. Shawn's mum and D are wonderful and so are his father and J. Tonight we had dinner with Shawn's dad and J and for once we didn't bother with trying to watch a movie or something to take our focus away from each other. Instead we just talked and it was great.

I have a lot of fun talking to Shawn's dad and his stepmother is wonderful fun - we enjoy each other in the way that adult friends can enjoy each other even without a history and a parentage/childhood in common. Shawn is astonishingly like his father (and grandfather) in spite of being raised outside their influence and Shawn's stepmom, in spite of having no genes in common, manages to be the most like me in most ways. I just have fun being with them - the way I enjoy being with friends. Tonight we walked home from their place under a giant borrowed umbrella because we'd shared too many glasses of wine.

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And on the subject of friends... I am seeing C on Monday. She is an old friend and a true friend. And someone I've missed terribly in her absence from my life - and still someone who eludes me even as close as we've ever been. I wonder if that could be changed... but I think, somehow, not. Our bond is based on things I don't fully understand. I know it has much to do with the untimely loss of her mother - and C's (accurate?) belief that I am just like her mother in many ways. Such that we should be close so that she, once again, can feel the presence of someone both loving and bossy watching over her. In some ways I feel ultimately responsible to take care of C because I love her and as her mother-figure (imaginary as that may be) I should be there for her in whatever ways are possible. In other ways I feel more sisterly toward her - which is no less complicated. And guilt is a part no matter what - much as I feel guilt about my relationship with my own sister.

I haven't got any clear methods in place to take care of C. My plan so far mainly involves money - which is lame - like buying her passport and paying for her dinner so we can do things we want to do together. But the best I've come up with so far is the standing offer of free babysitting services as often and as regularly as she and A could make use of them. Another niece, blood or not, could do my heart good - and that is the truth. Plain truth.

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I've been thinking some about the past again this week which is something I do when I'm struggling a little in the present. Strange how it works that way so one is never fully present in what's immediately taking place - but maybe that's the point. Like I can put myself almost wholly in the arms of N like it never ended, or remember the cowboy at the entrance to the Warehouse as though I was there last night.

What I always come up with, however, is the same. The Past was necessary for the Present to exist in the shape it does. And so changing, or regretting the Past is futile. And so I don't, I truly don't.

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