extra mile

Shawn has taken J away for a weekend road trip to get her mind off the breakup.  They left at dawn. Times like these I am reminded that I chose the best possible man I could have chosen to with whom to spend my life.

On Friday, V came by my office to return a book and we talked awhile about her children, her divorce, and her fear that she is damaging her children by allowing her former husband to live in her basement.  (My job does not formally require me to provide counselling support to staff, but it seems to happen a lot.) Her ex-husband is incapable of supporting himself because he is severely mentally ill.  It isn't that I believe she is actually harming her children by allowing him to remain a (slightly distanced) member of their family.  It just reminds me that people make a lot of imperfect situations work the best way they can, and I have been fortunate not to have to work around a partner who is incapable of caring for himself properly.  If anything he has had to work around me.

When I was J's age, I thought I had the best father in the world, and in some ways I really did.  My father is a wonderful person.  But when I was J's age going through breakups, my father did not even know about them, let alone take me away on a road trip to help me recover.  Our family was in a state of disarray and I could share nothing with any of them.  There was too much other chaos. I would have given anything to have my father to myself for two days of road tripping.  The fact that J gets to have this experience moves me, and the fact I somehow chose the man who would adopt her and do so much to make her whole - heals all of us at the same time.

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Tonight I am going to a birthday party at K's place.  K is my boss, and this is (I think) the first time I have ever considered a boss to be also a friend.  My union strongly cautions against being friends with management - but I am reasonably comfortable with ignoring my union.  I am at least as comfortable ignoring my union as I am being friends with K, which is to say that neither thing is perfectly comfortable, but I am doing them anyway.  At least for now.

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