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Things Past

My mother is visiting us for a few months this summer - the first time since DB and I got married. The old and new in all of our lives are colliding randomly with unintended consequences. J has regressed a couple of years or more being the "baby" grandma knew when she saw her last. DB is learning how to adjust to yet another new person in his life. I am trying to balance being the daughter I have always been without making DB feel like he's the odd one out in the family. My mother is seeing me being a wife once again - there are some sad memories there for her mingled with happiness for me. We visit the past for different reasons and outcomes. 

My cousin M called me after ten years this morning - to say hello. She has trouble reconciling with the changes in my life and traipses around the subject of DB. Instead she talks of the last time we met - when R(my ex) was still around. She takes trouble not to mention him and the memory turns lifeless as a result. M treats marriage like a minefield and maneuvers her way around it for the hour that we talk. It leaves a strange taste in the mouth - I feel like a cardboard character with every sliver of life pared away from me.
In her anxiety to spare my feelings, M drained my life out of blood. After I got off the phone with her, I found myself thinking of the many uses of nostalgia - to rejoice, to recalibrate, to reminiscence, to wallow, to celebrate and much more.
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