Strangers is a weird word right? Sounds kinda weird, just like the word "strange", they both seem kinda strange?? ;-) which I guess leads me into what I am writing about today....the definition of stranger is "a person whom one does not know or with whom one is not familiar." And I wanted to check in on this again because it came up.....and comes up from time to time, since all this has happened....my ex and I are strangers......no question about it......which is kind of the craziest part of this for me......like really.......thinking I know somebody so intimately and well......better than any other human I thought I had ever known.....besides my children......and now he may as well be named Bob, or Joe, or John or anything, and be some random guy picking up and dropping off my kids.......because I know nothing about him.....and the spidey connective cords that attach us to our people, was severed long ago......and sometimes I get glimpses of the man I once knew......and a familiar flash will happen.....but most of the time as I stand there across from them.....and him.....there is just vast nothingness......no recognition......no understanding.......no connection.....just nothing......and I really cannot explain, and have tried to before, how insane that is to me, and how it feels......it is kind of shocking.......I mean to try and relate, if you can, think of your spouse or person, the person you lie next to, have babies with, share your deepest self with, get out of the shower in front of, having a cold with, Christmas morning, Thanksgiving dinner, do life with, just vanishing one day.....alive but gone.....becoming a stranger to you overnight......it is surreal to me, in every sense of that word.....it still shocks me and hits me some days......out of the blue......and even if we could sit down and have a conversation about our kids or anything else.......what would we say???.......we don't know the people we are anymore.....I am not the same person and neither is he......it would be just like that blind date I had.....and grieving the living is a tough one........because had he gone about all of this differently.....and remained who I thought he was......and connected to our mission to co parent.....and behaved in a way that I used to recognize once upon a time.......it would be easier......but I feel like the challenge is the unrecognizable part.....that stuns and amazes me endlessly.......never imagining that stranger that was living within him for so long......and I hope one day the strangeness fades......and doesn't feel so strange.....but for now it is mind numbing......truly......it is so awkward and weird.......and I have come to accept it.....to understand that in my story.......that this is a part of it.....no way around it......but in the acceptance of that, there is still a place that marvels at it......finding it hard to imagine......on every single level.....and hard to reconcile......and sometimes I wonder how the stranger feels to him......does that stranger feel more comfortable to him than the other man??? does he marvel at the man that stepped forward in this story too? Does the stranger feel more like himself to to him or shock him too?? And I suppose I feel like a stranger to him maybe too.......my new woman being somebody he doesn't know, except that he knows what to expect from me....."old Jenn" being ever present and reliable in the same ways I have always been......but in my case the stranger in me feels like home to me......she feels more like me than the other woman I once was.....or any woman or person I have been in every season of my life.......like she was who I was all along......who I came here to be.......just hidden away and buried underneath it all......waiting for an environment where she could thrive......so I guess he maybe experiences some of what I do too......both of us becoming strangers we used to know.......as the dust settles..........
jperuso
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