Sometimes, it's just not my favourite

Small Daughter is out of town this weekend.  She went down south with her dad to see her paternal grandparents and so her dad could attend a funeral.  His best friend's father, who was like a second father to him and a great man, passed away.  He was too young, it was unexpected and it seems like it oughtn't to have happened.  His family deserved to have him for a long, long time.

I knew him, though perhaps not as well as I'd have liked.  But I did not go down to the funeral, of course, for obvious reasons.  Having divorced the ex, there are certain places and situations where I am no longer welcome.  And this is difficult.

He and I have a longish history together.  We knew many of the same people before he and I ever met and we have many, many friends in common.  Then you add to that the friends that we made as a couple, or the people with whom we became friends because the other was friends with them, and the list is extensive. Much of my post-college history has him in it.  We have many shared experiences, we worked at the same summer theatre for several years, we worked on the Olympics and many other things over the years.  And now, I have given that up.  It's no longer my right to have.  And, that makes me sad.

Most days I am fine and more than fine, I am good.  But some days...some days the loss of a companion and those shared experiences breaks my heart.  The loss of the right to participate in those experiences is saddening.

I won't say divorce is a bad thing.  Sometimes, it is an evil necessity, the lesser of two evils.  And it requires a careful weighing of loss and sorrow against loss and sorrow.  And it all sucks.

I may delete this later, so don't be surprised if it disappears.