This Weekend: Hard Work, Blessings, and Resentments

I feel good about yesterday. Lisa and I spent five hours putting up campaign signs for the Martin Frost campaign. It was nice to be able to do that and to see concrete results of our work. The neighborhood we did this in was in Oak Cliff, south of Dallas proper. It was a middle to upper middle class neighborhood, multiethnic (African-American, Latino), some elderly whites, and a large gay population. Everyone was friendly. We distributed some extra signs at people’s request. We saw no signs for Frost’s opponent. Not one.

However, if you head north of Oak Cliff, to neighborhoods that are uniformly WASP, you don’t see Frost sign, you see the other guy’s signs. What is it with white people? It’s like we’re all afraid.

I like gay guys. I’m definitely hetero, but I find gay men to have refreshingly friendly attitudes. This is probably the grossest of generalizations, but straight men tend to see other men as potential rivals and treat them accordingly. It takes some effort to get past that. My theory is that gay men tend to see other men as potential partners and thus are more friendly. Again, gross generalization.

Last night I was able to attend the wedding of a friend of mine from college. I wrote about seeing her again just about a month ago here. Before that, it had been a decade since I had seen her.

The wedding took place at First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church in Fort Worth. It was a beautiful church, pretty large. The sanctuary had a wonderful wood beam ceiling and over where the altar would be was what I understood to be a representation of the Tree of Life (I could be wrong). It was marvelously sculpted.

Lyn married a composition and rhetoric professor from TCU, Dr. Brad Lucas. I had not met him. I don’t exactly know what I had expected him to look like, but he was a handsome, broad shouldered man. I would not have guessed he was an English professor. I could see in his face that Lyn absolutely delights him and he obviously enjoys her children. Lyn was dressed in a simple, elegant wedding gown and she was radiant.

Her daughter, Kayla, is nine and she looks so much like Lyn it is amazing. Corey, Lyn’s son, looks very much like his father, Dan.

Lyn and Brad had written their own vows and they read them to each other. It was a wonderful ceremony and both Lisa and I were very touched.

We met another couple, Robin and David who seem very nice and very friendly. Robin is a (if you read this, forgive me Robin, I do not recall the proper terminology) professional singer and voice coach. David is a classical guitarist. Together they present a formidable amount of culture—a little intimidating. However, they seem very friendly and I would like to pursue building a friendship with them.

Last note: I got to watch Laura, my other old friend, as a photographer and I am pretty impressed with her passion for it. I hope she can make a career of it.

I am rather, hmmm, I’m not sure how to say this, so I will just say this.

A member of my coven was hosting this weekend and at the last minute she decided to go camping in a state park an hour and a half away. She still wanted to host ritual, but we would have to go there. She had said that with the way her life was going she would not have a chance to camp anytime soon and wanted to take this chance. In fairness, her mother-in-law is dying, her dog is being treated for cancer and she has family issues of her own. She also has surgery coming up. I believe her when she says that her life is chaos and that she would have limited opportunities to go camping. I also understand that need to get away and have space—I have felt it, I have needed to go at times.

Now, with that said, I am pissed about it. My reasons a purely selfish: I can’t go. As you have seen above, this has been a busy weekend. I still have all of my usual weekend chores to do and it is unfair to just take off and leave Lisa with them. I cannot spend three hours driving and more there. A couple of coven members have been out of town and today would have been the first day I would have gotten to see them in a while. I am irked to be missing them. There is also the small poisonous voice in my head that says well, if she had a job she wouldn’t be able to do this, it’s unfair of her to expect people with jobs to be able to up and leave. That voice represents my anger at the job I hate, it has nothing to do with her. It is unreasonable to be angry at her because my job sucks.

She’s called a couple of times and I have just ignored the phone. I don’t want to say anything about it. Right now I am furious about a whole variety of things in my life and she is liable to get blasted if I speak to her and that is absolutely unfair. I’m annoyed with her, but she does not deserve to get the full body of my resentments (most of which have nothing to do with her) directed her way. Besides which, what is there to say? Anything I am liable to say won’t change her mind but might make her feel bad about the trip , so screw it. I don’t actually want her to feel bad about it—if she needs the trip then she should enjoy it.

It is just an opportunity to practice the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous and recognize that I am angry because I did not get what I wanted, when I wanted it. Life is like that. Life is filled with that. And it is not worth upsetting a friendship over. So, Goddess, go with her and may she have a good time. It is in the Goddess box now, out of my power, out of my responsibility and I am done with it.

For Lyn and Brad, Kayla and Corey, Goddess bless you all, you wonderful new family. Thank you all for letting Lisa and I be a part of your ceremony. Blessings and peace.