and a light comes on

Remember that grief process I wrote about once? I think I may have finally reached that stage called acceptance. I was in a pretty good mood on Friday, which was surprising in itself after being a basket case the day before, and then a text from MJ comes in the evening, wanting to know if I wanted to do something that night. It’s hard to decipher a mood through a text, but she seemed…bored and like she might want some attention. It ended up that she rented a movie and brought it over and we all (with my sister and brother-in-law) watched it. I enjoyed the movie. It made me laugh and I was just happy to have MJ there and not really feeling needy about her. But I did kind of hope that she would hang around afterwards so that we could talk. It had just been so long and I really wanted to know what was going on with her.

She was a little hard to read, but she talked. I couldn’t tell if she really wanted to tell me all of the things she told me and was just acting like she didn’t and that she had said too much, or if she really regretted telling me. I kind of lean toward the idea that she wanted to talk to me, and that she had missed it as much as I had, but she wasn’t thrilled about feeling that way and was still trying to remain aloof. Based on little hints, little things that she said and maybe didn’t mean to say, that was my impression.

But here’s the thing that kind of makes me think I’ve reached acceptance. I think she may have found a new sun for her solar system. In other words, I think she may have found a replacement for the me in her life, which would explain why she’s more detached from me than I am from her. If you’ve decided to move on from your old attachment and you find someone new to be interested in, it’s quite easy to feel differently about the previous person. She’s found a new “mentor,” an older female, married with children, working in her field of interest, practicing the profession she’s decided on (who actually may be the very reason for her decision), who’s “helping” her through this time in her life, as she’s pulling away from me, finding her path and dealing with mood swings and depression. What better friend to have than a health care professional who can prescribe you an anti-depressant? I’m not being flippant, even though it sounds that way. All of this just came to me as she was talking, and I did not feel what I expected to feel: jealousy. Not jealous of my replacement? How can this be? My only explanation is acceptance. Maybe after all of my tantrums and self-disgust and self-pity and whatever else I’ve been doing the last few months, I’ve finally reached acceptance that things have changed and they are not going back to the way they were.

As we talked I still felt all of those codependent characteristics I’m so familiar with, like wanting to “help,” wanting to take care of her, wanted to counsel her against making some of the choices she’s making, like hanging out with work friends who like to drink, but I refrained. I just listened. I asked questions. I digested it all. And I was finally somewhat satisfied that I kind of know what’s going on in her head.