The friend & the cousin

Last weekend was interesting, that's just about the only way I can describe it. I have a cousin, actually the wife of one of my cousins back in Texas. I met her when I first moved to TX from Mexico. She and I are about the same age, she got me my first job at a hamburger joint and we shared a lot of good things and funny pranks that teenagers pull on each other when the manager isn't looking. I saw her date her fair share of crazies and we graduated from high school together. We were very good friends (nothing romantic, duh!).

We had kept in touch through family and off but Facebook was kind of the catalyst to really pick things up friendship-wise again. Due to some of her "where's your wife?" comments I had told her I was separated and in the process of a divorce a few months ago. I remember hinting something of "When you are done getting to know me again, you'll wonder where that shy Mexican kid you met many years ago went". She is the kind of person who always posts GA quotes on her FB status...anyway, she was in UT last week and asked if she could couch surf at my place with her kid on one of the nights. Immediately I thought: "Oh boy, here we go". I had told one of my sisters & the babe about my anxiety of having her stay with me and both advised me that all I had to do was deal with her for 1 day, didn't have to tell her anything if I didn't want to and to just let things flow. Lucky by the time she made it to my place Saturday night they were exhausted from the day's activities so they crashed right away.

On Sunday morning the babe invited me to church with him, they decided to skip church & sleep in and when I got back I made brunch, we ate and then had a couple of hours to sit and chat, which we did. I knew she wanted to ask questions but I wasn't sure what I was willing to tell her, but somewhere in there I felt prompted to just blurt everything out, the divorce, my church inactivity & being gay. She said she had a slight idea about this from that cryptic message I had sent her a while ago, but didn't want to just cast judgement. Bottom line she said between tears: "you've been one of my dearest friends, long before we became cousins. This changes nothing, I love you and wish nothing but the best; I can see how you cannot possibly have any church life in your situation, you have to seek out what makes you happy". By this time her daughter came to sit with us, she heard more than half of our conversation. I was glad she didn't just want to shield her daughter from this, it was a non-issue which worried me because Mormons seems to always want to shield their kids from the very "any appearance of evil".

The rest of the day's activities were spent with other relatives, I wasn't sure how she'd digest everything but she made sure to sit by me, keep the conversations flowing and in my mind made an effort to show she was genuinely OK with me... at least as of today she is still a friend on Facebook, ha, ha, ha!!!! So again, I had nothing to worry about. I didn't ask her to keep it a secret with anyone back home and if she tells anyone else that's OK. A year ago I wouldn't have known how to handle this, it is amazing what time will do with my level of comfort!