Item #1: Postcrossing Postcard from The Netherlands!
Sorry that I'm a bit behind with updating you all about my adventures with Snail Mail - I had a bit of shocking news delivered to me the day I received this card, and it caused a bit of temporary writer's block. But now I'm back!
Regarding the card, I can say that this is definitely the first time that I've received a card with a map as the front image. It really is quite interesting! According to my January Postcrossing statistics I've received the most cards from the Netherlands, and if I use this map I might have a better sense of where all these postcrossers reside.
This card had a bunch of cool stickers on the front! I'm not sure if the sender made all of them or if they're something that are regularly available where she lives, but one of them said Happy Postcrossing. Another one actually had her return address, so I asked her in my thank you message whether or not she wanted to set up some sort of exchange, and she messaged me back and said that she would be happy to :)
Outside of the news of getting another great card in the mail, on this day I was meant to stay home and buckle down to finish a paper that was due the next day, and I had every intention of doing so. However, I received another bit of news, this from my mother, that had me distracted with my own thoughts for most of the day. She and her boyfriend of over a year were splitting up, and this was a guy that I had begun to consider as the only real father figure I might get in my life.
What happened was, long story short, he cheated on her my messaging another woman on a dating site. The story is, that other woman was actually also my mother.
Typically my mother is not one of those neurotic women that likes to play these sorts of games, believe you me. She has always been calm and rational. When she happened to notice, however, that he was still active on the dating site he had been using around the time that they first met, she felt compelled; she had to know for herself, one way or another.
When I found this out I was distraught; much more so than my mother was. This has always puzzled me, how I can be upset about certain things while she's completely calm and rational about the whole thing. My reason for being upset didn't have anything to do with me, but I was upset that my mother had to be cheated on not once but twice in her life, and she doesn't deserve it.
Thing is, that's how my parents split up; my dad cheated on my mom. I was 18 at the time, when it all came out, and even though I was comparatively older than most kids whose parents go through a divorce, it still affected everyone in the family greatly, and it was a process that was dragged out for over two years. They are now properly divorced, and the 26th of January marked 3 years since my dad stopped living with us in the house. I remember all these dates; my mother is the one that forgets, even though all of this happened to her.
I should be mad at her boyfriend - in a way, when you cheat on someone, you cheat on the entire family when they were emotionally invested in the relationship, right? - but at the same time, I'm afraid that my anger wore off rather quickly. He's in the process of moving back to where his kids are, which has been his goal since my mother met him, and doesn't have anything to do with their relationship. Since all of this came out, however, my mother seems to believe that they might work out their differences, whether that means the two of them continuing their relationship or just becoming friends. It's hard for me to stay mad when my mother's so cavalier about the entire situation.
His birthday is actually coming up, February 13th. I'd already bought his gift for him, part of which I've showed off in a previous post. With him moving, I'll more than likely have to mail his gift to him once I find out what his new address is. I can honestly say that this will be one package that I'm not necessarily looking forward to as much as I have others.
Until next time, I'll keep you posted.
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