Bursting bubbles

I've finally gotten so far inside my happy bubble that I forgot the pain of being told my marriage isn't right, true, or valid.  I knew this day would come, and I always wanted to be at the place of such certainty about V and me, but the corollary to that place is the reality that I'm exposing myself to the same pain that I fought for months and years and finally overcame.

A cousin of mine is getting married in a few months, one close to my own age, whom I've always been somewhat close to.  I was invited to the wedding, not V, and I sent her a message on Facebook (we already had a string going) casually saying I wasn't aware that cousin's spouses weren't invited.  Passive aggressive?  Maybe.  But if she was going to discriminate, I wanted her to own up to it.

I got a message back tonight.  It's long.  It explains, politely and "in love," how God's plan for marriage is a man and a woman, and part of the purpose is procreation.  It admits that I've probably heard it all before.  It clarifies that space is limited, and so only those who are married according to her (and her fiance's) definition of marriage can come.

I'm hurt.  I'm trying not to think about it, because I don't have the energy to cry (and because I'm two glasses of wine in), but I guess I'm undoing all that good by writing about it.  I'm angry.  I'm angry that someone can make me feel this way.  I'm angry that this isn't over yet.  I'm angry because I know it never will be.  But mostly, I just have that hollow feeling in my chest, the defeated one that tells me I'll always be fighting, that there will always be someone - someone close to me - ready to tell me I'm wrong.  And so, I start crying.