tumblinas.

I don’t even like cats

Usually, following a break-up, I’m a mess.  This time is no different.  However, I’m not licking my wounds and drowning in Ben and Jerry’s Mint Cookie.  I’m sick with guilt over this: My ex is hurting, miserable and devastated.  I did it.  I used to think it was such a crock of shit when people would say they loved someone but weren’t in love with them.  I’m one of those people now.  I could have stayed with him.  Fast forward a couple years and we’d have been married.  I’d be miserable and he’d by miserable vicariously.  I wish we could fast forward to the part where he meets someone else, and she is as crazy about him as he is about her.  He’ll think of me, of our break up and finally understand why I had to do it.  It is because I care about him so much, because I love him so much that I want to see him happy, even if it isn’t with me.  He’s a beautiful person and it’s what he deserves. 

I could have done the selfish thing and stayed.  Maybe, I’d cheat or find myself wondering about a guy I’d pass on the street and locked eyes with.  I could have stayed just to avoid being lonely.. 

Is this maturity?  Did I let the best man I’ve known slip through my fingers because I’m looking for magic? Will I regret this?  These are the questions that plague me.  I can’t be ruled by my fear of being the cat lady or Aunt Gladys from Home for the Holidays. 

What does he think?  I’ve been sitting here, with bated breath, anxiously waiting for his call?  As far as endings go, ours was not tragic.  There was no shouting and no tears. It was anti-climatic. You drove me to the airport.  We hugged and kissed goodbye.  As I walked toward the sliding automatic doors, I willed myself not to turn around and steal one last glance.  Me being me, and my will that of  al dente pasta, I turned around.  What did I see?  You looking at me, your eyes were wet. 

I cried in the airplane bathroom. I’d worried that I was being too sentamental.  That I’d built this up to be more than what it was.  I don’t know who long distance relationships work for.  Days turned into weeks going by with me wondering if I should call or why you hadn’t called, I surrendered to the idea that we’d just had a fling.  You found me on Facebook and I’d thought maybe it was fate or something.  Here we are years after we first met, single and no children.  You’d just moved to Miami and I was going for one of my girlfriend’s birthday. 

I was wrong.  It was what it was.

Imagine my surprise when you called.  And then I see you, a year later and you’re hugging me so tight and saying all these things.

And  I don’t feel anything.  I have someone else in my life. 

But, you invade my thoughts.  Not you exactly, more like a montage of what ifs.  I’d be a complete fuck head if I risked what I have now.  For what?  Opaqueness?  I realized the other day, that I don’t know anything about your life now.  You answer questions without answering questions.  I like the crossword in the Times as well as anyone, but this shouldn’t be like that. 

So, why’d you call me?

Nowhere

It’s laughable.  I went to dinner with my ex tonight.  We’ve been wearing our friends’ hats for quite some time and it works for us.  I’ve moved on and I love my boyfriend.  Still, it was like being slapped in the face when I heard ‘my girlfriend’ come out of his mouth.  I think I did a good job of appearing uneffected.  Except, wanting to appear uneffected probably made me look effected.  Ay yi yi.  

What’s the deal?  And then I thought, why was it her and not me?  The crazy part is, my next thought was, I wonder if he felt like this when he first heard me talk about my boyfriend?  The thought never occurred to me then.

The ex situation isn’t so black and white after all.  

Maybe you can’t be friends with an ex.    Listening to him talk about her made me feel like I had to pretend we never were.  Like in order for us to be friends, we had to start from the end of our relationship, which is no place at all.