Striving For Mediocrity

Ramblings of a thirtysomething sometimes bitter single girl living in Southern California with her gay cat and crazy neighbors. Doing her damnedest to find one good man that won't drive her completely nuts.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

I remember when you were mine.

I wrote in an entry once about a fight I had with Kay about an ex of mine. I have resisted the urge to write about him, because I try to keep it somewhat light and humorous in here, and the story of us would be neither of those (at least at the end it wasn’t).

X was the one true, serious relationship I have ever been in. Serious enough for me to think that I might be stupid enough to spend the rest of my life with this man, and give all of myself to this one person, because I loved him enough to let him have it all.

I trusted him with my heart, my spirit, my soul, my mind, and my body. There was nothing I would not give him, or do for him. My love was endless, and without boundaries. We could tell each other anything, without fear of judgment from the other.
It was… bliss.

It was the first time in my life that real, true feelings of love were attached to sex, and it was like nothing I had ever known, and frankly, have not known since. Not on that level.

One day he came into my apartment and simply said, “I don’t love you. Not like I did.” Then he took his things from my place and he was gone. I was completely blindsided. To say that I was devastated is a gross understatement. It was like the hardest punch in the stomach you could ever imagine, followed by your heart being ripped out of your chest. If I could have thought of something to say, I wouldn’t have been able to speak it, because my entire body was just numb. I don’t know how I even breathed at that moment. I know it sounds overly dramatic, but it’s the truth.

Recovering from that was long, and hard. It was especially difficult given that we met because he was a friend, so all of his friends were my friends. Anywhere I went he was likely to be there, and vice-versa. The hardest part after I came out from under my bed and started to be social again, was that he never looked sad, or hurt when he saw me. He never looked like he was upset to not be with me anymore, or that he even missed me. I mean, I wasn’t expecting him to be pining away for me, but a little feeling would have been nice. To know that he could just dismiss me so quickly, like an article of clothing that no longer fit, just discarded and replaced with something new, it was like breaking up all over again.

When Kay met DMX, things shifted around, friends-wise. All of our friends were pretty much friends of her ex-boyfriend Doug. I looked at DMX and his friends as a chance to get away from the constant reminder of X and his happiness without me. Thank god she did start dating him, because I fell into a group of some of the finest people I have ever been lucky enough to know.

I heard from an old friend that X took an engineering job in Colorado, and that was the last anyone had heard from him. That was almost six years ago.

About a week ago, while walking to the post office near my office, I saw him. Walking with a woman, her pushing a stroller with a toddler, and he carrying an infant in a snuggly-type thing. He had a family.

When reflecting on our history, I often wondered what he was doing at that exact moment that I was thinking of him. If he was alone, if he was with a woman, if he was married. If he had ever thought about me.

I always imagined that if I did see him again, that I would break down, and start to cry. Not be able to contain my feelings, still, after all this time. But I didn’t. I didn’t break down, I didn’t cry, I didn’t panic one little bit. I did stop, and watch them walk, interacting with one another. Talking. Laughing. Touching. In love.

I didn’t feel jealous, or envious, or even bitter. I realized I was smiling when I saw him, with his family. Just at the moment I caught myself smiling, he noticed me. I wasn’t sure how I should handle it. Should I go over and say hi? Should I just keep walking the other way, and ignore them? I didn’t want him to think I was still such a basket-case after all this time, so I bit the bullet and crossed the street to where they were.

It was, of course, extremely uncomfortable, for both of us. Which, in a strange way, made me feel a little bit better. It was even better that she recognized my name when she heard it, and said that X had told her about me, and about our relationship. Suddenly I felt like he did remember us, and all of those shitty feelings that I had when we split were validated, and justified. It was… closure.

It sounds retarded to say it, but it felt almost liberating. Like the gray clouds that were hovering over my head every time the potential for love came along were gone. My fear of having every feeling stomped on was gone. My anger, and bitterness, and frustration that came of it was somehow released, and I was freed from all of those hostile feelings I harbored for so long.

I suspect that that is why I have suddenly been feeling jealous of all of my coupled friends, and not running away from the idea of a relationship like I did before.

Am I ready to give all of myself to someone again with the chance of it all getting ripped apart? I don’t know. But I think I would like the chance to have someone worth considering it.


I am sorry… I know this is a sappy girly entry. But it was such a strange and wonderful feeling that I had to write about it.

Deal with it, suckas.

I promise I’ll be funny next time.

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