It happened. It finally happened. I finally found out that, yes, my ex has moved on and is seeing someone else. Has been for a while. Someone who is, from what I gather, more attractive, intelligent, young, wealthy and educated. Now I know how our phones feel; it's a weird thing to discover that you've been traded in for a better model.
What I want to feel: Good for her! I'm glad she's moved on and has found someone that makes her happy.
What I feel: I need to run far away and hide in a hole and punch something.
It's strange, because I've been bracing for this particular point of impact for a long time. Simultaneously trying to tell myself it was coming and trying to trick myself into thinking it had already happened. And despite all that preparation, this new slice of knowledge still plowed right through me and breathed life into the embers of frustration and hurt that I thought had long smoldered away. I want to be better than my broken-hearted lizard-brain instincts, I really do. But that's one tough bugger to kill, apparently.
The funny thing is that I want to air all the dirty laundry and ask all sorts of loaded questions of her, but I know for sure there isn't a single answer that wouldn't hurt. I guess if you spend five years getting close to someone, it takes a while to get over them. Apparently one year isn't enough to cure the hurt and banish all those regrets loitering around the dusty halls of your brain.
I don't want to go back to the way things were. It was such a toxic place to be, and I know I'm happier now and am infinitely more comfortable in my current relationship and am looking forward to what lies ahead and don't want to retread old mistakes and why can't I just stop thinking about it?
My ex is in a new relationship.
What do I do with this fact? Apparently, I get home after holding it together for the whole day... And break down a bit. Cry, even. That's something I've done less than four or five times in the last fifteen years. After we broke up last year, I've been carrying that tumour everywhere I go. I knew it had in me from the moment we last saw eachother, and it just wouldn't come out. And now it has.
I mourned what we had, and what we just couldn't seem to be. I mourned for the whole world that a naive, first-time lover had hoped to share with the girl he had fallen so hard for. I wanted everything, and got... Definitely not that. Naivety; it sucks to know you have it. It sucks worse to know that it's gone and is never coming back.
Damn. What a relief to finally get all that out. What a relief to know the door is finally closed, and I don't need to worry the draft tickling the soles of my feet.
During the first year or two of us dating I wrote a letter to myself and hid it away. On the sealed envelope I wrote, "And in the end..."
It was written to be a kick in the pants for my future brokenhearted self, planning for the inevitable fallout when this wonderful woman would break up with me. It talked about how incredible she was and not to be bitter towards her. It talked about how being in love and having someone special in your life is such an incredible experience. It pleaded with me to pick myself up and try again.
Maybe this all sounds a bit drastic and melodramatic, but it was the best I could do to convince a mid-20's dork of unfathomable fear and low of self esteem not to fall into a deep pit of despair and spend the rest of his life alone. It would be so easy, too. I just wanted my future self to know that even after having my heart crushed, maybe it was worth trying to heal and use it again.
It never even occurred to me that I might be the one to break up with her. Talk about unfathomable.
And now here I am, sitting with this letter in my lap. Still sealed. I remember the gist of it, but obviously I don't remember the exact words inside. And maybe that's okay. Maybe it's time to give this letter over to the hands of decay, and take another stride, face-forward, through the continuous doorway of my life.
I can't keep dwelling on my past mistakes. Dear God, please don't let me spend my life obsessing over what once was and what wasn't.
-Cril
Tell your white dog, to get off my high trail
Tell your white dog, he can go to hell
Tell your white dog, to leave me alone
Why did you leave me here, to fend for my own
Go back, go back, to Virginia
Tennessee is gone
And roll into the sea
All your fields are burning
The old school's on fire
The darkened sky is waiting
The new star to rise
There's a black snake in the cypress trees
There's a black snake and it's come for me
Go back inside the house and get your grey shotgun
And send that black snake back to where he came from
The Maldives - Go Back to Virginia
