Because there isn’t enough going on in my life right now, my ex just reached out to ask If I want to get a drink.
Obviously.
I didn’t respond immediately. I gave myself permission to think about it. Really weigh what makes most sense for me. This introspection is a new thing. Progress. For the past few days, particularly when I was packing just to come down here for the week and start my new job I was overcome with grief.I think I stayed so busy stressing out about finding a place and starting at a new organization that I put all of the relationship stuff into a dark closet where I could ignore it. But leaving Sacramento means really leaving my memories and this relationship, whatever miniscule shards remain.
It’s been almost three months and yet this concept still grips my stomach and brings the tears. I had no idea that I had inadvertently been sitting vigil since November. Months later, moving on was staring me right in the face and still, it brought me to my knees.
The text from my ex was an opportunity for me to really check in. Of course I want to see him. In this tempest of change and fear and novelty, I would give anything to feel the familiar comfort of his arms. The safety and support that had a way of warming my blood, like clothes fresh from the dryer. But if we went out that’s not what I’d get. Not at all. I’d get this new version. Not the person I dated for so long, the person that I knew everything about, whose mannerisms became so familiar to me that in the past three years, despite my annoyance, I’d picked most of them up.
I’d get the version that wants to be good friends, that has settled into being pals (“Super excited for you to be heading to Oakland!” he said in his text) and I’m not there yet. That version doesn’t feel comfortable to me. It just feels vapid and sad. So I said no. I said no and then cried, because after three months, after feeling like I was really moving on because I hadn’t cried in a respectable chunk of time, despite this non-crying likely having to do with being really distracted, it’s still there.
There is a deeper place carved out for the sadness though. It’s familiar. “Oh, hello again tears,” I think. I welcome them in for a while, let them do their cleansing and then continue on to the next thing. Because moving forward feels right, despite that sadness, this enormous fear and the rapidly approaching ledge I am about to sail off of.
