Day 29 ... Lookin Back Leapin...

I want to share with you all something I wrote about the ex.............this was before the journey. A journey of 30 days EXTENDED to 60. Maybe I have been hesitant to write because I don't want it to end. But like all good things, it has to. It was with contentment I read this, feeling confident that I am no longer bound by hopes that are futile, or rather hopes wrapped up in a cloak of illusion. I apologize for the lengthy paragraphs, but they make sense to me as is. This is where I was at with the ex for a long time.



My story of the ex:

THE EX - we have known each other since seventh grade. We were always in homeroom together. He said he always remembered me talking about my shoes. I remember him as a chubby kid. I became friends with his older sister through my crazy dive into the Rave scene. Man, were those crazy days. I would be at their house, not sober and The Ex and his friends would be downstairs. I would be SO annoyed by the boys because they were loud and unruly and always trying to fuck everyone who wasn’t me. And I would never see The Ex that way……too big for my taste. OK so is this like divine fucking revenge???? I didn’t even see him back then and yet he was always quietly ogling me so he says. I was his fantasy, and I never once took the time to see beneath what I found to be an unattractive quality.

As I separated from the Ravers, graduated college, I would occasionally see The Ex. And I never wanted to touch him or anything like that, but we would always sit and talk the night away. Even when I was dating others, I was drawn to him. Intellectually only, but as a Gemini, those ties are often the most binding.

He asked me to edit his master’s degree thesis. That same summer he “ended” it with his girlfriend because of certain seedy actions on her part. We saw each other a lot. Friends only. I flashed him. You know, usual friend “stuff”. I remember the night. We were at a friend’s house; we were not drinking heavily, but he lived further away. I told him he could stay at my place. In my head, I hadn’t yet admitted what I wanted….hadn’t admitted what I knew was going to happen. But really………………… I lived in a fucking studio. I knew we would be sharing a bed! My god, that night.

We danced around the issue. We flirted with disaster. We lay in bed and he just looked at me and said, “I know this is going to sound funny, but I have dreamed of doing this for so long. Can I put my hand on your stomach?”

“Sure,” I said with a giggle. I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me.

“I have wanted to do this for so long. I know it is silly, but you are so beautiful and I just want to touch you.”

Trying to hide the blushing and utter disbelief that I was actually looking forward to the moment when we were going to kiss, I turned on my back and let him.

I can’t tell you what we did – I can tell you that to date I have never been so happy in a man’s arms. It was as if this entire world opened up to me and I never recognized how amazing The Ex was. He loved every inch of my body. Couldn’t stop touching and kissing me. It was passionate, and he was sexy in a way I never thought he would be. We were together many times that night and into the morning. We would sleep for a half hour, roused awake by the stickiness of our sweaty bodies on my bed in my basement apt with no air conditioning. I was for the first time in my life, shell-shocked. I had no expectation, and yet this man had made my world change in one night.

A few months later he went back to the ex.

Four years later, and with many realizations that he is not the man I thought he was, I can’t run away from the desire to feel him. Not sexual…………….but rather completely. He is home to me. And as I type this I am so FUCKING angry at him for being weak and not choosing me over the safe choice, and I am even madder at myself for thinking that he is the one I need in my life.

But no one, no logical thought, no simply put words of wisdom can take away the fact that when I touch him, a simple truth prevails. He is home. I feel at home in his arms and want to be there again. This is a suck ass conclusion if you ask me! I hate it. But I cannot deny its existence.

I also can’t deny that something broke in me when The Ex broke my heart. Something changed in me forever. Ok so the idea of “broke my heart” – is this ever really the case? As an English teacher we are constantly urging the more sophisticated writers to avoid the passive tense and yet the phrase “he broke my heart” is so overused. Does any one truly have the capacity? The truth is I let him do it. I allowed myself to give in with NO caution – I didn’t stop to think that he might not be on the same roller coaster as me - I was on the cyclone at Coney Island, a fixture as permanent as Brooklyn itself, while The Ex was at a county fair playing whack-a-mole for a prize that he never intended to keep. But I never asked him those questions. I was so happy to have someone to dote over, and to have someone dote over me, I never stopped to think.

I digress. So with a broken heart (avoid passivity) I became afraid. I have never been afraid of love in my life. I have sought it constantly. And now I just am so afraid that I will meet someone again, and I will think the same way, and the same rug will be pulled out from underneath me. I don’t know if I could survive that. I don’t know if I could be me.

THE END

Oh EX..................I will miss what we had, but I no longer feel you are home. You were a summer vacation, intense and full of excitement. I couldn't live there forever. I can't say I am over you. But I am a lot further along in the process from where I started. I hope you enjoy the life you are creating for yourself. My story is yet to be told, mere fabric on a loom, but for the first time in a long time I feel this fabric is rich in texture, vibrant in color, and sturdy in its lasting power.

Hope and Love,
Soul Dancer