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Then it wasn’t your true love.
This is the quote my best friend left me with as we ended our phone call tonight. A phone call in which she told me my ex is in a relationship. Funny how news gets about. My best friend’s soon-to-be sister-in-law lives literally right beside my ex. Apparently my ex is dating his across the street neighbor.
The thing is, I knew this day would come. In fact, I’m grateful it’s not the other version of this conversation I’m used to (“insert-ex’s-name-here is getting married”). Actually I think (hope) this will be the final nail in the coffin. I’m usually good at putting relationships to rest when there is another woman involved. For some reason that makes me cease my fantasies of him coming to my door begging to be taken back. I assume that she will be his end all – be all. With good reason, but that’s another post.
But the truth is…I cried. I know shouldn’t care. I know it’s been 6 months (or more at this point? I stopped counting). However, I still had a flame of hope. Even my counselor wants to beat me about the head and shoulders. She often asks me what is it that he did that makes me not able to shake him. I can’t answer her. Perhaps b/c he (to my knowledge) didn’t cheat on me? (Unfortunately I pick a lot of cheaters). Because he made me dinner – often. Because he really hated to hurt me/my feelings. I don’t know.
At the end of my Sunday yoga class, my instructor always reads something yoga-y. Truth – it’s hard for me to buy into new-age/spiritual things b/c I didn’t grow up that way. HOWEVER, I do try to make an effort and be open-minded. This past Sunday the reading was on letting go. My ears perked up even though my eyes remained closed. The author stated that if we simply cannot let go of something, it means we have not learned the lesson and may need to go through that event again until we do. This scared the ever living shit out of me. I think I’ve said this before, but ususally with break ups – I’m good after 3 months. Believe me, I am now furiously searching for the lesson. I cannot fathom going through this shit/pain/crying-at-the-drop-of-a-hat scenario again.
I wonder how much the fact that my 30th birthday being right around the corner is adding to my, um, discomfort. I thought I had successfully thrown the single girl timeline out the window 6 or so years ago. Somehow it’s made its way back. Or it’s trying to anyway.
So this was a rant. A vent. I’m two glasses of wine in and the tears have stopped. I suppose I just needed to purge these gray feelings that have thus turned my body to sludge. I’m trying (in vain) to be grateful. I somehow often forget that I”m lucky. I have a job. I have a great salary. I have a beautiful home. A beautiful family. A great dog. And the cherry? FABULOUS friends. I need to remind myself to step back and see the big picture. In the end, M (the ex) will be a blip on the radar. In 5 years I hope I’m laughing about this. To be determined…
Even though my bff hates the quote she gave me, I’m grateful for it. I have to believe it’s true. Besides, I remember giving her this very same quote 8 or so years ago. She is now happily married and has been for years. There’s hope for me afterall.
First, a vent: My work has blocked access to my blog. Until now, I did almost 100% of my posts from work. The good thing is I’m still able to log into WordPress and comment on other people’s blogs. Once they take that away I’m screwed.
And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
I love books. I’ve been a reader since kindergarten (albeit a slow one, but a reader none-the-less). I have so many scraps of paper in my planner, journal, etc. of book names and authors that have been recommended to me. This weekend I finally compiled my scraps and made a wish list on Amazon (thanks Peach for letting your obsession love of Amazon rub off on me). Right now my wish list has 38 books. Saturday I went to my library and got two off my list:
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera and
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
I’ve started with “The Unbearable Lightness…” and am hooked. I may have to steal a page from Mb and start doing book reviews.
Many thanks to those that recommend your faves (Mb, Peach, Katy, and I got a lot of recs from the comment section Lemon Gloria with this post). Please feel free to keep sending them along. It’s perfect weather for sitting on my back porch and devouring a great book.
Happy reading, everyone!
I was cruising to work in the dreay, rainy weather flipping stations tryng to find a song when I came upon
“Here she comes now sayin’ Mony Mony
Shoot ‘em down turn around come on Mony
Hey she give me love and I feel all right now
Come on you gotta toss and turn
And feel all right, yeah I feel all right
I said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”
Yeah! Of course I leave it there and rock out to the song doing my best car dance moves. The song itself reminds me of when we first moved to Manassas in 1987. My eldest brother is 10 years older than I am so at the time he was 17 and had the Billy Idol sneer down pat. I remember the really short shorts guys wore then. The boat shoes. The Vuarnet France tee shirts. Always trying to flirt with my brother’s friends at the young age of 7 and thinking they might be truly interested. Yes, good times indeed.
The song comes to an end. I’m in good mood still bobbing my head and then I hear the DJ say this:
“That was Billy Idol with “Mony Mony”. You know if you hear “Mony Mony” you are listening to the oldies station.”
Wait, what? Oldies station? Billy Idol?
Eff, this makes me feel old.
Perhaps I’ve alluded to this before, but most of my friends are in the “taken” category. I have never been that girl who is a constant “taken”. And I’m okay with that. My taken friends often comment that they live vicariously through me because, though I’m not a “taken”, I’m a damn good professional dater. This I like (most of the time anyway). I really do get to go on pretty fabulous dates to new restuarants, cool shows, fancy shmancy work parties (did I mention I like to dress up?), etc. I can see how this can look exciting and fun after your third Saturday in a row on the couch selecting an On Demand movie (not that there’s anything wrong with that…at all!).
And while my group of single girlfriends has definitely dwindled (seriously there is only 2 or 3 of us left), not much has changed relationship-wise with my taken friends. We still go out and have a good time. If anything I now have an even bigger search party looking for potential mates for me when we hit the bar. It’s nice having someone else do all the leg work and then literally drag a cute boy over to me. Taken girls need single girl friendships. Not in the negative sense of providing a reminder that “my life could be so much worse if I were single like you” (I don’t think I’d consider that person a friend if that was the purpose I held for them), but more along the lines of a partner in crime. When they can’t take another Saturday night on the couch or just need a break from the SO, they call the single friend to paint the town red. I like being this person. Also, the takens like to vent to the single friend (“If I have to do one more dinner with that heinous married couple (his friends) I’m going to put a fork in my eye). One of my married mommy friends recently confessed to me that I’m the only friend she can talk to for more than 10 minutes at a time. “Why?”, I asked. I learned it’s because when she talks to other married mommies and soon-to-be-mommies, it’s all about the babies. Either relating stories about pregnancy or delivery, or (and this is what kills her) relaying stories of where their baby is developmentally (“Little Jackson can lift his head and roll over and juggle! Can you believe that?!? Juggle! We’ve already called the circus. Big Daddy and Mama Bear are so proud!”).
So while obviously I’m still looking for my *one* (yes, I can still want to be a “taken” and enjoy my current single status), things are pretty good, right? I know you’re expecting a complaint/rant and I won’t let you down, my friends! Here’s when I don’t like being the single friend: when I’m only in the picture because you are all of a sudden single.
Background: I have a friend I have known for over 10 years. A great friend. Over the past couple of years she has entered my top tier of friends – that’s how good a friend I consider her to be. This past summer she went through a divorce. I was there for her every step of the way. In fact, I was the first person she told. The day it was finalized I took her out for Freedom Celebration drinks. After the divorce, we still talked 3 times a day at least. I helped her with her online dating profiles – what tag line to use, what pictures were most flattering. During this time, I did have a boyfriend, but still spent a considerable amount of time with her. When my relationship ended, she was a good friend to me in return. Calling often to see how I was holding up. Making sure I was busy, etc. That is, until she met someone shortly after. Plans started to break. Phone calls slowed to once a month and then stopped altogether. I seriously was so hurt. In my head our friendship was just about over.
Until I decided that I could do something. Afterall, communication works both ways. I emailed her around Christmas time and said I felt like our friendship has fallen by the way side – what can we do to fix it? She immediately responded and a dinner was planned. A good start…or so I thought. Since that time, nothing really changed. Until last Tuesday when I got a text from her “We broke up”.
I knew I should have called immediately and offered compassion, but I just couldn’t. I was still mad. And this just made me angrier because I knew (knew!) I was the only friend she was telling this to. Because I’m the only single friend in the group. I didn’t call. I did text asking a for a few details, but I knew if I called she would hear the contempt in my voice. She turned to me as the Patron Saint of Singles - for I would know exactly how she felt b/c I’ve been through many break ups (one of them being pretty fresh) and I would be the one who would be her wing-woman when she was ready to date again. I didn’t call her until Thursday. By then my anger had subsided and I was able to muster some compassion. We had dinner this past Friday and have another date set for this Saturday. I’m back in (good) friend-mode.
Now is clearly not the time to tell her how I’ve been feeling. I won’t add insult to her current injury. But something does need to be said. I just hope I have the balls to say it when she’s in a better place. In the end, I decided I can’t let a 10 year friendship go down the toilet because of a 5 month relationship for her and a friendship hiatus for me. In truth, I never stay very mad at my friends for very long. I can get over this. I know it was not intentional on her part to hurt me. It’s easy getting caught up in the newness of a relationship. Perhaps next time I just need to provide a gentle reminder that we’re not in high school anymore and therefore it’s not cool to ditch your friends for your Mr. Right Now. And besides, now my single girlfriends pool has just increased by 30%. Gotta look at the bright side 
