12) marking the memory only

April Awakening: Day Twelve 🌧️☁️🌤️

There was a time when I was in these non-relationships that it was somewhat romantic to reminisce about the times we were together when we weren’t together. I’d think of my ex-lover fondly, feeling like just the memory I was holding was enough to keep the flame alive. There was something so sensual about it; knowing maybe you weren’t mine but knowing you still wish you were.

This happened all the time with my ex-boyfriend, though he never actually considered himself my boyfriend. “We didn’t survive our first fight,” he later explained, that first fight being me wanting to fly back to Jersey early November during my junior year of college, only for him to tell me, while I was at the airport, he was busy that weekend. I didn’t even end up coming home I was so mad. I had my mom cancel the flight, telling her I was nervous to fly because there were ambulances and cop cars on the runway. While that was true, it wasn’t the reason, and I was too embarrassed to tell her the real one.

I broke up with him two weeks later when he wasn’t returning my calls, but saw him at a national fencing tournament a month later. We ‘rekindled’ something, I guess, and what ensued became four more years of the back and forth, something I’d grown so accustomed to that anything else was nothing but a thought in the dark.

I’d cherish the times he’d be back on my phone or on AIM, still speaking with me and hinting at things, even if he had a girlfriend at the time. Didn’t matter to me, that was on him as far as I was concerned, as he still wanted to hang out and talk. I felt that if he was bypassing what he built with someone else but was still after me, that meant something. I still lived in his mind and he wanted to act out all the dirty things he’d tell me. And I would do anything to try and fulfill those desires, naively thinking that if we could just have that one special night, he’d remember how much he once cared about me. We could finally begin anew, not needing to stew in the memories of the past, and finally bring what once was into the present.

It never happened. He’d hook up with me in between girlfriends and then find someone else who was his “everything.” Someone he could be “Facebook official” with. But when that would inevitably fail, as he was still talking to me, I’d be right there to remind him what he had in me. There was one time we were both single and my parents were out of town, so he said he’d come over to my house. He never showed. He never called. I sat on my couch all prettied up all night, waiting for a text like some idiot. He told me the next day his car broke down and he couldn’t make it out. And I believed him. Because the present wasn’t lying to me, my past feelings were taking precedent. And he still wanted me sexually. It all counted, didn’t it? My mind wouldn’t betray me, would it?

I really am trying not to harbor negative feelings about him, because what good are they doing me? I’ve written about him here a few times, but is it positive to do so? I seem to be almost condemning him for keeping an image of me in his mind all those years later. Am I not doing the same here? I literally have no idea who he is anymore, if I ever did in the first place, as I’ve had zero contact in over thirteen years by now. But there must be something in what I’m retaining that I have yet to let go of, considering I did the same back-and-forth dance with the next person who became significant. But that’s another story for another time. Maybe.

Perhaps it is time to get past all those hurt feelings. Because whatever it was I once felt, it’s not there anymore. A security finally exists and I’m not pining for anything, wondering if and when a message will come in. I’m creating memories here, but it’s almost like I don’t have time to reminisce. I’m just on a forward path where I keep finding things to like. The romantic feelings once reserved for the longing have been replaced with active participation. So maybe I just wasn’t meant to have this with the others. No one’s at fault, so I can’t keep assigning it.

Wherever this guy may be, I hope everything is okay. No need for so many fatal flashbacks. I can control my consciousness more than I think.