My December to Remember: Day Twenty-Seven
News: Bryant Park Christmas Village goes up in flames, started by cooking oil.
Dem analysts write an op-ed in The Hill urging Capitol Hill Dems to block the certification for president (this is extremely dangerous to our democracy tho).
Trump asks Supreme Court to halt TikTok ban.
National Archives releases official photos of then-VP Biden meeting with son Hunter’s Chinese business partners.
Person set on fire near escalator at NYC’s Penn Station.
X accused of de-verifying accounts after debate sparked by discussion of H1B visas.
I don’t make it a point to burn my bridges. I don’t even have the matches to do so. It just doesn’t seem to be in my nature, like I don’t have the capabilities of making that happen. I’d feel too bad to just tell someone to f*ck off forever, no matter how the person treated me in the past. So if someone walks out my door, no matter the circumstance, I always leave it open, or at least ajar. There’s an invitation to reconnect that remains on the table, it’s just at the other party’s discretion whether or not they accept. However, this opens me up to perhaps some undesirable candidates coming over to try and cross my threshold.
My last boyfriend (before this one) happened in 2009. It was just a brief summer relationship, but I had fun with it. I wanted there to be more potential to keep going, but things came to a halt shortly after my last knee surgery. He told me, over text, that he wanted to concentrate on other things and that our relationship had to come to an end. I was upset, as I came to really like him. Still, I moved on rather quickly and had no hard feelings one way or the other. I tried a few times here and there to stay in touch but ultimately everything fell off and we all went on with our lives.
Fast forward a few years later and I got this random little whale emoji text from a number I didn’t recognize. I sent an emoji back, just for fun, to which more texts started coming in, and it was obvious this person knew me. So I finally asked just who this was, and it was the ex. I was a little indifferent to him coming back around, but still performed all the niceties one usually does when reconnections happen: how’ve you been, what are you doing now, where are you living…etc… He said he was living in Summit, which is about a forty or so minute train ride from the city. He said he would love to take me out for a drink sometime, because he’s been thinking about my, uh, skills in one certain department and wanted that again. It was a bold thing to text after not speaking for five years, and I was certainly not going to comply. I said if he ever wanted to have a drink I’d do that, but there was never any follow-up. My door may stay open to whoever wants to pass by, but once I’m home, I’m home. I ain’t chasing anyone, especially someone who only wanted one thing.
This was a pattern for me for years. People I once spent time with seemed to circle back around to request things of me. It’s like they just missed what I could do and thought there was still a shot. I guess my unwillingness to simply barricade myself inside and cut off the rest of the world opens me up to all sorts of gentlemen callers. But I know well enough to know when the past should remain there, even as I invite the runaround and return here and there. What I have now at home, and all I experience when the door is shut, is far too precious to willingly open myself up to another possibility.
But I guess it all depends on what kind of pull you have, and what exactly you’re putting out from beyond that open portal. Because sometimes, even when you’ve put distance between you and whoever came knocking, they still found a way back, didn’t they?
