Since we broke up I basically went cold-turkey on contact with the ex-boyfriend, save a short note in the bag of stuff I returned to his doorstep, and a gracious but clear (if I do say so myself) email in response to his voicemail message looking to come by to "return some stuff" (the coathangers, as it turned out later) and (it seemed obvious to me) seeking absolution/forgiveness/comfort a week or so after we broke up. Anyway I sidestepped that with what I thought was a genuine and kind response, letting him know that although I was sad I was neither angry nor did I think there was anything to be forgiven, and that I was certain we would resume a warm friendship down the line but that while the scab was forming I didn't really want to pick at it, thanks very much, so we could have the debriefing "Talk" he wanted to have but not for a while.
So mature!
Today I noticed that I was ready to do it. I sent him an email saying I was ready to say a more formal goodbye, and actually feel like I need to as part of my process of unhooking and moving on. I said it felt like a lot longer than a month, so much has elapsed since then. He responded with news of what's happened with him in the interim, and asked if I'd gotten an email he sent a few days ago to a little-checked account (I hadn't). From his response I could tell he hasn't been reading the blog (e.g. "How was the marathon?" "Did you go to the caucus?"). Which I think is a good thing, I dunno. How the blog, it's existence and its contents, and who does or does not read it, affects my flesh-and-blood relationships is the subject of a post for a later day (not that I know).
So I'm gauging my feelings about all this and these emails we exchanged don't stir me up all that much. Friendly but not needy, overblown or exaggerated. Careful, I suppose, but I wouldn't describe them with words as charged as "guarded" or "distant". Mature. So mature. I don't think there's anything I want from him (although I did ask him to burn me a copy of a CD). I don't feel like there's anything I need to prove. I want to say goodbye so the next time we say hello it can be as friends, because I think, at core, he's a person I'd like to count among my friends. I keep checking my own pulse to make sure when I write these words I'm not lying -- I'm not secretly hoping he'll want me back or want to kill himself for dumping me or tell me how he realizes he was such a chump. I think it's true though. How did I get so mature? I mean, you guys know that I'm not, right? It's very interesting how emotions lose their charge. How we are, ultimately, able to let go.
We'll see how this shakes out when I see him in person sometime next week.
[UPDATE: It went fine. It was easy, even though we talked some about the reasons for the breakup and the way it happened. I think we'll be friends without much struggle or drama.]
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