Conspicuous Exes

In which our Hero sees his Herself in his reflections

For a few hours this past weekend, I had a moment with my lady. Strange phrase perhaps, but both impressions of time are heartfelt to me. It was a long stretch of time spent with our attention directly on each other, and it was a moment, a quantifiable point of significance. That happened to take some time to happen.

Of course, what makes these particular hours a noteworthy moment against the other times we talk is that for a little while, she had time. Like me her travails harry her and she moves through the world with a pack of deadlines biting at her heels. So normally our time spent in each other’s telepresence comes like waves on a beach. Entirely predictable in a sense and yet entirely random, driven by vast and distant forces. Clients, and deadlines, and bears. Oh my.

But for a little while, there were no deadlines, and there was nothing *that* urgent and so we talked a while. Well, we always talk as I said, but…

There are conversations and then there are Conversations. Small-c conversations happen anywhere, anywhen. Big-C conversations take, at the minimum, inertia. Well, okay, I should say that for the introvert types it takes inertia. For the extroverts, I think they get a little bit of a free pass, but sometimes the key for them is having the moment to breath.

But anyway, it’s a little like getting rain in a desert. A little bit of water, and nothing changes. Most of the moisture just evaporates right out of the surface. A little bit more and the desert wakes up. Plants bloom, grass grows, animals surface.

A little bit more conversation, and that soaks below the surface too. People are a little more honest, a little more open, a little more sincere. There are all these things that live between the deep dark secrets that we can never share and the mindless banter of strangers in a corridor. There are all these unspoken not-secrets, fragments of souls, revealed or even just reflected in that extra depth that comes of having the moment of silence to pause and be brave.

Out comes the unknown hobby, or the unexpected side of a friend or coworker. Out comes the darker side of that funny story that keeps getting repeated as you wait for the bus. Secret kisses, embarrassing flops…

Enough conversation and revelations bloom.

My Nocturne and I talked, from arguing about a tv show to stories of our childhoods and homes, to bad memories, and good ones. And I’m not mentioning it because it was surprising or unusual. What I want to capture is the peek into my lady, the warm recognition of my dear darling friend who is present always but sometimes so beset by her work. It was just fun to spend time with her without one or the other of us having to run off to the next thing.

One of the things we talked about was some of my last relationship. About one of the various issues that led to the end of that situation. And I talked about it as coherently as I could and it became kind of a walk through that abandoned wing of the museum of me, us kind of having a conversation that circled in and out of the whole relationship story, talking about other people we knew and other experiences and then ducking back to something else.

But at some point she asked me why I stayed so long when things had deteriorated so much. And I tried to explain my view that when you love someone you accept the rough spots and in my head it seemed like these things happen between couples and part of it is just powering through the bad times.

For the record, I didn’t actually hear the look she gave me but she did observe that it didn’t make sense. And I am far enough from it that all I can say is that sometimes when you’re in a situation it’s really hard to get a balanced perspective on it. I swear again now, my choices seemed necessary and right at the time, and equally, right now, I can’t for the life of me explain how it could make any sense at all.

It all seems to come down to a crappy feedback loop. The ex would get upset about something or another, and instead of telling me, I’d have to guess what was wrong. And that’s something that’s been common to some degree or another with every woman I’ve ever dated.

She argued that it wasn’t strictly a female thing, but rather just a general immaturity thing. (Which I guess I know data points to support that view, yet it still seems to skew noticeably along gender lines). And then she asked me why I would put up with that.

All I could say was that up to that point, I hadn’t been aware there was another option.

I suppose I should just be glad that there’s no real residual emotion. Though the emotion would make it feel less stupid to look back at it. But the rare times that I think of the ex, it’s to wonder how her folks are keeping. They were good to me.

Speaking of shedding residual emotion, I reached something of a milestone as I prepped for the New Year’s party, in that I realized that I was ready to throw away the boxes of letters to and from Jay. She got pissed at me when she found out I still had them, but somehow even though I’ve never opened them up, it never felt right to throw them away.

Till now. When I realized the weight of them was gone. But then I realized I still should go through them to check if there are any interesting pictures and so they got put back on the shelf just because of time constraints. But that’s a goal, to get rid of them this year.

For all that I’ve been through, for all that I hang my head and ask myself “What was I thinking” about some situations, for all that I am just embarrassed about some of the choices I’ve made, I keep finding a single thought answering: “Those things brought you here.”

And sharing here with me, is her.

Life is good.

This entry is brought to you by Oven’s little brother, the announcement of whose birth has woken me in the middle of the night.

Unca Jack is smiling.

Goodnight.