Last week I started texting with a woman from California. We talked late one night and I found myself frequently referring to my recent past as “a few years ago.” It seems everything in my life happened a few years ago – all of my dating history falls into this category, my recent jobs, my moves to TN and back to PA… even some of my more meaningful relationships are not terribly old – the dirt is still fresh.
As I wait for “a few years ago” to erode into “many years ago” I’m sometimes caught off guard by how much memory and history permeate the present moment and how the passage of time can seem both slow and quick. I’ve never been one to want to erase history, rewrite it, forget it, or put intentionally excessive distances between me and it. Like it or not, history will continue to pile up around us and as it does, we will see it with varying degrees of objectivity, nostalgia, shame, regret, joy, and scorn.
This morning I read a few of my old blog posts (the ones featured on the My Back Pages list on this blog). Three years ago in November, shortly after starting this blog (September) and moving to Memphis (October), I wrote:
“I still think of my ex-fiancée every day. I still miss her terribly. I still sometimes think the universe will somehow bring us back together. But, I think I’ve tired of writing about it. I think I’ve just about punched myself out of it.”
Rereading that today, I wondered how a stranger might read it. Rereading that today feels a little embarrassing. It was honest – though I was far from tired of writing about “it” – meaning her, us, me. At that time, I was just getting started. Eventually, I made a conscious shift away from explicitly exploring those things. For the most part, I stopped referring to her by her initial, B, and then shifted from my “ex-fiancée” to “an ex.” These were subtle but intentional attempts at diminishing – at proving to myself (and maybe her or anyone else that read this blog) that I had moved on.
The ex-fiancée still crosses my mind quite a bit, but in different ways. I don’t know if it’s an everyday occurrence, but it’s difficult to reflect on where I am today (something I do a lot) without acknowledging the context and impact of that past. In this respect, she occupies a space like that of anyone who has had meaning in my life. Growth and aspirational thinking requires reference points and some understanding of “from what” or “from where.” At this point, any missing or longing that I feel seems more associated with the experiences and potential we had as opposed to the actual person – the future I’d still like to have however, wherever, and with whoever that plays out. The truth is, I don’t know that I knew her very well then, and I certainly don’t know her now. What we had seemed real and worth holding on to – and now, worth learning from.
When she crosses my mind, the thinking now feels different – perhaps grainier and more speculative. For example, after reading a headline about a new COVID variant, I briefly wondered if she’s an anti-vaxxer (after me, she dated someone who seemed fond of right-wing conspiracies and talking points). I thought of how unsettling that type of a discovery could have been. In this case, the ex-fiancée became a generic she at the beginning of a story. One in which two people find themselves in the throes of irreconcilable differences: “I never saw it coming. She believed in climate science and evolution. I wouldn’t have guessed her to be against the science of vaccines, much less put the lives of our children at risk.” It’s the type of thing two people probably wouldn’t have discussed in a pre-pandemic world. Now, it’s a compatibility check box in the online dating world.
About a month ago, maybe more, I started and abandoned and restarted and re-abandoned a long blog post about the ways in which she and that relationship have influenced and continue to influence me today (sometimes good, sometimes neurotic and defensive). In my more neurotic and defensive moods, I can write hundreds of words, and never seem to get it right (I’m just shy of 600 words right now – and have another 400 words that are in the weeds). It’s as if there’s too much backstory, too much context, and too many contradictory thoughts to ever be concise let alone objective. When I write, I find myself over-explaining and then telling myself none of the details or backstory matter. A lot of those internal debates stem from still feeling as though I need to justify my life and my experiences to this person and anyone who knew us and/or might read this. In the aftermath of our breakup, she had laid some heavy blame and accusations against me. And for the most part, I accepted them in the spirit of ownership. In some respects, I’ve allowed those accusations to define me and leave me in a semi-permanently defensive (and somewhat anxious) position.
The trigger a month ago? I was sitting at bar, bored, and googled her. I know this is not abnormal behavior. It’s also not helpful. People look up exes all the time, and yet I felt guilt and shame about it. Like I had violated some self-imposed rule. She would probably hate for me to know anything about her. The vexing and abandoned blog post began with the admission: “and I had been doing so well.” Indeed, it had been a while since I looked her up and suddenly I felt like I took a step backwards, like I had fallen off the wagon or something. In an effort to understand and process, I wrote and wrote and my thinking became knotted. I was trying to wrestle with the fact that she’s changed jobs several times in the last year and still seems to be this nomadic soul unwilling or unable to plant the smallest of roots. In some respects, I felt duped all over again – how could I have believed that she ever wanted to settle. I was trying to reconcile that while I was more than willing to go along for the ride – was excited about our journey wherever we landed, she might not be the settling down type. She might be the type who frequently feels trapped and hemmed in and sees compromise as control… Those aren’t inherently bad things, but I think they require a level of self-awareness before making a commitment to “settle down.” I was trying to figure out whether or not I could have handled the turmoil and stress that comes with frequent job changes and moves. She would often tell me that all she wanted was some peace, and I began to think it was probably asking too much of me to be the primary provider of that peace. As I thought this, I had to acknowledge that since she left, I too have moved and changed jobs and felt trapped and sought peace. I wrote and rewrote trying to capture feelings of empathy, betrayal, resignation, and acceptance.
Why the anxiety? The google search confirmed what I had known for some time – that she moved back to the west coast. Though he and I never talked, I was, until this past August, still connected with her brother on Facebook. This past spring, he was posting a lot of stuff for sale and eventually announced that he and his family were moving. I read through the congratulations comments on a post about their move and saw one comment mentioning her move back. This bit of knowledge made me feel strangely defensive about the times I’ve wanted to move and the fact that at some point, I’ll want to move again… Two years ago, after I moved here and things were going terribly at my job (my board chair and I were trying to decide which one of us should resign), I began looking for jobs out on the west coast. At that time, my desire to get out of here was all-consuming. The weather was terrible, my work colleagues didn’t want me here, I didn’t have any friends or anything to do, an anonymous community member had tried to get me fired, the cat got sick and died, and I was a guest in the house where I lived. I was certain that I was leaving and would probably land in San Diego, Austin, San Francisco, or Seattle. My sense of duty held me back.
The only thing that got me through those early months and much of my first year here was my long-distance relationship with my friend Stacy, and eventually my new friends at Otto’s. When that relationship ended (I wasn’t looking for something more and she was), I sat with the notion of being back at square one – yet another attempt at / version of starting over. I began to miss having someone to talk to daily, I began to miss the small things two people might share in a life together (travel, coffee, concerts, sitting under the stars). Aside from my Fridays at the bar, I turned inward and started to wonder if I was ready for a deep and committed relationship again. I felt lukewarm about the prospect. I checked out the dating profiles of people in the area and found nothing. I also noticed that when I’d travel back home, the options were abundant. I began to think about whether I’d be willing to move for a relationship and that prospect started to make sense – I’ve moved for less and some of those things didn’t work out. I began looking in other cities (sometimes back home, sometimes in Memphis just to see, but mostly on the west coast). Aside from last week’s conversation with a woman from California, I don’t take many active steps to find that relationship – the logistics seem too insurmountable. But you can probably see why I’m uncomfortable knowing that an ex is in a city where I’ve considered dating and possibly moving. I feel like I should have called dibs a long time ago.
I never “finished” that blog post I started a month ago. I’ve wrestled and wrangled it. I have paragraphs that rehash things that don’t require re-hashing. Every time I tried, I got twisted and turned around – and for all I know, I could have the wrong read on things. Maybe she moved back because she got married and is settling down. Quite a few of the women I’ve dated in “these past few years” have gotten engaged and/or married. The simple version of what I was trying to get at was that I used to miss her and I used to want to somehow stay connected. I also wanted to strike out on my own – be the person I wanted to find, and maybe move out west. Now, that possibility seems unnecessarily complicated – as though I somehow lost a race I didn’t know I was running. I’ve tried not to get too tangled or defensive in my thinking, but as I’ve talked to one or two women from that city, I begin to wonder how I would explain being interested in a city where an ex lives. I also worry that they somehow know her or something dumb like that – as though she might be able to organize a union of women against me (see Flight of the Conchords song “Carol Brown“). And what a waste of energy this hand-wringing turns out to be. Even today, I’ve spent the better part of my day just trying to write this when I could have been doing so many other things. Such are the complications of past emotions, such are the perils of unearthing the present moment and some recent history.