Yesterday was such a good day. My education presentation went well, and my Natural World was cancelled. It was just a nice day. Dr. Giesler told me I'm an all star student and tried to help me figure out ways to study more effectively for his exam and that made me feel really good. I saw Erin, and Keely, and Lucy and all of my friends yesterday too.
I'm excited because on Sunday night I spoke with Pam for a few hours about boys, and about my birthday and just a lot of happy things. Effie is also coming up this weekend for my birthday so I'm very excited. It's going to be a wonderful weekend. I'm looking forward to singing in a choir for a graduate student I really admire and spending some more time cementing my friendships. However there is a friendship that is giving me trouble.
There is no way I can be friends with my ex. He hasn't really considered in what ways a friendship will be similar or different to us dating and we need to talk about that. I'm so anxious to talk about that, yet when we got dinner I completely avoided talking about it. For a long time I avoided talking about the break up and boundaries because that ensures we will never date again. But we can not ever date again. Based on the timeline of things, we took our shot, but in your lifetime I'm pretty sure on average you fall in love seven times and you might top out at three marriages. So, 3/7 isn't the world's best average. I was talking to Lucy last night because she was anxious to be in her room but after we handled her problem we turned over to some of mine. Chiefly, what boundaries do I have and do I need? Because the thing is, there is NO way I can be friends with my ex without them. And to give my ex the benefit of the doubt and believing that he cares about me doesn't help me get over him any. Because I know he does care. He cares about me a lot. He just doesn't love me. I find myself in thought loops of "he must love me because he didn't want to hurt me" but the reason why he'd be hurting me is that he doesn't love me and back and forth again. I need to differentiate between caring about someone and loving them, because my ex does not love me and hasn't loved me for some time and will never love me again.
Tonight I felt very sad about the fact that I had come to recognize there is no future romantically with my ex. Our lives are set on two different paths and we want different things and we've always known that. And ultimately, there are things about him that make me so angry and frustrated and so I'm grateful that his problems are no longer my responsibility. There are so many reasons I'm grateful that I am no longer dating him, but in my head I am having trouble separating loving him from caring for him. I don't want to love him any longer, and I don't believe I do. I want to care for him, but I just am having a lot of trouble with that. We were pretty perfect for each other for a while. I'll never know what happened. I want to, but there's no good in rehashing the past. It's more important to identify the emotions at present, even the unpleasant ones. I am worried that the unpleasant parts of trying to be friends will scare my ex away. But Michelle Obama said something really powerful tonight about women having seats at the table of important decisions. She said if you're invited to the table don't waste a seat. Your thoughts and opinions are valid and important to be shared and if someone doesn't like hearing it and you are asked to leave the table, then your presence was wasted there and you can spend your time doing better things elsewhere. So, that's how I feel about my friendship with my ex right now. Does he want me at the table? Then let me have the floor:
Dear ex boyfriend: I know you don't read this anymore, but things will be okay with us, I know it. I want that so badly. I care about having a relationship with you and a future where I can smile and say "I know him" when you win your first Tony, and you can smile and say "I know her" when I'm sworn in as secretary of education. We're ambitious bad asses and we need to stick together in life because no one dreams like us. I believe in us. I believe this will work.
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