Well, I couldn’t write that last post about J and not update you when there’s updating to be done!
He stuck in my head. Since I had the dream, I just kept thinking about him. I’m sure it helped that my wife has just begun a secondary relationship and so there was (and is) New Relationship Energy (NRE) floating around the house like crazy (you know, that exciting and bubbling mix of energy when you begin a new relationship that’s like a bright and effervescent prosecco? In poly circles, we call that NRE). And in our house this year, Papa’s return since Yule has manifested in an abundance of sexual energy that has us giggling while we shake our heads and remind each other that no, it’s really not Beltane, despite the fact that it feels like it on an energetic level. That probably contributed also.
So, on my birthday (the 26th), I decided to check in with my new pendulum (an adorable little sunshiney carnelian) about responding to the last message he’d sent me on linked in (in 2008). It practically screamed ‘yes’ to me, and my insides erupted in a frenzy of fluttering like a handful of faeries hyped up on jolt cola. After I managed to calm myself down a bit, I set to work forming a short and concise (hard to imagine, but yes, I am capable of this when necessary and with great effort) attempt at reaching out and clicked ‘send.’
I’m going to pause here to inform you, in case you hadn’t figured it out yet, that I am a girly girl. Not to great extremes (I don’t get manicures and pedicures, I don’t have an innate sense that enables me to distinguish between Prada, Gucci, and Dolce & Gabbana and the various seasons and years of their lines, I don’t keep up with celeb gossip, etc.), but I am girly, and I know it. Unfortunately, the combination of girliness and having to wait for a response from an old flame makes for a potentially diabolical combination. Thus was I spinning in circles in my head wondering if he would make me wait three years before responding like I had or fantasizing about his immediate response asking me where I was so that he could catch the first flight here and make passionate and crazy love to me as soon as was humanly possible or wondering if he was married or if he still wore that badge of arrogant asshole on his sleeve proudly or what our babies would look like or if he still used his linked in account and what if he didn’t and didn’t get my message or what if I wasn’t meant to reconnect with him since he was my heroine and could I handle it better this time than a decade ago, etc., etc. You see? Crazy.
He responded I think a day and a half (or so) later. Believe it or not, I had not been profusely checking my email over the course of that time. I had vowed to myself that I would not let myself become that consumed because it would be imbalanced. When I saw the bold letters forming his name on my gmail inbox screen, everything within me hitched for half a moment. Exhaling, I tentatively laid my hand over my mouse and clicked. Within the first five sentences, I was reassured that he had ripped off the arrogant asshole badge. As I moved on to the second paragraph, though, my feet figuratively flew out from underneath me. He was married. I summoned my strength, swallowed, and managed to finish reading the remainder of the message. When I had gotten to the last word and his salutation, I felt like a forgotten balloon three days after a party. Three-quarters of the way deflated, I quietly called for my wife, and she read over my shoulder.
Now, my wife is not girly. Whether it’s because she’s old as dirt (on a soul-level), is a healer, or whatever, she simply doesn’t have girl friends. Most of the relationships she begins with other woman (of the platonic variety), typically end up with her being their healer and them not knowing how to maintain multiple-role relationships and still be a friend. So my wife has never had girl friends. What’s interesting (and highly amusing to me) is that since my wife has begun this secondary relationship, she has started to become girly. Yet, because this is totally foreign territory to her, she doesn’t know how to do the “girl friend thing” in situations such as the one in which I found myself. I am incredibly blessed that my wife is who she is and that our relationship is what it is because she was, in the midst of confessing she had no idea how to help me or what to do as I stared numbly at the screen, promising me everything from cursing him till he was dead or making his penis fall off to getting me ice cream to just squishing me to…etc. And when she wasn’t saying that, she was simply repeating these words, “comforting words, hug-hug, squish-squish, lick-lick-thrust-thrust, comforting words.” It was adorable.
I did finally break down and start crying and snotting a little while later. In the end, I determined I needed to shop (see, girly), and so we went to Target and spent my gift card from my parents on an adorable new shir, skirt, and some awesome body lotion. A few days later, I determined that it seemed as though J had accomplished what I had always hoped for him: to strip away all the bull shit and be the amazing person I knew was buried under there somewhere that I had caught occasional glimpses of. I comprised a response that I think managed to be authentic in its joy for him and confirm for him that he was accurate in that I had departed very far from the space I was in when he knew me last without verbally vomitting any of the details of that departure for him (I mean, come on, how would you react if the ex of yours came out and said that their sexual orientation had changed, that they were in a totally unconventional relationship, and that they were a practicing Witch? It’s a little overwhelming even for the most open-minded of people and hard to communicate all at once without seeming aggressive).
I haven’t received any further communication from him, and I actually feel okay about that. If there still is unfinished business between us, we’ll either tend to it at some point before either of us die or just try again in another life. One thing that this whole situation did help me to realize is that I am not interested at this point in my life in relationships that don’t have that soul-level connection and substance to them. Romantic, platonic, whatever. This is something of a break-through for me, and one that I’m glad I’ve made because now that I know that, I can clearly communicate this desire to the Universe and Momma and Papa.
Becoming... 