x marks the spot

x marks the spot
Current mood:  amused

When you grow up, grow out and eventually grow back into the same city there are a few strings attached that perhaps don’t exist in other relationships. For example, my kids go to an elementary school where their classmates are the children of people that I went to elementary school. Swirl that one around for a while. It’s insane. I’m a pretty social person too so as they say round these parts – we are a large city with a small city vibe. And it’s the truth.

Your past comes back to haunt you, good and bad, romantic or otherwise, and so do some of those very ghosts that made those memories. I have one particular ghost that is anything but a ghost and instead more like a shadow. He’s everywhere and into everything. He is literally a part of my life again. For the sake of anonymity we are gonna call him D.

I met D when I was 13. We were both at a holiday party thrown by his father and his law partner. It just so happens that D’s dad was partners in a law practice with a guy who is best friends with my parents. See. Big city, small town….there is no anonymity here. D and his family lived about 3 blocks away from me so we knew each other through the neighborhood as well. My only thought of D was that of a very bright, driven, smart, Jewish, athletic guy who could make me laugh. But that was where it stopped. He was a homey from the hood and I was a strawberry blonde ballerina who went to private school. Polar opposites.

A few years later we became close friends during high school. It was our senior year and for some reason we were drawn to each other as friends, nothing more. We were on the yearbook staff together, drove to school together. Hell, I even asked him to be my platonic date at the Prom that year but he declined since he wasn’t going. Instead he showed up with another girl and there was part of me that was really crushed. I still bust his chops about it to this day and he says he still remembers seeing me across the room go from a glowing beauty to a red hot firecracker in seconds.

We both left town and went exploring. I went to Savannah, among other places, and D went to North Carolina. A few years later on a long Thanksgiving weekend, I was going to be stopping overnight in his neck of the woods. I looked him up, we went to a coffee shop, we talked, we laughed, we made googley eyes at each other and for the first time I saw him as something more than the boy down the street. This was a man. A smart man. A good man. A driven man. A kind man.

Needless to say, that’s where it started and it continued on in what I can only call a true romance. He swept me off my feet, I swept him off of his and we were young and in love. This lasted for nearly 3 years. In that time D had graduated with honors from UNC and was now in law school at UF. I had moved back to our little big city to be closer to Gainesville. We saw each other every weekend. Um, yeah, it was long distance. As a matter of fact, we were growing apart and wanted different things in our lives. At one time or another I thought this guy was the “one”. I thought, damn, I’m gonna be Mrs. D. one day and I liked that idea at the time. I don’t regret ending it though. It never would have worked for us. Never.

I ended it and immediately rebounded with none other than fucktard. D was devastated. I was devastated too but I just knew it wasn’t going to work in the long run. At the time, that’s all I wanted was the long run. The white picket fence, the 2.5 kids, the dog, the minivan. Yep. I could taste suburban bliss and somehow thought that was the life for me. Boy was I wrong.

So we both moved on with our lives. I married sperm donor, few years later bought a house and a few years later had a baby. I would hear through the grapevine about D’s life but we didn’t stay in close contact. Then one day I was taking a bike ride in my hood and saw him. Going into a house. That he had just bought. Right down the street from me. Are you fucking serious? My ex now officially lived in my neighborhood. Turns out he was about to get married and it also turns out that we were about to make amends. We became friends again. No hard feelings. No worries. No tension. Just like the good old days when I would roller-skate with my friends and he would be in the yard hitting baseballs with his friends. Yeah. It was all surreal and fucktard never could swallow the fact that we were friends.

But you want to know something. D is one of the first people I called when my marriage finally fell apart last year. He’s the one that I called when I knew there was no turning back. I told him about what had happened before I even told my family. Why? Because there was no criticism, he had nothing to gain and I knew that if I wanted an honest opinion of the situation, he was the one. I always trusted him to protect me and love me and honor me. He sat with me for hours talking about the ins and outs of what being divorced would mean and how the hell I could do it. He sat with me and talked and reminisced and made me feel the way he always made me feel. I felt validated. I felt like a real person again. He saw me for who I was and what I was going through, not as an ex-girlfriend that he’d gladly help stab in the back. I still talk to him every week whether it's email or IM or on the phone. Sometimes he just gives me a ring to check up on me, see how I'm doing, see what's happening and to give legal advice if I need it. And sometimes I call him, doubting myself and what I'm doing and he's always there to lend an ear as a friend. He also thinks it's funny that I ask him things like "when we dated, was I high maintenance?" or "when we dated was I.....". Yeah, it gets pretty silly sometimes.

I know it’s an unusual relationship. A complicated one if there is a jealous spouse or partner but for us it’s just so simple. It’s different for us and it makes perfect sense. We respect one another. We love one another. We enjoy one another. Does that mean I have romantic feelings for this guy anymore? Hell no. But it never really was about that. The reason we worked well as a couple was because of that admiration. We are loyal to each other and to our friendship and honestly I can’t imagine it any other way. It always was about the respect and the kindness. And as a friend, I couldn’t ask for anything better.

On an end note though, it was a little peculiar being at my 20 year high school reunion on the arm of my sweet man, switch, all the while talking to my sweet ex-boyfriend D. Yeah, we all graduated from high school together. Big fucking city, ridiculously small town! In case I failed to mention, D is also handling some legal matters for switch so it’s a real incestuous thing. D even went so far as to give switch advice for when he meets my family. All the while I’m thinking about how “intimately” each of them knows me and how I really hoped to god that they didn’t start comparing notes. I needed another drink stat! Honestly, it’s so uncomfortable that it’s comfortable. I’m especially thankful that switch isn’t jealous or suspicious or insecure about my love for him. He knows he has my heart and no one else could take his place. But still, can you saw awkward? I love my crazy quirky life and all the crazy quirky people in it…even the ex.