BOO! I'm Back!

(This is a REALLY long blog, and I apologize, but there was so much going on when I thought about it I had to get it all out.)

I read a blog by Alexis that was about her ex coming back into her life after so long over something kind of silly, and it reminded me of something that happened to me when I was 21.

My ex fiance was really a great guy when we first started dating, despite being a little immature. He was just a year and a half older than me, and you know guys mature slower than women, so I didn't really take it into consideration. We started dating when I was 17, and it came to a hault right before my 21st birthday. For the next year or so, we went on and off, with him coming and going from my life whenever he wanted to because I let him. If I had just been able to say no, it wouldn't have taken me so long to recover from what happened between us.

He moved to be with another girl about six months after we broke up. I knew her pretty well, because he worked with her, and we used to hang out with her a lot. There's a whole back story to that, but I'll save it. When they moved in together, it baffled me. Completely. We stopped talking for a while after that, because obviously with them living together, it wasn't going to work out.

I got a text the weekend before Halloween, 2006, from him. It was late, and a little weird. I hadn't talked to him since earlier in the year, and it threw me off. I can't quite remember what it was about, but I know he said he missed me and wanted me to hear his band play again. I was always a huge part of his music career. He was in so many different bands while we were together, and he finally found one that was worth sticking with when he moved, and they were really good. I'd seen them play several times before that spring. I was a little nervous and skeptical about going down there to see him, but I decided to do it, if only because it would prove we could still be friends.

I drove the three hours downstate to see him. I knew a lot of things had changed since we'd last seen each other.  I had changed.  I was no longer the simple-minded girl he had dated.  He was exactly the same.  I found that out the hard way.  I had grown up in a big way, and even though I wasn't aware of it, he became aware of it as soon as we met up.  He was at one of his bandmate's houses, waiting for me to get there to leave.  The last time he had seen me I'd been the plain Jane girl with short blonde hair, always in jeans, band t-shirts, and my Converse.  I wasn't trying to impress him at the time, but now that I look back, I looked damn good when I showed up to meet him.  My hair had grown to my shoulders and I had put big, dark brown chunks in it.  I had lost quite a bit of weight, but I was curvy.  I wore a gray Bon Jovi t-shirt (the band t-shirts didn't change, I'm a music lover), with some tight jeans that I never would have worn when we were together, and my suede high heeled boots. 

I remember the look on his face, too.  Like, "Wow."  But I just said hey, and went inside to meet up with everyone else.  I did not want to make it about "us".  It was strictly about his band.  I was there to see them play the battle of the bands, and that was it.  I was going to be staying the night at his friend's and driving right back up north the next morning.  I shouldn't have been so naive.  That's not what he wanted.  He wanted to see if he could still control my emotions. 

I watched the bands play at a bar downtown.  It was a small joint, but pretty packed.  I bought a pitcher for us to share, and we sat there and talked and had a great time.  His friends really were fun, I'd always thought that.  I remember one of them always used to just say my name because he liked it.  "Nicolette."  I would say his name right back, and he would laugh.  Flirting, right?  Probably.  But my ex and I had been broken up for almost a year, and his friend didn't have a girlfriend so I thought that was okay.  It wasn't okay, though.  Not at all.

Post-show, my ex asked me to come outside and talk to him.  He gave me a hug and said I looked really great, and I just said thanks.  And suddenly, he was asking me if we would ever get back together again.  It was unbearable.  How could he do this to me?  How could he ask me this after everything we'd been through, after everything he had put me through?

I sat in his car with him, and I started crying.  He was almost crying.  I told him that I still loved him, and always would, but that it wasn't going to work out for us.  He almost left the bar right then.  He wanted to just leave, drop me off at my car, and have it end like that.  He was still technically living with his new girlfriend, even if they were taking a break.  There was no way I was getting involved in all of it, but I didn't want him to hate me.  I just wanted him to see where I was coming from.

Unfortunately, like I said, he hadn't changed, and he couldn't understand my point.  He was leaving her, because he loved me, and I wasn't giving him a chance.  That's all he saw.  What I saw was, he was bored with her, wanted to move out, but didn't want to do it alone.  He hadn't been single for more than a month since he was a junior in high school, and now here he was, 22, and unable to act like an adult because he had never been made to.

It became a night of tears.  I locked myself in the bar bathroom for most of the night, because he kept badgering me and trying to start fights.  At one point he actually busted into the bathroom to talk to me, even though it was the ladies' room.  I just wanted to go home.  I didn't even get to do that, though, because my alternator went out the next morning, and I didn't have the money to fix it right away.  I stayed there three days, with my ex, until he had a day off to drive me up north.  It was miserable.  I'd never felt so terrible in my life, including the time while I was with him.  He made it known that he was not happy with me, because I didn't fall into his trap again.

That doesn't mean it wasn't hard on me.  This was a guy that I had had in my life since I was a sophomore in high school.  I had been one of his first friends when he moved to my town, and we had basically been inseparable throughout high school.  We wrote songs together.  I went to every band practice I could.  We shared everything together.  It was really, really hard for me.  It was harder not because I did still love him, but because I loved him as the girl I used to be, not for the woman I was.  I wanted to have our old times back, but it wasn't possible.  I changed.  He hadn't. 

I was thankful that months before that we had finally traded back all of our things.  After the battle of the bands we no longer had any connection to each other.  I was able to get my car fixed, and when I called to tell him I'd be down there to pick it up, he didn't want to have anything to do with me, and that was that.  I drove back up north, to my new friends and my new life, and that was that.

Not saying we haven't spoken since then, because we have, just a little.  For a while we would write on MySpace, if only just to check on each other's rabbit (we decided to split custody with our old pets, Foofers and Futter, and he got Futter).  It ceased entirely last winter, though.  Finally, he had let go completely and no longer wanted to speak to me at all.  And I don't blame him.  We finally completed our journey together and now we are on our own paths.  I still think about him, though.  Even though he did some pretty awful things to me, I can't help but find it in my heart to care about him. 

It's all a part of growing up, right?  Letting go, giving in, forgiving, but not forgetting.  Just because someone is out of your life, doesn't mean we have to think badly about them, or hold grudges.  I'm just thankful for the things I learned, and for the person I became afterwards.  It was a lesson that changed my life, and I have only him to thank for it.