Scruffy. That’s the first word that popped into my head when my ex-boyfriend walked into my work earlier. Scruffy.
You, my old friend, are the scruffy looking one.
I haven’t seen him, let alone talked to him, in a time frame of give or take two months. Isn’t that something? To go from good friends to best friends to barely even acquaintances. We can barely say ‘hello’ to each other in passing. What the hell is that? I don’t know what it’s like for him, but I’m not one to get over someone in the snap of my fingers. Especially when we were together for over a year and a half. Is this what happens when couples divorce without kids? They divvy up their stuff, return what isn’t there’s, have their last hug and kiss, and say good-bye? All the laughs, the tears, the moments shared, the I-Love-Yous…just gone. I refuse to believe that deep inside, but when he and I interact like that, it’s hard for me to believe we’ll ever be more than a has-been.
I want to be his friend. I want to be able to stand in the same room as him, laugh at his jokes, share stories, make fun of each other and joke about our time as a couple together, and still be able to talk to each other. We were each other’s best friends for a period of time. We loved each other. I loved him. How do you just drop that like nothing ever happened?
A part of me always will. Not in the same way. But always will.
To add salt to my still healing wound, he can barely stop and say two words to me when he’d concluded his business at my work, but when he runs into a mutual friend of ours (who also works where I do), he can stop and chitchat all he wants. What happened to we’ll still talk? A cop-out answer, I know. I’m not as stupid as he would like himself to believe. I have this thing called intuition, and I’ve gotten very good at listening to it. It was intuition that told me he was acting weird merely hours before he told me over the phone we needed to break up. Called him out on it. He assured me that wasn’t the case. Welp…four hours later I was a hot mess of tears and attempted compromises to try to keep us together.
What a waste of energy. But I loved him. We do crazy things for love.
Make yourself over in the hopes someone will notice...
I’m better off for it. I couldn’t see it then, but I do now. I’m freer in many ways, not just in my dating life. I’m not hanging onto my phone every second of the night, waiting for him to call when he promised he would. I’m not mad at someone every other day because of an insensitive comment. I’ve lost weight because I’m not eating out or ordering in as often. I no longer bear the title of being the ‘responsible’ one between the two of us. I’m better off for it.
I'm a no-smoking zone.
To top things off, when he came around to pick his stuff up from my desk, he mentioned he was out back smoking a cigarette. So…you’re scruffy looking and back to smoking? Oh,…*sigh* good for you, pal. Good for you.
Yet, one of the forever unending dilemmas about love and dating that will never be answered.
“Binge eating was clearly an early female Neanderthal survival trait to ensure that women got enough to eat.”
The high priestess of humor, Emily Prager, brings about an interesting thought.
Do you binge eat on a regular basis? Well, do ya?
If I noticed anything about myself after breaking up with my ex, it was one extreme or the other when it came to food. Either I couldn’t get enough and wanted to consume absolutely everything in sight, or everything I smelled or looked at made me want to puke. Things I used to consider the most heavenly of smells made me search for the nearest restroom so I could empty my stomach (which probably had nothing in it to begin with, so I’d end up dry heaving or throwing up the water I chugged down minutes beforehand.)
Basically what I looked like when on the emotional feeding rampage.
When I did go on a binge eating tirade, no Oreo stood a chance, no jar of salsa left unopened, and anything with cheese on it was a goner. Yeah, breaking up doesn’t look good on me.
Breaking up is not an ideal period of time for anyone. I only dwell on this now because of the unexpected run-in with my ex. I can honestly say I’ve moved on from him, I’m open to dating new people. What I can’t say is that I’m open to a new relationship at this immediate time. I believe I read a statistic in Cosmopolitan magazine a little bit ago stating it takes on average 7 months to truly get over a meaningful relationship with someone. Another article I read said it will take half the time of the relationships entirety to get over the once-significant other. So, in my case, the relationship was one year and eight months long, or 20 months, of my life. In that respect, it will take just under a year to finally be over him, according to the statistics.
I’m on Month 6. By August I should be ready to rumble again. Only time will tell if this holds true.
Putting myself into this photo, I am both of these girls. 'Yay I'm on a date!' and 'Back off.' all at the same time.
I’ve met some very nice guys in the past six months, too. I’ve gone on a few dates, dated New Guy for three months before he turned out to be an asshole in the end, and rekindled a friendship with Deagrok, a past relationship of mine as well. So, good things have come out of this break-up, and maybe one of these gentlemen will turn out to be more than just a friend or great friend in the coming days, weeks, months and years.
Born and bred through the stars.
The hard cold truth is my heart was hurt, and walls have gone up. If there’s anything any ever needs to know about a Cancer, it’s that we are loving to those we care about, but betray that feeling, and we retreat back into our shells where it will take more than gentle coaxing to get us to come back out. How’s that for a metaphor?
It’s out of my hands. All I can do is trust in a greater power that it knows what it’s doing, and it’s guiding me along a path that will eventually cross with my future husband’s, whomever he may be 
I’m sure you understand me when I say love is sometimes full of contradictions and head-scratching, especially when you get into an argument and in the heat of the moment, you forget what you were actually fighting about.
In order to survive what's around this corner, we will agree to disagree!
One technical definition? Oxymorons. The English language is full of them! No wonder we get confused when we’re wrestling with forming coherent sentences, battling raging emotions, breathing through the anger, and attempting to control our want to grab the nearest plate and hurl it at someone’s head. Ponder these to see if you can make sense out of them:
- Soft rock
Sweet Caroline never felt so good.
- Good grief
It's not good grief without Charlie Brown.
- Act naturally
- Passive aggression
We all say this.
- Working vacation
I pray to God I never do this when I'm away on vacation.
- Sweet sorrow
Parting in such sweet sorrow...But see, it's not sad. They're smiling!
- Safe bet
Can you count on the hand you've been dealt?
- Exact estimate
Some 2,000 orcs came to Helm's Deep...What a number
- Tight slacks
Slacks are not meant to be this tight.
- Plastic glasses
These are a college staple for everyone!
- Pretty ugly
What happens when Barbie fake bakes
- Definite maybe
A decent enough chick flick of a movie.
- Adult children
Kids in adults bodies...never a good thing
- Awfully nice
We've all been in this tough spot.
- Bright shade
Love this color! Especially when I am tanned (the safe way, of course!)
- Random order
In no particular order...here are the Top 5. HA! No particular order, my foot...
- Rush hour
Merrily, we creep along.
So how many of those phrases do you use on a regular basis? I know I use more than half of them. The English language really is screwy, but yet I love it. Why else would I be sitting here typing to you if I didn’t love language in some way, shape or form?
I gotta put my pen to paper to make it through the day.
Or I like hearing my thoughts put onto “paper.” The tried-and-true diary just isn’t hacking it anymore.
Continue to have a blessed day everyone, and take heart in knowing if you haven’t found “the one” quite yet, they are out there somewhere. When it’s time for the two of you to bump into one another, the Force will make it happen.
The Force has a plan. The Force is with you. Always.
Even Pascal is in on the action...
