An oddity
One of the stranger rituals I take part in is every year wishing a Happy Birthday to my ex. She is wonderful (see early-this-blog). There is nothing particularly wrong with her and nothing that went wrong between us. I moved away too many times to be able to handle the guilt of leaving her, and I worried she would eventually resent me so much for leaving that it would be toxic to us being either together or friends. I couldn’t handle that, and I couldn’t handle the idea of her potentially following me somewhere instead of following her dreams, so I broke up with her. Now, we keep in touch by phone every couple of months, and when it is a birthday or some other big occasion that we know about we make sure to send a message, make a call, or send a card. It’s nice, but bittersweet. Every time a day like today (her birthday) comes along, all I wish for is that I could be treating her to some kind of a celebration. I’m a better, more relaxed, more fun person than I was when we dated—I’ve grown up a bit. I wish we could have been together now, when the benefits would have far outweighed the negatives and we would both have been mature enough to figure out the small stuff. Instead, I make this phone call. We will catch up for a few minutes and then I’ll let her go back to her family and the new boyfriend (who is hopefully making her happy), and I will go back to chasing my career/life dreams and let my heart languish in self-doubt over what might have been if I had compromised on my goals.
