The ex

This is going to be in two parts because it turned out to be pretty long… sorry, I ramble.

Normally I think I’ve got my sh*t together when it comes to relationships—I’m definitely not the jealous type, I don’t need or want to be all up in your face every second of the day, I believe in having my life, you have yours, etc. But last week I sort of lost it. Sigh.

Let me start at the beginning…

B and I have kept in steady contact since I left Paris last September. He came to see me in New York twice, I went to visit him for his birthday in Paris this past February. And in between, we would email a couple times a week, plus have a Skype date almost every Sunday morning. It wasn’t that we were trying to have a long distance relationship, we just happen to still care about each other and wanted to keep up-to-date on what was happening in each other’s lives. Careful not to mention any new romantic relationships of course. After my heart had time to heal a bit (which it did! With the help of good friends. But such a surprise b/c at the time I was sure I would drop dead on the spot from the heartache) I began to think that this was all for the best. As much as I love B, there are a couple of fundamental disagreements we have about life (most importantly the religion thing) that I don’t know if I can look past. But I do believe that he came into my life for a reason— maybe to teach me what love is, to learn how to be a little less selfish, to figure out exactly what I need from my life partner, to learn to see myself through his eyes (what woman doesn't want to look into a man's eyes and know that he finds you 100% beautiful & desirable & amazing? Even on your worst days)... who knows.

Sidenote: my mother is in LOVE with B and finds every opportunity to tell me I’m making the biggest mistake of my life (ironically she was in a similar situation and says she doesn’t want it to happen to me: she broke up with her first love b/c she thought he wasn’t “the one” and married my dad. After they got divorced she reconnected with her first love. They’ve been married for almost 20 years now)—I keep telling her she should marry B then :)

Anyway, when I flew back to Paris the first (only) person I thought of to help me with my heavy bags was B. He left work to come all the way across town to help me carry my 4 bags from the train station up 4 flights of stairs to my new apt. The next day we met up for dinner and drinks with a couple of his friends. And the following night I had a dinner date with my Dutch girlfriend E (the one I met through The Rocker a couple years back. I’m in town for her wedding in the South, among other things) who happens to live about a 10-minute walk from B’s apartment. By the time I finally left her apt, it was pretty late so I called B to ask if I could crash at his place for the night and he said yes. We were chatting well into the night and he suddenly mentioned something that made my heart stop: he’s seeing someone. Apparently it’s a girl he knows from his Tuesday night acting class, they started seeing each other three weeks ago. He felt guilty and said he would have to tell her what just happened between us (it wasn’t that much, let me assure you. Though a little more friendly than friends ought to be—lol, I was a bit tipsy from the wine, sue me). Well that just pissed me off. Irrational, I know, but how is it that I have to acquiesce to some random jump off who just popped into the picture two seconds ago? As if I could ever be "the other woman" with a man who was mine to begin with (yes, I know how that sounds. But this is how I felt at the time). I didn't think it would affect me to know that he's seeing someone. He's a good looking guy, I'm sure he's been dating. But for him to actually mention someone to me? Must be more serious than he's letting on. I tried to grill him for details about the girl (I’ve always been a bit masochistic) but he wouldn’t talk, only to swear that it really wasn’t that serious. Fine.

So a couple of days later, my Dutch friend E and I decided to take a day trip to Giverny (gorgeous but more on that later). We made it back to Paris in time to meet E’s friends at the Cinema en Plein Air screening of Mulholland Drive at Parc de la Villette. It’s an outdoor film series the city puts on for a few weeks during the summer. Everyone lays out their blankets with food and wine and watches a movie under the stars. Since it ended after midnight the trains had already stopped running so E’s friends drove us back to her house in the 17^th. Of course I figured I would just spend the night at B’s instead of trying to find a cab to take me home so I said goodbye and started walking over… Lord only knows what made me think that I can just pop over to B’s house any time I darn well please, no warning whatsoever. I knock on his door, no answer. It’s a weeknight, where the fu*k is he? Then it hits me: It's Tuesday. Acting class. With HER. Mind you, it was 2am at this point and his acting class lets out around 9:30-10pm… all I could think was, “Aw, HELL no!” I am heated and all sense of reason just flew out the window. I went back outside and flagged down a cab to take me home, fuming the entire time. Folks, it’s not my fault (ok, maybe it is, but this was SO unlike me so please forgive). I’m ashamed to say what happened next…