living with your x. and other life choices

anyone that has been following this page for a while (all 10 of you) know that my long term x and i broke up back in january. you also know that we decided to continue living together. -insert raised eyebrow here- i love looking back on my old posts and reading what was going thru my head at the time, so i'm writing a quick post just to remind myself what this chapter of my life has been like. 

though it doesn't make sense to most anyone in either of our lives, it seemed fine to us to keep living here. separate bedrooms. separate bathrooms. separate lives. same apartment. i mean, the guy is one of my best friends and we both love where we live and we both just kind of shrugged and have made it work.  as a girl, it's kind of been the best of both worlds for me. i hated living alone and i know i could never do it again. we're two independent people but when i need a light bulb changed or someone to go see "what that noise was" at 4 am, i know i have a roomie that can take care of it. 

now don't' get me wrong, it hasn't always been easy. we have learned that while we both want to be there for the other one, it's best we don't get too involved in each other's personal lives. the romantic kind, ya know. because simply, we both ridicule who the other one chooses to date and that isn't any fun for anyone.  yes, we date. no bringing dates back to our apartment, of course. but yes, we go on dates with other people. and while i know it wouldn't be easy to tell a girl she can't come back to his apartment, the last thing i care to see is the stuff in my medicine cabinet moved around. (because i know if i were dating a guy that lived with his x, i would HAVE to go thru her bathroom cabinets) 

it's a lot of late nights, hanging out and talking about our days. what we're doing and who we're doing it with. i honestly think we speak more openly and honestly to each other now that we don't have to be a "good boyfriend or girlfriend" we tell the other one when they're being a pain in the ass and we get over stuff a lot faster because… well pouting isn't gonna get you anywhere in this kind of friendship.

there was of course a period of adjustment. things you have to decide how to handle and i found that handling them together worked best. for example, taking down photos of us together. what do you do with 15 picture frames filled with you and your boyfriend when you're still best friends with the guy? throwing them away seems rude, but is keeping them weird? we still don't know. they're sitting under jon's bed.  i just recently fixed my laptop and had to go thru about 5 years worth of photos that i thought i had lost, and while majority of them were of the two of us  it just felt wrong to delete them all. there was no bad blood when we split, and he was (is) a big part of life. why in the hell should i have to delete any of it?  plus, i was blond when we first got together. i was so cute blonde! i'm keeping them!

it's hard to start dating new people, as they don't always love the idea of our living situation. people have came and gone thru the months that can't handle our friendship. it's gonna happen and we know that. one day, we both know this arrangement isn't going to be ideal. but for the moment, it's fun. it REALLY is fun. it's extremely comical. and it is so in my character to live like this. so out of the norm. i've never really been one to do things in an ordinary fashion. i didn't graduate college the first time around… or even the second (third time is the charm!) i've dated men and women since i was 20 and haven't regretting anyone i've spent any of my heart on. i've always been the odd one out when it came to most of my friends, working until  4 am and missing their calls that come from their cubicles at 9:30 am.  living with my x boyfriend has just been another decision in my life that i just shrug my shoulders, laugh at myself, tell him "we should totally have a reality show" and go about my business. i don't want to look back and ever regret the goofy choices i've made. this life is meant to laughed at. and we can all crack up at mine for days! so there it is. the past 9 months in a nutshell. 

oh, and he took that above photo. haha