it might just be me .... actually i'm pretty sure it is because everyone that i know tells me that i'm crazy... but i've got a great relationship with nearly every x i've ever had. am i completely alone on this? most people that have been following this blog for a while know that my roommate was once my boyfriend and that we have lived together now for over a year as friends. whenever this information comes up to people that aren't aware, their reaction falls somewhere between "sooo when will one of you move out?" and "how do you manage to make that work?" and even now, nearly 2 years after deciding this was how i wanted to live my life, i still am never sure exactly how to answer. while i try and be patient and answer nicely and try to make it make sense to others, 99% of me wants to tell people to spend their time worrying about something else. but that would be rude. so. the truth is, i'm not locked into any lease or agreement to stay here and neither is he. i stay because i want to. i love my apartment. i like northside. and at the end of the day, i like my roommate, too.
i'm not much of a habitual writer on here so that allows me to keep a lot of my life private, but for the most part, i'm pretty out there. i've always been sort of a loud and proud person, even when i don't know what the hell i'm doing half of the time. that's just part of my charm i guess (i'm kidding) i lead my life a different way. i'm weird. i do things in a way that doesn't make much sense to others. but i love it that way. i love my story. i love knowing i'll be able to look back on my chaotic past and see where it all took me. i love when people tell me they could never do what i do. that's fine with me.
that being said, i love most of my exes. of course, there are a few of them that i would prefer not to see-the ones you hide from behind the bananas at the grocery store- but for the most part, they're all pretty stand up people. all of those nut balls helped formed me into the person that i am today. whether we dated for a few weeks or multiple years, they're what made me.
as a bartender, i tend to see people at their worst. well, maybe not worst- but definitely at their most honest? and when i hear people bash on their exes, especially when they're doing it in the hopes of impressing a potential new boyfriend or girlfriend, i want to scream. these are the people that they once allowed into their hearts, after all, and it makes me very sad. in fact, when i start dating someone the second i hear them start saying rude things about their exes, i am immediately turned off. when someone says "oh my x was crazy" ahhh! stop! that's such a generalized, hurtful thing to say about someone. and none of us want to know the details of your past affairs. that's your business.
i pat myself on the back when i look at my roster of exes. i've dated some really good people. and they're all so different from one another. it's kind of hilarious. if you were to put them all in a room together (wouldn't that be fun?) none of them would have much of anything in common, except for knowing me. girls, boys, black, white, tall and short. and all of them played a role in molding me. some of them made me love the parts of myself that i had always thought were faults. some of them made me aware that i had the power to love and some of them taught me that no matter how much you might think something is supposed to work, when you step back and look at something, most relationships are pretty straight forward, ya know?
when people ask me how my most recent x and i are able to stay friends the way that we are, i put it most simply that "we broke up right before most people would start hating each other" i say it with a smile and a laugh, but i mean it. we ended our relationship by just taking a step back and realizing that we weren't what the other one wanted anymore. as simple as that. it's easy to remain close to someone and still keep them a part of your life when you can cut past any of the doubt and uncertainty. it would be harder to lose a best friend over a boyfriend any day, and i'm glad i got to keep the more important of the two.
*this post is dedicated to all the exes out there. may you always remember the good times.
Spot on!
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