I promised you all a drunk text explanation, didn’t I?
Well I did talk to the ex last night after a few texts in the morning. Here’s the story Morning Glory:
Drunk me, at 3 a.m. the night of my birthday, penned this gem:
There isn’t a whole lot I wouldn’t give for you to be the guy I thought you were…
Can we pause for a second and just admire that? Drunk, middle of the night, and more perfect than anything I could ever come up with sober. Not a misspelled word or randomly placed sentenced. Just real; raw.
Perfect.
I’m quite proud of drunk me.
I woke up yesterday morning to a text from him.
That’s a good one! You are alive!
Clearly commentary on the fact that I have ignored his last few attempts at contact.
My defenses went up. Immediately I was angry at myself for breaking the silence. It never would have happened had I been sober.
But even after my night of flirting, I was thinking of him. I wanted him. I missed him.
And that is why drunk me texted. Because she knew sober me never would.
But sober (painfully hung-over) me was mad at drunk me for caving.
And I was also scared of what a conversation could become.
I snarked back something about being drunk and that he should ignore the whole thing.
Apparently drinking makes me remember the numbers I’ve deleted for my own good.
Or something along those lines.
He replied with “You’re funny!”
And that was it. Except I knew he would call. As Loo pestered me to call him (worried I had been too harsh), I reassured her that he would call me that night. I don’t know how I knew, except that I know him. More and more I know how he works.
At 9:15 he called.
And I answered.
And my heart stopped.
I was scared.
His first comment was “Look who’s answering the phone to talk to me!” and again, my defenses shot right up.
“You know what?” I said. “ You made it pretty clear how little you cared about me and how you thought I deserved to be treated by you, so I don’t really understand why you think I should want to talk to you at all.”
And then he did something amazing.
“Stop.” He said. “Stop being angry. I don’t want to fight with you. I’m not going to fight with you. This is going to be a friendly conversation.”
And I stopped. I calmed down. I put ugly, angry, defensive me away; and we talked.
There was a lot that went into that conversation. A lot of catching up that needed to happen. A lot that was said that I’m not entirely sure what to think of. Two things were predominantly clear though:
1.) The way he was talking to me was exceedingly different than how he has talked to me in the last year. In fact, he went out of his way (without my asking) to clarify that he is not seeing anyone and that there have been no women in his life for a while. In the past he would have let me believe that there were; just to hurt me. Last night though - he was very careful of my feelings.
2.) We both have a lot going on right now. A lot of big decisions in the works. Things that could affect the outcome of any possibility of "us". Things that are going to require some patience - there will be no rushing anything here. The biggest mistake I made in the last year was putting pressure on us. Wanting us to figure everything out in my time frame. Pushing for it. Needing it so desperately that it didn't have any room to breathe. That won't be happening now. I am definitely in wait and see mode.
At one point we did talk about the past year. I told him that I let my guilt turn me into someone I didn’t recognize - someone who allowed herself to be treated fairly poorly. I explained that I wouldn’t be punished anymore for how our relationship ended. That I wouldn’t fight with him anymore to be treated the way I needed to be treated. I said I knew how badly I hurt him, but that now he needed to know how badly he hurt me. We talked about the hurt we had caused each other, and I finally just said that we both needed to be past that. We can’t keep trying to punish each other for what has been done and said in the past. We will never move forward that way.
I told him if he wanted to be my friend, he needed to actually be my friend. Someone I could trust. Someone I could count on.
I’m not sure what happens from here. I’m honestly not sure that anything happens from here. It was a good conversation. I don’t think there is any doubt that we are two people who deeply care about each other. We are also two people with our own set of issues. If anything is ever going to happen between us again (and the conversation gave no real indication as to whether or not that is something he would want), there would need to be a lot of give and take on both parts. We would both need to want it enough to try.
I will say that talking to him felt right though. I've missed talking to him. I've missed his voice. I've missed his stupid laugh. I've missed him.
I do feel hope. I care about him, and I don’t want to walk through life angry at him. He is the only man I have ever loved - I want that to at least mean something. We live in a small town and within a mile of each other; I don’t want to be going 20 minutes out of the way to frequent a grocery store where I won’t run into him. I want us to at least be OK enough to handle the random run-ins.
I want us to be friends. I want us to be able to make that work.
And maybe if we can make that work, there might be something else there to explore as time goes on.
Maybe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKU3UuJhIxU
ADSPACE
