It's Sunday night and I'm playing that game normally reserved for earlier in the week...staring at a phone, waiting for it to ring. Luckily, it's a cordless, so I can blog while I keep it on the fringe of my peripheral vision. My ex is in town, and he wants me to meet his new fiancee. Not new as in "just got engaged this month." New, as in, "not me."
You see, Jim (name changed to protect the not-so-innocent-but-did-his-time-in-the-doghouse-and-reformed) was my first love. We met in college and he swept me off my feet in every sense. He's a few years older than I am, but our goals matched perfectly. We thought we were destined for each other and immediately started thinking long term. Then grad school reared its ugly head and we never saw each other. Our Sundays on the couch turned into two people setting alarm clocks for 3 a-m to see each other in the middle of the night because of his research or mine. And in the end, that drove him into the arms of another woman and out of my life.
About a year later, we started speaking again, and it was like no time had passed at all. We were both out of grad school, living in the same area, and we clicked, but I was seeing someone, so I didn't notice it until another year or so later when he asked me to come back to him. Lord knows I was so tempted...He knows because I talked about it with Him every night, and never seemed to get an answer. So I took that as my answer, and didn't go back.
A few years later, he moved away, and after a little while started dating someone. I've been nothing but happy for him, as he is one of those people for me whose happiness is paramount to anything I want for myself. He still means that much to me. Even so, his engagement unexpectedly reduced me to tears. I want him to be happy, I want him to have everything he wants in life, but there's a twinge of regret in my heart that I don't get to share that with him. I've never stopped caring for him, though that caring has evolved from the love we once shared into the deeper feeling of respect for his place in my life. He will always be my first love, and as such, he has become the yardstick by which I measure all others. He's helped make me into the person I am today, for better or for worse.
Now someone else is taking the place I once thought would be mine. And tonight, when that phone rings, I'm meeting her for the first time. It leaves me with so many questions... Am I still important enough to him that he chose for us to meet? Does he really want my opinion? Or is he doing it out of obligation - the feeling that if they're in town and I find out that I might be offended? Is she just going along with him? Or did she instigate this dessert and drinks party because she wants to see who I am and if I'm a threat? And, yes, there's a petty side of me wondering if this is an upgrade? Or a new model.
And as I typed those words, the watched pot boiled. Let's go see, shall we?
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3 comments:
You should not care what she thinks in regard to you. She will react according to the type of person she is, and there's nothing you can do about it. You care for him and are concerned only with his happiness. That might mean this is the last time you see him; she's likely to lock him away from everyone else forever. But if he's happy, then he's happy.
I hope she likes you and that the feeling is mutual.
How'd drinks and dessert go? You've got to fill us in!!
I remember my first love from about a million years ago, and, although we haven't seen each for a little less than a million years, she will always hold a place in my heart. I think it's obvious your opinion and friendship are important to him and he wants to try to make things work; he wants to hold onto you if he can, to keep you in his life still. I hope it's possible.
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