43. About an Ex, THEE Ex

In one of the breakup lines that I will never quite scratch itself from my memory, I am looking at my ex in my old Toyota Camry when I tell him,

"I don't know who I am anymore."

"You are mine," he says before kissing me, "That's who you are."

We would quasi date the next year and say that we were "working on things" when in reality it would be because we weren't quite ready to let the other one go. A week after my best friend's wedding, he would leave me for a girl he is still happily with, and I would begin the journey that would land me here-a week shy of my 27th birthday, in the city I've always dreamed of living in.

We're rounding 4 years since the initial split and that girl feels like a whole other person. Up until then he had been more of my existence than he probably should have been. We were the same crew and the same places. He was an endless summer, an acoustic song, and a six of Coors Light that I still can't stomach to this day. To me, he was the way to our favorite places and our favorite moments in time. I still love much of what we both enjoyed as a couple.

But I knew there was more to me than a relationship and a suburban domestic life. I couldn't fight the feeling of the brakes being pumped inside my head.

While I'm so happy to be removed from the slow hell that was that breakup, I still thank him for a lot of things. I thank him for the year it took for me to see him as more than just a friend, the three more or less happy years he gave me, and the year afterward where we finally realized how over it really was. I thank him for all the love, patience and sacrifice. I'm grateful he's found someone he can call home that really brings out the best in him. My only regret is that for whatever reason, we can't be friends. While it's a choice on his part that I completely respect, it still bugs me sometimes. Whenever my cat does something ridiculous or the Bruins score, I want to text him. Whenever I'm drunk and hear Warren Zevon, I fight the urge to call him for a sing-a-long.

As long as I've known him, we would always text the other one when it snows. I still feel like I should sometimes.

I'm finding out that while time can do quite a bit to a relationship, it doesn't change a connection. If it's real, whatever it is, it doesn't go away. He's someone where outside comments from friends can't touch and to some degree, he will always be one of my people.