twenty-something

Well, fuck me.

It was The Birthday of The Ex (Joe), and I thought I would be a good ex myself, and send him a birthday greeting. It was a short note, with a short update of my life. Which mentioned that I have a great job which sometimes allows me to hang out with rock stars. And might've included a bit about my approaching (and scary) two-year anniversary with my mysterious new beau (Joe met Duncan, briefly, in August '03). It was brief, civil (hell, friendly even!), and did not do anything to rub anything in anyone's face.

So I send the email around midnight. Literally 5 to 10 minutes later, I received an Instant Message from him. Here's the jist of the exchange:

J: "hey"
P: hey, I just emailed you
J: "i know... reading your email made me sad"
P: why?
J :"you have your shit together, and I don't"
P: I don't have my shit together...
J: "I haven't really dated anybody since you"
J: "I have Ani DiFranco stuck in my head... Untouchable Face..."
P: [some delay] how come?
J: "just seems fitting, after your email"
P: i'm trying to listen in iTunes... but of course its freezing up [which was the truth]
J: "Sorry for being an ass... thanks for the email..." [signs off abruptly]

There was more in the middle, but that's the general jist. Crazy, huh?

So part of me feels like total shit that I upset him on his birthday, because I honestly didn't mean for that to happen. I really only mentioned the Duncan in like two sentences, and it was very tame. "We are still together, almost two years. I am pretty happy." I wasn't trying to rub anything in his face, cause I just assumed that he had completely gotten over me and had moved on. But then I think, "oh shit." He's alone on his birthday. I'm still his "Big Love," the one and only guy he's seriously dated. And here I've gone and gotten into another thing, this one less than a year after our big breakup, and it's become a LTR that's outlasted the little barely-one-year thang that Joe and I had. And that felt so epic to me until I got into my current thang with Mr. Aiden Shaw. So... yeah... I guess I can sympathize. I get it. I can feel bad.

Another part of me feels like, "Fuck me, and my untouchable face? FUCK YOU, BUDDY!" He's the freak who was meeting guys behind my back. He's the one that dumped me. And as much as I'm grateful, because my life post-Joe has turned out pretty good, I was completely broken by that at the time. He hurt me pretty bad, and left some scars I'm still dealing with. So that part of me is totally flipping him off and singing Mariah Carey. "Someday... the one you threw away will be the only one you're wishing for..." (Hey, he can quote Ani, I can evoke MiMi!)

And still another part of me is worried that I'm obsessed with this now, worried that I still have some feelings for him. I suppose I do - I mean, I know I do. I always will. He was my first big love, so of course there will always be something leftover from him. But here I thought I was completely over him and just felt nothing, maybe some anger. But it's weird... I dunno. Drama drama drama..

But then there's this part of me, and I'm not proud of it, but there's this part of me that feels -- no, knows -- that I've won. I've moved on and, yeah, in a lot of ways, I do have my shit together. And he's a mess. And he still wants me, wants my untouchable face...

Dude, seriously - check out those lyrics. Good song, but some FUCKED UP SHIT!

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