December 18, 2007

• Beau has a new girlfriend already. I don’t know how to feel about that.

  All I know is that it kinda hurts. Kinda hurts in the whole “Huh….. there’s a pain in my chest like someone shoved a balloon down my throat and it imploded” kind of feeling.

  I found this out this morning when I made my weekly visit to the apartment to look in on the cats. He wasn’t there when I got in, but he arrived just as I was loading a box with old aquarium equipment for a friend. We exchanged the usual pleasantries – you know, the ones that get easier to say every time you see your ex-significant other in the old apartment you used to share.

  He was quiet for a mo, then asked me if it would be ok – if I would be ok if he met someone new and started dating again.
  “Of course!” I answered, “I want you to be happy, you know that.”
  “Well…..”
  “You met someone?…….”
  “D’you want to see her picture?” he exclaims in a breath.
  She’s rather pretty, in my opinion. More like the girls he used to go out with – blond hair, light eyes. Nothing like me at all. She looks older too.
  “How old is she?” I ask.
  “35…..”
  “Oh…… Well, she’s very pretty. Is she kind? She looks kind. Have you gone out already? Did you  take her to your usual bar? Is that where you met?” I’m babbling at this point – anything to keep from being quiet and introspective. I keep up the one-sided conversation while he fiddles with his new phone. I can’t get out of the apartment fast enough now.
  As I lug a suitcase of forgotten clothes down the stairs, I pause and chastise him for not taking out the trash, and I remind him gently that he should take better care of himself. And for next week’s visit, he should at least endeavor to have the kitchen clean if he needs me to do some of his laundry. And he stops me gently with “You don’t have to do that.”
  “I know. I just don’t like seeing you this way.”
  “Yeah, but you don’t have to be so nice to me. Not after …… you just don’t have to be so damn nice.”
  I chuckle. How can I be anything else? It’s not like I could hate him for being human.
  “This is me. It’s what I do, you know that,” I chide him.
  And we end the visit as we always do, with him saying “I miss you….. I love you….. I’ll see you next week.”
  To which I reply, as always “Ok.”

  • 10:17 pm
  • 1 Comment