I just Facebooked my ex... out of curiosity.... What I found was just what I wanted. I realized how deeply in love with his wife to be (the girl who stole his heart while we were still dating) he is. And for some reason I finally feel like I can completely get him out of my veins.... The man I knew is totally gone now. And a better version of him is here instead. He will never be the same... and all the better. She has improved him. And for that I am impressed and at peace. What more can I ask than for a man I once cared about deeply to be a better version of himself? I wasn't the right woman for the job... of this I am now utterly convinced. I had no business being with him really....
I didn't love him the right way. She seems to know how... And in all honesty I don't envy her. He a man who has deep emotional needs I don't have the grace to meet. I'm glad she does.
Of course, given the right course I could meet deep emotional needs too... we all can give something different to the world... I just know my place. Or where I don't belong...
She tells him constantly how lovely he is. She reminds him... how much she loves him. More than I could bear. Really. I have never been one to fall for sweet words or chocolate.... roses.... cards.... any of that. Too much sweet talk and I throw up a little....
It's not that I don't value sentiment. Not at all. I don't know. My unhealthy tendency is to despise my lack of "mushy" guile.... But I know better. Indeed, I can more than appreciate unexpressed love, romantic or otherwise, because I was raised by stoic Norwegians. And I've never really doubted their love for me.... Despite the silence that sometimes swallows deeper moments... So perhaps it is just how I was raised?
Or maybe it is just me... I cried when I was watching the Kentucky Derby this year.... and at the end of Saving Private Ryan....
And if I ever find love I would rather a man be completely faithful to me.... than send me roses. I would prefer a good retirement over diamonds.... Kind words and steadiness to drama and songs by my window at midnight. "Romance" fades..... Fidelity lasts forever.... perhaps?
Of course I admire the opposite... I just don't have the stomach for it. And thank goodness for those who do, or Valentine's Day, Nicholas Sparks and Hallmark would be done for.... I truly admire their bravery.....
ps.... I've been reading what people think about Britney Spear's song If U Seek Amy... and I'm disappointed that no one appears to understand what she seems to be begging us to see.... Everyone is begging to F- her... It's a fact of her life... and somehow.... I have a feeling she's not exactly.... in complete bliss with this... It seems more like a defensive rebuttal from the artist... A response to the critics who pounce on her poor decisions to degrade her more than she sadly degrades herself... "hey... you might not like me... (she says) but at least I am desirable!.. ..." This is not the song of a brazen woman but rather, I posit, an anguished slap in the face to those who beg for her body and then criticize her for her "heathen ways.... " It reminds me of Marilyn Monroe really.... The emptiness of being a sex symbol and the "ruined if you do and damned if you don't" path of sexual identity offered to woman in many facets of our culture.... ... I'm not in favor of her choices but I wish she hadn't been plucked from the tree of youth so early and then squeezed to a bloody pulp of a human being before ever getting a gray hair...
