I was walking through a local mall when I heard a familiar voice. At first I cringed. What was he doing here? Silly, really. We hadn’t been a thing in years, nor would I want to be a thing with him now. I’m married, happily, most days anyhow. So why would the sound of his voice elicit an array of reactions and memories, both good and bad?
Our romance, at least for me, was real and true. A storybook romance even. He didn’t have to say anything, I’d know what he was thinking (well, and I’m psychic). He understood my crazy family dynamics and me his. We’d spend hours on the telephone talking about everything and yet nothing too. Long drives in the country, radio blasting, and silence between us and yet it was so comfortable. Then a ring of commitment, a forever that I believed in and vows of eternity. But then the person who promised me the stars and the moon would become a stranger as quick as he became my best friend. But how? His mannerisms changed. His friends changed. His values and religious beliefs changed. It was as if the person I knew and loved, and all that was so familiar and comfortable. was abducted and replaced with someone else all together. Counselors called it a mid-life crisis. I called it divorce.
There would be sporadic conversations throughout the years where I could still hear the person I used to love. Blink twice if this is the case the body snatchers and you need help I would joke. There would be no blinking, though. I still saw and heard the person I loved, and yet it would turn out to simply be a mirage. Or denial. I had to eventually come to terms the the person I knew and loved was gone. Dead to me, and that’s the way he wanted it to be. Didn’t songs of our past make him think of our happy times together? Or when he saw me, didn’t he miss me like I missed him? No, he would tell me, that was long gone and he had moved on.
Life had to move on for me too. Everybody has a break up story, but they didn’t help and the break up handbook must’ve been checked out of the library. Anyhow, my breakup was worse than anyone else’s, or so I narcissistically felt at the time. I wasn’t sure how to move on when I felt dead inside.
Then one day the clouds seemed to not be as dense, and the next day after a bit more and so on. I realized that the person I was, wasn’t the person I was becoming. She was strong, and brave, and deserved better than she was allowing. The rose colored glasses of the past were filed away and I recognized that although I didn’t know how to move on, life forced me to do just that and I had moved on.
Slowly I turned to look at the person I used to love, to offer a polite hello, only to see that it wasn’t him at all, just someone who sounded like him. And I once again filed my memories away, deep in the file cabinet of life. Some days I think I need to do some shredding, but then I remind myself that I still loved, that was real and true, I just don’t love, or even like, the stranger he became. The past reminds me of how far I’ve come and all the wonderful things that came after the pain, including the man who gifted me his last name on our autumn wedding ten years ago.
Moving on from the people that we once loved is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but we are all entitled to our happily ever afters. They don’t just up and knock on your door either, you have to move forward, work hard for it, trust in it, and allow it. I don’t ever think you lose the love from your past, I think you just gain more love to share, and hopefully give it to a person who deserves to have your love. I learned the hard way.
Believe,
Kristy Robinett
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