TFW You Step on the “Text Messages with your Ex” Landmine

On September 10, 2017 By KathleenIn Breakups, Dating, insights/observations, Mr. Right, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I got a new phone this past October, just before I left for a two week sojourn in Germany and the UK. It was supposed to be faster and have a better camera than my previous phone. It had a lot of improvements and features I expected, and a few I didn’t… like all the text messages from my old phone. It seems that in transferring all my contacts, apps, and photos, I also transferred thousands of exchanges between myself and friends and family and exes.

I’ve said it in past posts, but I’ll say it again: text messages and emails with your exes are emotional landmines. Even when you think you’ve got them all safely contained, you stumble on one unexpectedly, and boom! Some part of you get obliterated in a cloud of smoke and verbal shrapnel. mobile.revolution

In this case, I had stumbled on an exchange between myself and Clark. It had been just about a year since we had dated and then not dated, and a few weeks since we had crossed paths and decided to start anew with a different tone. And then there they were — every text message sent from our first to our last.

One thing I’ve gotten very good at is moving on after something ends. With Clark, it was difficult, largely because we ended abruptly. I had allowed myself to fall fast and hard for him, knowing that eventually, I’d hit the ground and that it might hurt. The ground came up on me faster than expected.

Lights on.

Lights off.

Thud. giphy (6).gif

I didn’t linger long on or pine for the sweet moments we shared. I stood up, shook it off, and pushed forward… with a visible emotional limp that would handicap me in what came next: a real relationship.

And then I read the texts. All of them. Separated from the exchanges by a year and a serious relationship, I was now a detached 3rd party — a voyeur looking into someone else’s relationship. I was sad for the couple in front of me. There was so much joy and promise in them. The chemistry was palpable. Then the final “hey. You up?” from her which triggered the break up email from him, and then a month later she said: “hey, I have mono. Pretty sure you gave it to me. #SoThisIs30.”

Now that we’re safely just friends, I’ve been tempted more than once to delete them all — especially the ones where he calls me beautiful or says how much he’s looking forward to seeing me or talks about kissing me in the ocean. I don’t want those around when I’m trying to forget that at one time, I thought I might have found a forever guy. And then I read this one and decide to keep them, because this is a good reminder of how I want to feel with each new “something”:

You can never tell if things are going to work at the start, but if we get to be our best selves for a while, then it will have been worth it. You make me smile.

The New Jewels in the Jewelry Box: Considering a Gem of an Ex

On February 21, 2017March 6, 2017 By KathleenIn Breakups, insights/observations, Love, Mr. Right, Uncategorized1 Comment

It was the patriot cluster of red, white, and blue that caught my eye as I walked past my office’s mail/copy room. The lone envelope in my mailbox was stocked with enough forever stamps to take it to the moon and back. When I saw the return address, I smiled warmly as I thought this was just like him. He never wanted to let me down or disappoint me. He would do whatever he had to to make sure the USPS wouldn’t fail me.

Inside the envelop, wrapped thoughtfully in a paper towel was my missing earring. A giant peridot-like stud that he had given me for Christmas and that I had left at his house weeks earlier, before we decided to part ways. The post of the earring had been bent in transit so it lay flat against the crystal (or perhaps he had bent it before he sent it? Another precaution so it wouldn’t poke through the envelope and get lost en route? That was also just like him.) I started to try to unbend it… it wouldn’t budge. Just then, my boss walked into my office.

kate-spade-new-york-blue-faceted-small-square-stud-earrings-product-1-19644834-0-774214613-normal — They’re kind of the perfect earrings

“I have a jeweler who can fix that for you.”

“I have a pair of pliers.”

“You’d better heat it up then. Wouldn’t want to break it.”

That would have been ironic. I dropped the earring into a cup of boiling water and sat at my desk. I played our time together through my head as I let the metal warm.
Had he been different, had those earrings been different, I might not have asked for it back. Given how long we had been seeing each other when he gave them to me, they were the gift I least expected. Not only were they jewelry (remember the ex boyfriend who refused to buy me earrings?) they were the exact pair I had been stalking at the Kate Spade store near my work. It seemed that at only two months in, he had already figured me out.

And maybe he had since day one. Our first date had been 5-star, after all. He had worn a suit and tie. I had worn my favorite Milly skirt and red patent heels. A refreshing change from the oh so many swipe-started first dates where I almost didn’t care if I had shown up in sweat pants.

The relationship that came before him had been defined by a lack of communication. Ours had been defined by intimacy — we had been open about our relationships past and our fears entering this one, about our personal short comings, and about the road blocks we had faced that had in turn made us strong. We lusted after each other for the superficial things, but admired each other for the things that mattered. We weren’t afraid to take the risks that come with opening up. He was the first guy I’d dated who ever showed any genuine interest in all the parts that made up my life — from the gallery to my family to my sport to my blog.

I took the earring out of the cup and bent the post back into place. I’d been carrying around its mate in my purse and immediately, I popped the reunited pair into my ears. When he and I broke up exactly two weeks earlier I didn’t cry. When we broke up, I don’t know that I felt the feelings that make you want to cry. I don’t know that I felt anything but relief — I wasn’t making him happy, and let me tell you, being unable to make someone happy can be exhausting.

Later that night as I went to put the earrings into my jewelry box, I cried. Running through it all — from start to last text message — I realized just how final our good-bye had been and I was sorry for that. But at least I had this new favorite pair of earrings, and to always wear with them, a cache of warm memories and lessons about life, love, and Legos.

Author’s note:

In something of an ironic twist, about two weeks later I lost the earring again, at an art fair. This time, it is clearly for good. Lesson learned: somethings are just not meant to be.

The End of a Hiatus

On February 6, 2017February 6, 2017 By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Dating, insights/observations, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I turned the corner just in time to see the Physicist walking up to the entrance of my gallery and stopped dead in my tracks. Before he could pass through the bronze doors he paused and turned, catching what I’m sure was a look of shock on my face. For a moment we stared right at each other, and in that same moment I traveled back in time three years…

I was wearing that stunning piece by Anya Caliendo. He was wearing tweed. We were different.

He was standing in that doorway the first time I saw him, walking into the opening reception for one of our exhibitions. It was a wintry Sunday afternoon in February, and he was wearing a long white-black tweed coat over slim red pants and a black turtleneck. He looked so bloody French (which we was), and therefore was the best thing I’d seen in a longtime. I was wearing a sequined feathered whimsy on loan from one of Lady Gaga’s milliners. It happened to sit right in the center of my forehead and project a foot into the air. I looked… different.

He was walking out of that doorway when I decided to run after him to give him a piece of paper with my phone number scrawled on it. I was two weeks out of a serious relationship and was in an empowered mood that bordered on reckless.

It was a week later, on Valentine’s Day, when a few doors down from that doorway we went on our first date.

And then a month later, we were in his doorway and he kissed me good-bye. As I walked out into the lion’s roar of March, I was certain that I’d never see him again…

And then, here we were, three years later on a wintry Friday afternoon in January standing in that doorway again.

“I wish you had told me you were coming in,” I said. “I would have made sure my hair looked better.”

The Physicist was visiting a chapter of his old life, on vacation from his new life in eastern Europe. We caught up over coffee in a trattoria behind the gallery.

“You don’t blog any more,” he remarked once we made it past a catch-up on work life and started the transition to personal lives. “Is that because someone’s given you reason not to blog?”

“I’ve been seeing someone, but he’s not the reason I’m not writing. I just haven’t had any time to write. And maybe, these days, I have too much to say.”

“You should make time. I liked reading it. And writing mattered to you.”
He handed me a deck of playing cards — my gift. The face side of each card was a soviet-era “propaganda” poster. I laughed out loud as I shifted through the images and he showed off some of his Russian. img_20170106_164308060

Sometimes it’s hard to attribute any value to the ephemeral relationships that make their way into and out of our lives. I always considered the Physicist as a quasi toxic vignette in my dating life (even if was French and had a six pack.) But his cameo at the start of 2017 was a valuable one — he reminded me to hold onto all the things that make me ME.

And so, just as the American political leadership is trying to silence the voices of women and minorities, and just as I start down new paths of my own, I return to my soap box.

They Told Me to Find a Rich Husband is back.

Thanks, Physicist.

My Meet Cute? What Do You Think This is? A Romantic Comedy?

On October 29, 2013 By KathleenIn DatingLeave a comment

If it wasn’t for Cam and a re-run of “Modern Family,” I would probably have no idea what a “meet-cute” actually is.

In romantic comedies and Disney movies, the protagonists tend to meet in the most adorable of ways

Cameron Tucker: You know, if this were a romantic comedy, this would be our meet cute. We’d spend the rest of the afternoon drinking wine, eating food, flying a kite… you know, montage-y stuff.

Mitchell: Am I in this movie of yours?

Cam: Yeah. You’re the gay best friend.

Cue laugh track and google search.

From our friends at wikipedia: “A meet-cute is a term sometimes used to describe a situation in film, television, etc. in which a future romantic couple meets for the first time in a way that is considered adorable, entertaining, or amusing.”

Considering how many friends I have who attempted to make a go of it as screen writers, and considering how many romantic comedies I consumed growing up a teenage girl, the fact I have to urban dictionary and wikipedia “meet-cute” feels like a major personal failure.

Then again, this might also be because the romantic comedy that is my life is a narrative based on the “meet-expected” and the “meet-lame.” Thank you, online dating for taking the serendipity out of new love.

My parents have a meet-cute. It involved an elevator and an oddball question that is quintessentially my mother:

“You have a very Dutch nose. Are you Dutch?”

I always imagine my parents’ meeting happened in black and white. This is largely because they met in 1961 and I associate the story with the opening scenes of The Apartment for no real reason other than the elevators.

Meanwhile, the closest thing I have to a meet-cute in my romantic past involves a college reunion. A male friend of a girl friend sauntered up to our table to join us. I turned to her and whispered: “Every girl’s crazy bout a sharp dressed man.”

Like Cam fantasized, we spent the rest of the night drinking wine, eating food and flying a kite. When we walked off campus holding hands to the song I had designated as my wedding song, we decided our meeting was fated.

But life isn’t a romantic comedy. In real life, the wind dies down and kites fall out of the sky, making one think there’s sometimes something to be said for the meet lame and the meet expected.

Sometimes the kite stays up forever. Other times, the wind dies down... — Sometimes the kite stays up forever. Other times, the wind dies down…