Sunday, 09.11.2011 - 4:09 pm.
Briefly: 09/11/2011 in the US, 09/11/1973 in Chile. Each of these days was a nightmare and what they spawned in the following years, decades, is, maybe, even worse. Never forget. And learn.
***
My flight leaves at 8 pm. Andrew and I land in Santiago an hour and a half later, crash at a hotel (thanks to the airline and their sudden change of schedule that wouldn't allow us to make our connection from Chile to Uruguay on time), and then take a two-hour flight to Montevideo tomorrow at 2 pm.
The darndest thing happened today: Joseph is following me on Twitter. I know it's him, it's his nickname, his real name. It surprised me, but I didn't want to give it much thought.
Alas, I couldn't do that.
These days I'd been thinking how much I've healed from that emotional wreck. When I think of him, it's a passing thought and not a lot of pain is associated to him anymore. Mostly because I just don't dwell on those things.
I laughed when I learned he was following me. Joseph, on Twitter? He isn't very verbal online, or wasn't while I was with him. Plus, it was hard understanding him sometimes, due to his disregard of the most basic rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation. So on that side, it was a surprise.
A pleasant surprise, I guess. In fact, I felt like putting the past behind me and following him back. I felt very healed at that point, because hearing from him put me in a good mood, effortlessly, and I was willing to reciprocate the contact, however small.
But hold on, my mind says. What does he tweet about? Remember: he's married and has a son, he's bound to talk about it at some point. Are you ready to read something like, say, "having a great night with the wife", or "my son makes me proud"? The answer, of course, is no.
Another thing that I noticed: I started to think of him seeing my tweets, so what should I tweet about now? Not good. I spent a lot of time, perhaps two years, on Facebook posting stuff mostly thinking of him seeing it. I fantasized a lot about getting through to him this way. But enough of living my online life in terms of his supposed gaze towards me.
So, no follow back to Joseph, in the name of my emotional well-being. I actually would like to, because as it turns out, a break-up per se does not mess up that much with my heart and he is someone that perhaps I will always be in love with (but I'm in love with Andrew and it's him I will stay with for the rest of my life, if he wants me to). What does mess it up is being overlapped with somebody else, then replaced, then being shoved in my face for months how the other person is so much better than me.
I never had the chance to process the fact that he had a new girlfriend. I wish there had been some time between our break-up and a new relationship, so I could have been happy for him when he found someone who was more his match. I'm pleased that right now (can't guarantee that later I'll say the same) I'm capable of wishing him the best and have no hard feelings. Still hurts a lot all that happened, but him...I'm very fond of him, I'm grateful for his presence in my life then, and I learned a lot from him and our relationship.
I have to say, I'm flattered that he's following me. I'd love to follow him back but I don't want to.
I remember I dedicated the song "Forever for her (is over for me)" to Joseph: "I blew it. And if I knew what to do then I'd do it...". It's a song by the White Stripes, and it sounded precisely like what I was going through, with him getting a new girlfriend and then getting married. Then I learned the song actually had a positive connotation, and halfway through there's a line that now I sing with Andrew in mind:
So let's do it
just get on a plane and let's do it
like the birds and the bees they get to it
just get out of town and forever be free.
prev / next