Looking at life upside down

There is that great moment when, on a Friday afternoon, a text/call/email arrives, asking, “any chance I can take you out for dinner tonight?”

It’s followed by a great date.

Which is followed by that distinct sinking feeling that despite your promises to yourself, and despite the fact you know he’s moving away, you feel your ability to just “have fun” rapidly disappear.

*Sigh*

Unlike most men I’ve dated that show up around the time they mentioned, with absolutely no plan. This one, we’ll call him The Professional, had a date in place. We went for dinner, then brought red wine back to my place.

We watched a movie.

It was there, sitting on my not-so-high-quality sofa, his arm across my shoulders, me tucked up against him, that I found myself snuggling in closer, a smile spreading across my face, and a little sigh of satisfaction escaping.

My therapist says that I need to be content with what happens, when it happens and not over-think things. I have put strategies in place to help that from happening. Currently I am focusing on the great date, and the response to my follow-up text message, which said he wanted to see me more.

Of course, I’ve been doing the over-think thing for some time, years really. It’s not so easy to stop. Unless I’m doing something to distract myself – yoga works – specifically a headstand. I find that focusing on not falling over and killing myself far outweighs any other distraction.

Anyway, The Professional is lovely, and I really, I mean actually, truly like him. In fact, me, who talks constantly, actually shuts up to listen to him, and I enjoy it. I’m trying to ignore the fact, that his days in my city are numbered – 12 and that’s the best case. Maybe it will continue after he leaves, we could visit, we could ….

Excuse me, I’m off to stand on my head.

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No Movie Endings or Flash Mobs on route to Mardi Gras

On route to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, more on that in the next post, I stopped for a layover in the home city of my ex.

I had created two perfect movie endings for how it could play out. It turned out to be neither, but I actually appreciated the airport, which is a little slice of the city, for what is was.

The first fantastic option was I would clear immigration, like I always used to, and he’s be waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator, with open arms, like he used to — even though he had no idea I was going to Mardi Gras and no idea when I was traveling. Obviously this did not happen and as I true sign I am healing, I didn’t even go down the escalator to check.

The second, and my personal favourite of my two fantasies, was that I would arrange a flash mob using twitter. We’d have a whole group of people spontaneously break into dance — say Soulja Boy’s Crank That —in one of the main areas of the airport. A news crew would just so happen to be there and I’d end up under the headline International Incident at the Airport.

This did not happen either, mainly because I was quickly distracted by the fact that I found one of my favourite city restaurants had a branch at the airport.

As I was eating fantastic food and contemplating how much I love the city, it occurred to me that I would get so much more accomplished if I stopped concocting elaborate fantasies in my head all the time, of course then life would be an awful lot more dull.

Anyway, I have a new city to explore, more on Mardi Gras and my already growing collection of beads soon.

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Let the Moving On Begin

So as it turns, out my gut instinct was correct.

If he’s not calling you, he’s just not that into you.

After 46 days of not talking, my ex-boyfriend and I spoke for about four minutes until there was another call. It was about something he was doing with his family that night. He said he would talk to me again soon.

That was nearly 24 hours ago.

My guess, and I could be wrong, but my guess is that if he really loved me or really cared, he’d call.

So my hope that somehow this time my life would be like the movies, that we’d talk, he’d miss me as much as I miss him and we’d make it work, is mostly crushed.

The good news is I’m not nearly as sad as I thought. I believe this is what they call closure.

A quick peek to the bottom of the bottle and let the healing begin

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The Manic Pixie Dream Girl makes a Call

Today I picked up the phone and called him.

I dialed. Listened to it ring. Left a message. Hung up.

I’m not nearly as stressed as I thought I would be, but it was only a few minutes ago.

So what had me leaving messages on my ex-boyfriend’s phone? Likely my own insanity —remember the crazy train — but I have another theory (or three).

Women. Hope. But most importantly, romantic comedies.

Women because nearly every one that I speak with manages to convince me that, “he still loves you,” “you were meant to be,” “he let you go because he loves you,” or, and this is my personal favourite, “he’s scared of what you mean to him.”

Historically I’ve mostly prescribed to the, “if he’s not calling you, then he’s just not that into you,” thing. Or in this case, if he was scared of me before, then he likely still is now.

Hope because, well, even if he’s not calling, I hope what those women tell me is true.

And romantic comedies, because they disguise fiction as almost plausible reality.

Women shouldn’t be allowed to watch romantic comedies — Hollywood’s version of love is so easy.

They, whoever they are, say that life imitates art, but I beg to differ. When was the last time any woman’s life had the same happy ending as one of those movies? Those characters are always so damn happy, I mean, just once, I want to see a romantic comedy where they all die at the end.

Sure there are overlaps and, alarmingly lately, I am feeling them. In extreme cases people point them out to me too.

“Hey, I saw the movie Morning Glory the other day, you are just like her,” said one of my employees to me, about the neurotic main character.

Fantastic, that was just the comparison I was looking for, a crazy workaholic, with virtually zero social life.

Then No Strings Attached came out and there is the main character who makes such a point of saying she doesn’t want marriage or long-term commitment, then she when she does, it’s too late.

Well, too late, kind of. It is Hollywood and there is a happy ending. But, most of my friends who saw that, said she reminded them of me.

What does this tell me? On screen everyone loves the manic-pixie-dream girl, but let me vouch for reality when I say, we’re not as well received in real life.

Anyway, what does this have to do with my phone call?

In both of those movies, which I have now seen, there was a phone call and everything was fine. Somehow I’ve managed to convince myself everything will be fine, that he actually loves me, can’t imagine being away from me, and it will all be happily ever after.

And if not, at least I’ll be able to get back to moving on knowing I did everything I could.

But for now, I wait for the return call. If he doesn’t call back, that does make one thing clear

I’ll let you know how it goes.

My phone, not ringing

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