A couple weekends ago, one of my best friends had to be in her ex-boyfriend’s sister’s wedding. As a five-year member to this family, it was natural she’d be a bridesmaid (especially since this was decided while the relationship was alive). However, his swift decision to break-up left her whiplashed and amongst the confusion was the silent, looming question of what to do about the wedding that then sat cruelly before her.
But being the girl she is, there was no questioning her attendance, even to what had now become an exponentially difficult situation. She made it through the upcoming weeks, days, and hours until it was time to take the first step to this reality and drive home. She pulled out her dress, straightened her hair, did her make-up and tried to smother her anxiety with every foot closer to the doors of the rehearsal dinner. The angst cost three times to get rid of the next day when she had to return the next day for the wedding.
Concurrently, amongst all the planning and discussions with those who were her own in-laws, she’d quickly found herself on the outs with those who treated her like family when the relationship existed, and with the death of that relationship, so was their kindness and even decency to her. And this was the background she stood against as she watched others’ exchanging their vows—vows that she herself, the liquid grief of heartache wading in her vision, had wanted to one day give to him standing across the aisle.
As I write this, the song, “Sparkle” by No Doubt from their album, Push and Shove, just came on. The first time I heard the opening lines of, “Never ever ever gonna be the same,” my heart found recognition and a Band-Aid I’d been looking a long time for; finally, someone else who knew what it was like to have a shift that changes everything take place in the dearest part of your life. I was only a witness to my close friend’s weekend over text, but if this scene were part of a movie, this would be the song I’d score; with a look across the room, I hear, “I still think of you so much/do you remember how it was…?”
Seeing an ex is an awful mixture of awkwardness, embarrassment (or its even stronger form, humiliation), and pain; the levels of each ingredient depending on your role, the media in which you see them, the weight of the history, and previous actions. An additional influencing variable is who the ex is: an ex-boyfriend, ex-best friend, ex-acquaintance, or an ex-hook-up.
It can be someone’s picture that paints the minutes of midnight as you can’t break the analysis; an instant report on how they’re doing since the dust has settled, the viewer trying to place smile size, the environment, and the look on that person where only they can grade that emotion. It’s the glance of a Facebook post where instantly, a competition of “Whose Life Looks Better?” arises and we find ourselves side by side and the judging is either skewed by the steroids we pump into grading our life, the liposuction we apply to theirs…or the incorrect ranking they’ve intentionally or unintentionally used Facebook or Instagram to give and we believe it. It’s someone you were with who won’t return your text messages or pick up your phone calls; and when you wake up with your own Stonehenge on your chest in the morning, you wonder how you will ever face them again. It’s someone whose presence makes you cringe and you want to casually exit in the opposite direction; when you walk in and see that person, only a second too late to perform a casual 180 and you physically find yourself in the active realm where conversations occur. It’s that place where you look around, visually avoiding that one piece in the foreground of your existence. It’s being haunted in every sight, song, and natural media, and having these take over the mechanics of breathing, arresting your breath in the tightest restraints.
It’s uncomfortable not doing it, but is it cowardly if I act like everyone else? Keeping my eyes pinned on the rectangular screen in my hands, pretending I didn’t see someone and ignoring someone, or changing routes and schedules, avoiding them altogether?
But, then I feel just like them—the them I don’t know now: content with avoidance, being afraid, and the way things are. And if I don’t walk in the room or by that person with my head held high and smile, I’m no braver than them. No matter what the cost is inside—the feelings of awkwardness, mortification, and “I’d rather be anywhere, but here”—I’ll pay whatever I have to for bravery; the knowledge that I rose from what went down between us; to be honest with the public image I carry around my universe. No matter what they do to avoid you, you’re better than that—walking in there with courageous eyes and an even nobler voice, if you’re straight-forward and gracious, that is something to be so proud of when you look back on it. That’s what it means to be the bigger person. And even if there’s no reward before your eyes when you’ve strode past them or walked out the door, they know. Even if they act cool or too wise in their own eyes, it still exists to them. They know. And you comfort yourself with that “know.”
Why isn’t it pleasant to face an “ex?” It’s obvious, but I’m always looking at “why.” Is it because we literally have to face the exchange of rejection, whether we’ve given or were given it? And with this, are still required to live with them looking at us now? Is it an inescapable reminder of the person we used to be—not so good or…happy?
Or, is it the knowledge that when we see them we have to face the ugly, awful truth that things aren’t how they used to be?
Because sometimes all it takes is a look to remember what was.
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