An Unexpected Occurrence

The path my life seems to take.

I have finals this week. Talk about stressing out. My brain feels like it is going to explode, I can’t sleep at all anymore, and I barely eat anything. This is not healthy. Thankfully the Sabbath arrived and I took my mandatory reprieve from stressing out over school. As I was going to sleep I noticed I had two missed calls and two new voicemails. They were from him. I couldn’t help but wonder why he’s calling me now. He usually calls to check up on me every 3-4 months and he just called in September. Should I listen to the messages or should I just delete them? Curiosity took over and I listened to them. The first was his typical I miss you and I’m thinking about you message. No big deal about that one. The second message was different. This message was a lot needier, clearer, and “please” was even involved.

I sat for a few minutes trying to decide if I should talk to him. I swear he’s like the mafia. You know, just when I think I’m out they pull me right back in. I give in and call him back. He answers and my immediate response as I lay in bed with my eyes closed and my face in my pillow is, “What do you want?” This doesn’t surprise him at all because this is our usual post-breakup greeting to each other. He tells me how glad he is that I called him back and how good it is to hear my voice. I don’t like to mess around so I ask him to get to the point of this late night phone call and he does. He says, “I want you back.” So I guess he has finally made up his mind I think to myself. My simple reply is, “No.”

As usual for our conversations, the past is brought up and rehashed. I explain to him that I cannot be with him because I can’t forget what he has done to me. Even though it was in the past, it still hurts and had impacted me in a lot of ways. It has changed me and it has changed the way I see him. I don’t trust him anymore. I don’t believe anything he says to me. He agrees with me and says he is sorry for all the things he has done over the years. He said as badly as I am hurt, he is hurting worse because he lost the best thing in his life. I hate that when he said this my stomach did a little flip. What is that about? Do I still have feelings for him despite everything? He goes on to tell me how he’s grown up and changed since he’s moved away. He’s not the stupid young boy he was. He wants more now. He wants to marry and have children. “Woah”, I think. Then again, I’ve heard this before and it never changed anything. I call him out and say this is BS. You’re just telling me what you think I want to hear. He insists he is not and starts to reminisce on what I thought were better days before I learned otherwise. He talks about the ring he gave me, the letters we wrote each other, and the promises we made to each other. I remind him of how those “promises” were broken a long time ago and no longer apply.

We go on like this for two and a half hours. We rehash the past, I encourage him to find someone else to move on with, he tells me he has tried but no one compares to me, he asks me to be with him several times and every time I say no. He asks me, “Why do you have to be so difficult?” I laugh and say, “Because it’s who I am.” He knows this and I think it’s one of the reasons why he insists he still loves me. He says he’s not going to give up. That he’s going to keep trying to show me that he has changed and will do right by me. I am irritated by this response. I don’t want him to keep trying. I want him to move on and I want to move on. I don’t see things working out for us and I’m tired of “beating a dead horse”. At the end of the conversation he tells me loves me and wants me to say it back. I sit quietly for a while until I realize I can’t. I don’t want to lead him on or give him false hope. This is how we leave things.

The next morning I groggily got up and went to church. God and I had some serious talking to do. I prayed about my feelings for him. I prayed that God would show me the right thing to do. I prayed to God to not let me make the same mistakes because those mistakes took me away from God. All I want now is to be closer to my Heavenly Father, not pushed away from Him. I felt better after praying. I realize that I am in no hurry to let this person back into my life. He can try and prove himself if he wants, but I hope it is more for him than me. The only being I need to prove myself to is the one I prayed to. His is the only opinion that matters to me at this point in my life. So far things have been going well for me and I will not be derailed from my path.

As always in the spirit of honesty and confession I will admit that I still have feelings for my ex. I don’t know if it’s love but I certainly still care about him. Of course with the caring, is a lot of anger and resentment. I can’t believe he can still make my stomach do flips with his words. I also can’t believe how much I enjoyed talking to him for the most part. Talk about an unexpected occurrence.