Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Ties that Bind... or not...

I think most people would agree that i am pretty much an 'open book.' I don't think there is a lot that I hold back -- I like to have my say! There aren't many feelings I won't talk about; many topics off limits (ok, I'm not sure there are any topics off limit!); many things I'm not open to discussing.

Is this is a good or bad thing? I don't know that I have the answer to that. I'm sure it's one of those things that will come to me on my death bed... or maybe I'll see it as a glimpse of truth when my life flashes before my eyes in that split second I have to absorb a lifetime of images.

I've been thinking about how I feel towards a few people from my past -- people who had important roles in my life & who are no longer front & center in those places anymore. The reasons they aren't no longer in the forefront run the gamut: one left me with a broken heart; another left me with the same, but in a different way; still another has drifted away for reasons called 'life'.

There's this thing I do. I stay friends with ex-boyfriends. Yeah, that's right... even the whole who betrayed my trust & left me for another girl - him too. We still talk. I have been told that I *might* be a little nuts. Just a little. But, in my mind, if they were important enough to become part of my life, what else would I do? I don't throw out pictures from relationships that don't work out & I stay friends with exes.

So I've been thinking about a few people from my past. My BFF, AriCaVa, tells me how she can't keep up with all it takes to remain friends with those people you don't see all the time or talk to on a regular basis... or even those you don't have anything in common with. I wonder why I don't think like that. I don't mind the effort it takes (though I admit to some frustration with certain people) to keep a friendship going.

Wait. Maybe I should think about this. I don't really keep in touch with anyone I went to high school with. I supposed that's not a good testament of keeping up with those friends!

As I have been thinking about these 'pieces of my past', I find myself wanting to sort things out - including my feelings for said 'pieces'. But who is going to listen to that?

Me: Should I continue to be friends with them? Or should I just pretend like they are lost somewhere & no one can find them. No one can tell me what's going on in their lives. No one will be able to tell me how great their lives are since they dissed me. Sounds like a good plan.

[pause]

Me: ok. how do i do that?

Perhaps the real problem is that each of these 'pieces' are pieces from my past - my life before Cop'er. While I don't pretend as though I didn't have a life until I met him, he wasn't there, so he doesn't know how the shift in these relationships affected me. He doesn't grasp the very real, very deep ways I was altered after those days. He only knows the me of now -- the me that was born of having gone through those experiences.

Of course, Cop'er would listen to me as I talked about it (see above for conversation), but I don't know that he's going to shed light into the dark places. I guess I am going to have to keep with the journal writing.

No... I won't be leaving those little tidbits out here for all to see. After all, a woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets.

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