Dear College Boyfriend,
Last night I was laying awake in bed at three a.m. and remembering the last time we had sex. Yes, it may seem inappropriate to be thinking of such things when I had just woken up to nurse my youngest daughter, and what with me being right next to my husband, but as is the case with random thoughts that enter one’s head in the middle of the night, it couldn’t be helped.
So there I was, unexpectedly wide awake thanks to my body’s incorrect signals that my six hours of sleep was adequate for the next day, and suddenly assaulted with the memory of when we were last in bed together. Ironically, we were broken up, though just barely.
Our breakup was legendary, and nearly as much of a cliché as the loss of my virginity to Stairway to Heaven. It was New Year’s Eve. Of the fucking New Millennium. Remember all that Y-2K stuff? We were in a big college town with friends, dressed to the nines, and as individuals in their early to mid -twenties tend to do, bar-hopping. I don’t remember what happened, thanks to the copious amount of alcohol we consumed, including a rare Long Island Iced Tea, and I’m sure we had smoked some pot, too, though I have absolutely no recollection of that.
All I remember was waking up foggy the next morning and the table in our hotel room had been knocked over. Presumably by me. Fragmented thoughts slammed into my head, a conversation about how marriage probably wasn’t going to happen for you, and I widened my eyes with remembrance. “Did we break up last night?” I asked hesitantly.
Later that day we were to drive to your mom and stepdad’s house, and like good sports, we followed through with our obligation. It was a bittersweet trip, one where I was mindful that this would be the last time I would be with your family, the last time we would curl up together on the couch to watch Direct TV, then a novelty enjoyed only by the wealthy, the last time we would sleep together in the spare bedroom.
That night I was too upset to fall asleep, and you tried to help me drift off by teaching me to visualize colors inside my head. The next day we had sex one last time, as we were bound to do. I’m certain I probably cried. That was the one part of our relationship that always worked brilliantly. We were like toxic magnets. When we were good, we belonged together like no one ever has, but when we were bad, usually thanks to some grand mood transformation of yours that was bordering on delusional, we were a trainwreck.
I haven’t seen you in over a decade, maybe closer to twelve years. One of the last times I saw you, you had taken me and my brother out to dinner as a friendly gesture, and you and I continued on to a bar where I consumed my first Cosmopolitan. When the taxi took us home, I remember standing on the sidewalk as my brain desperately tried to register, Your tongue is in my mouth! I of course had a new boyfriend by then.
It’s probably for the best that we never see each other again.
I married young, and got divorced. When I remarried, I was intelligent enough to marry a real man, someone who was older, competent, attractive, and had the occasional tendency to “rescue me.”
I avoided marrying someone with such wild personality fluctuations, someone with your disturbingly cavernous depth of passion, someone that at times worshipped me with addictive abandon. One of the things that will probably preserve my marriage is the fact that I will never be able to fully possess my husband, as I often tried to do with you. He is too emotionally guarded, too reserved, and too carefully maintained for such recklessness.
The fact that he will never throw himself into me the way I used to long for, that he will never give me quite as much emotion as I would like, and the fact that he balances out my energy rather than adds to it will likely be our saving grace.
But again I must urge you, let’s never meet again. You are the one person I have never trusted myself with.
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