Monday 2 April 2012

The EX (is hex)

That is something that me and my friends used to say when we were silly young girls.

What did it mean?

I don't exactly know what it meant? Ex girlfriends are horrible, a dangerous and different breed, watch out for them, they are evil..who knows?

I have never dealt well with exes. I find they have this nasty habit of not quite being as EX as you think? Maybe that is just my own paranoia?

I have spent four long and painful years being very aware that my partner's ex was still very much around. His brother's ex-girlfriend was her 'best friend' (although not behind her back) and had a very clever habit of telling her things that would motivate her to get in touch with L. Not cool and it caused the wound to remain open for FAR too long.

Anyway, in my mind I just wanted us to get on with my new relationship and let their old relationship fade out with some dignity.

I must pay her the respect she is due and say apart from reading his emails right at the start of our relationship, in a last panicky bid to see if it were really the end, and writing a few more emails to him, which he shared with me, she has been very dignifed, she left us to it eventually and I admire that. I have not been as strong to let go of things in the past - that is very hard. She was braver than I.

Anyway, we have managed to just about avoid one another over the years and I like it that way. I have nothing bad to say or nothing bad to feel about her, but in these weird situations you can't just go and find her or email and be all 'hey, let's talk about it ALL' that would be WEIRD.

When we went to her and L's mutual best-friend's wedding last year, L was excited about introducing me to her. Why do men just not get it? I REALLY wasn't up for it and even if I had been I wouldn't have wanted to meet her RIGHT after I had just had our baby at her best friend's wedding with the man who broke her heart...not ok.

So, as I was saying..we have not actually met, as such. I've not been within four feet of her..y'know. I have avoided her with good intentions and kindness..I have been a virtual ghost in her world.

I had been a ghost....UNTIL my hen night.

It all went weird from there.

My (frankly pathetic) hen day culminated in me and my two loundmouthiest (I LOVE them both) mates, sat on a bus, one drinking a bottle of wine out of her bag (how old are we?) me with tissues under my nose as I have a stinking, drippy nose cold and a migraine. I can't breathe, my face is all red and blotchy and to top it off I have a Kids tiara and wedding veil on my head! I am NOT that type of girl..I would sooner wear an empty tuna tin on my head and a cow pat on my face..seriously.

So drunken mate 'A' is laughing and yelling and being a dear sweet drunken yank and mate 'B' is also feeling ill with vomiting bug and is on the bus en-route to go home..we get to our stop, the driver laughs at A andher antics and we jolly off to the cash point, gobshite, snot-bride and pukeymate. CLASSY. At the cash point I turn and suddenly, I go ICY cold..right in front of us, on the opposite side of the road, there she is!!!! Seriously, this is happening! ohmyfrick..nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Why today? WHY??? The bride hat veil thing, the snot blotch face, the shouty friend the pukey friend..the only three of us as everyone else cancellllllled on me, the lame arse no-friend bride of pathetic doom...here she was. Plain fresh face, tall, pretty, blonde, (I can't tell you how PLEASED I am to have seen that up close - sarcasm) casually dressed in an effortlessly easy-going way and here I am, atilla the hun with rocky and bullwinkle by my side. I swear I stopped in my tracks and froze like I'd just seen Medusa..christ.

Any number of thoughts went through my head at this point..I am sure none of them made sense but the first, was remembering that it had been years and it didn't matter..next it was the bride hat on my ill head and how in your face it was..then it was the panic, I just wanted to curl up in a hole and die. The culmination of many years of clever avoidance..here it was, off the bus and BAM, uglybride in your FACE!

It didn't help that my yank mate was shouting YOU WON! YOU WON! FORGET HER, YOU WON! in my ear..I don't care if I won, it wasn't a competition!!! She was only being kind and saying what she thought was right..but jeeeeezzzuuussssss....timing?!

HER mate (the exes mate) she was pretty and sixties and all young and pretty and thin and pretty and did a very good, under-thirty catty stare glance thing, the kind I wish I could do but:
1. I never think to do them because I don't work like that
and
2. I am too saggy with my old-lady eye wrinkles to find my eyes in order to position them to glare. I would have to find a mirror and make a good effort to see how to do it first..oh youth.

So there it is. We walked past each other and I looked down, she looked down, we both died a bit inside and our friends were silly.

And all I could think was... We have something in common, we both love/d the same man and we are women who have been hurt by other's stupid actions. We could and probably would be friends in any other circumstances, I don't want to be a hurtful figure to her..and I felt bad. And sorry I couldnt just lift up my head and smile. And it be an ok thing to do.

So I have learnt the ex isn't hex, she is you and me, and every woman. We all love and get hurt..we should be kinder to one another, life is hurtful enough.

I'd never usually blog something so personal but I feel like I need to vent it, and as I have said before, this is a place for memories...perhaps from here they will be happier. I hope so.


2 comments:

  1. I love this tale. I know it must have felt flipping awful at the time but I LOVE the description of you and your friends. You have described it all so brilliantly.

    Xx

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  2. Hahah..thank you. It was ok in the end really. I love my silly friends and I guess what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, even walking down the street looking like a plonker in front of your fella's pretty ex..haha! xx

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