Let the Past Be the Past

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Today, while I was working away, (not on the code I shared in my other post, but at work), I suddenly fell into this kind of melancholy. I’ve dated a lot of people. Thirty-some-odd people. But I also, kind of, in my brain sauce, circle back to the one woman with whom I thought would last. None of them last. But her and I were different. We were different, and then we were over.

Inevitably, she broke up with me for some dude at Starbucks, and I was angry, and then I was sad, and then I forgot about her for a while when I initially started my transition. Sometimes I wonder if that breakup is what triggered it. I’m not transitioning now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever return to it, but that’s a whole story. I enjoy navigating my life being confused about gender, and just being forward-facing however I feel like being. But I heard from her once or twice over the years. Over the course of the last fourteen years. And I don’t know why I still think about her.

There are so many other ex girlfriends I could think about. I could think about the one I was with long-distance for a year, who disappeared overnight while I was sleeping, only to come back in Discord messages three years later to apologize.

I could think about the one whose rent I paid and drove to New York, who inevitably broke it off with me to get back with her estranged husband.

I could think about the two women I dated in separate states, who used me for their own gain in different ways, and then tossed me aside like a broken toy.

Hell, I could even think about my highschool girlfriend, who somehow remains a part of my life, in some tiny, almost insignificant way.

But no.

My head always circles back to the one.

And I don’t even know what it is about her anymore. I don’t think it’s important. I don’t think I even exist to her in 2024, and rightfully so. Why would I?

But it makes me feel like, or wonder, if one of the reasons I have such a hard time, in my near forties, getting close to anyone, is because I refuse to let go of the past. Most of the time all of my thoughts are living in the nineties, or the early 2000s, and I think of myself as I was then, rather than how I am and who I am, now. Everything is me trying to escape what I currently am, and it’s a wonder that even with more matches than I can shake a stick at on dating apps, I talk to no one.

The present is crumbling all around us, and simultaneously, I’ve never been in a better position in my entire life.

And I’m still working on myself, on all of these things, and I’m getting better and better by the day, at everything.

So then why can’t I let go of the past? Why can’t I ever shake this person, the starbucks-betrayer, out of my head, once and for all.

I don’t know. Maybe this public journal post will derive some kind of enlightenment … ten years into the future when I’m hopefully married and not sitting alone in front of a computer like I always am.