Relationships

It was the “Carrie spots Big with Natasha for the first time in the Hamptons then runs to the beach to throw up” moment.  Except I was still the 20-something and there was no Natasha, just the spotting of the ghost of someone I once gave my heart to.  It happened so unexpectedly.  This was my side of town, not his.  This was one of my local restaurants, not his. But the sheer sighting of him made me want to run and hide.  I had done everything to hide the evidence of his existence and there he was two years later standing in front of me ordering a chopped salad.  I panicked and found myself stuttering to my girlfriend,Laura, “Put your sunglasses on!!” Once Laura figured out who and what was going on she began to mock me relentlessly.  She had never seen me lose my cool (especially regarding the opposite sex), nor had she ever seen me want so desperatly to go unnoticed.  After he whisked away, salad in hand, I spent the next few days wondering why I a)was so bothered and b)had absolutely no desire to approach him with all the overly audacious updates of my current fabulous life that had since outgrown him.  Isn’t that how the fantasy always plays out?  Ex is spotted and ambushed with all the wonderful details of the life he could never again be a part of?  I finally figured out it wasn’t him.  It was the girl that used to be with him.  The older me wanted to protect the younger me that once dated him.  I wanted to protect the girl that was with him and felt fat when she was skinny, the girl who felt stupid when she was smart, and the girl that felt unlovable when she was lovable.  He made her feel all of those things and she had come so far that I no longer wanted him to have the pleasure of getting the chance to meet all that she had become. And so they never met again and the princess lived happily ever after.

xoxo,

Vanesa