Case of the Ex

I miss him. That’s the truth of it.

I don’t miss the way he used to hold me, or the way his lips brushed mine. I miss the unending banter, the way he could always make me laugh at myself. I miss my best friend.

You have these people who were witnesses to your life, who saw you grow, saw you change. Who for whatever period of time were so instrumental and then suddenly they are nothing, a memory, a past, even possibly a regret.

I am always chasing the impossible with my ex’s, I want (almost) everything we had when we were together, but without the love and the sex. I want my best friend, someone who already knows all my secrets, who knows when I’m lying and when to call me on it. I want them to be the person I can turn to, when it hurts too much to explain the situation to someone new.

What’s the point in loving someone for so long, investing so much of your soul into someone for it just to dissipate into nothingness when it all falls apart?

It’s a dangerous wall to scale, the wall of friendship with an ex. Just when you feel you’ve finally found your footing and are picking up momentum nostalgia blinds you. Blindly placing a foot in a hold you are certain is there you slip, and the wall crashes down around you.

I like to imagine that the reason we aren’t best friends is because our passion is too strong, that we burn too brightly when we are together, burning out each other’s love.

The truth of it is though that love is a well-trodden track, and it’s far too easy to fall back into old habits. Knowing that the road leads to nowhere, we still somehow find ourselves being led down that path by someone we used to love.

So we block all the roads, we cut all the ties and end up walking away with another case of the ex.