He has been on my mind as of late.

One of the many Ben's, the one who broke me a year ago “The Virgin”. The one who a week after my birthday recovering from Bronchitis broke up with me over comic books. (Well it wasn’t really about the comic books but that’s a story for another time) Sitting at the kitchen bench my housemate the “Domestic Goddess” is cooking me dinner Mediterranean vegetables on polenta and we are talking boys.

“It was just over a year ago today that we broke up for the first time. It just makes me sad, sad and frustrated that after everything after all the promises of best friends he won’t even talk to me.” Fidgeting with my phone I try not to meet her eyes.

“You’re grieving the relationship my love. It’s the process. Right now you are in anger. Acceptance will come you just have to let yourself get there.” Her words float across the kitchen, filled with the same intense warmth that radiates from the oven.

“I know I need to let myself miss him. To send him light and love whenever I think of him and let it go. Be grateful of where his love took me and just let it go.”

I have always believed in soul mates. Not in the one-true-love sense of the word, I am more inclined to believe each of us has several soul mates. In Brida, Paulo Coelho states that souls divide as they incarnate, and over many incarnations the soul mates (formerly parts of ourselves) become numerous.

In Eat, Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert explains soul mates beautifully

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...”

There is not one part of me that doubts that (Ben) “The Virgin” was my soul mate. He opened me up tore down those walls I had spent years building up and left me broken but so very open.  Every time someone asks about our relationship I always say “When we were good it was sickeningly good. We were the couple you wanted to be the ones you looked at and say wow they are so in love so perfect for each other. But when we were bad it was an absolute disaster we destroyed each other to many times then I ever want to admit.”

Do I lack closure? Was it the suddenness of his decision to cut me out of his life that caught it off guard or am I just being selfish. Who am I to know what he is thinking or feeling? Maybe it was too hard for him to have me in his life to hear how much I have grown since we broke apart; to hear just how happy I am now that I am no longer his.  I feel it may be the latter.

My ego is bruised. Am I simply chasing a friendship I no longer have any claim to?