The One about the Ex.

I have no idea who reads my blog anymore.  I had a small following when I started, but I neglected my little blog for so long, I think they all went away.

I don't think my Ex, or my Current, as it were, reads my blog either.  So he can't object to the story I am about to tell.

JA came back into my life towards the end of last September.  We'd been in touch on FB and by phone, and I thought since he was all the way in New Orleans, there was no danger of my getting all hung up on him again.

To make a long story short, we saw each other on and off during my college years, and once I graduated, we tried to parlay good sex into a loving relationship.  Maybe that wasn't such a good idea.  We did have some really great times and we did love each other, but we also brought out the worst in each other.  He didn't really know how to be with someone who loved him, and I couldn't figure out why he wouldn't want to be with me 24/7 if he loved me so much (I acted accordingly).  I nagged constantly and generally made an ass of myself.

So when JA told me he was coming up to NYC and needed a place to crash, I hesitated.  Then at the last minute, I told him he could stay with me.  Then I let him sleep in my bed.  I'm smacking my forehead as I write this.....

A week turned into a month, and so on and so forth.  Living with him was great, and it still is, and now I often can't imagine living without him.

I resisted all I love you's and any tender feelings that might have evolved between us for fear of whatever happened the last time around, over 10 years ago.  One night I came home from work to find him in the kitchen making dinner.

"I think I'm in love with you," he said.

"AGAIN?  Awww crap."

*******

He is a much better cook than I am, and I confess that I've hardly touched my Cuisinart/Calphalon cookware since he first arrived.

He takes out the laundry and the dry cleaning when it needs to be done.  He grocery shops when I can't or am just not interested in doing so.  He does me other favors, too, like taking packages to the post office when I have my time taken up with work (I'd get so much more done if I didn't have to spend my days at the office).

If I have an extra-curricular activity that brings me home when it is already dark, JA will pick me up at the subway and walk me home.  This is invaluable: after I was robbed while staying in a vacation house in Nicaragua with my mother and other family, I am forever looking over my shoulder for anyone who might be following me.

Yeah, he does everything for me.  Damn near everything.

I can't lie, some days it is much easier to be single.  I know for sure no one is going to be home when I get there, so I don't have to hope JA is home when I get there.  I don't have to wonder when he is coming home if he goes out.  At those times, our relationship is hard for me.

But most of the time, he is with me.  He says that he often refuses invitations to hang out with his friends to be with me, and likewise for me.  "Your friends miss you," he told me the other night.  It's true, I suppose. But JA is my best friend, and I almost hate to admit that I'd much rather hang out with him sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love him.  Ugh.  Three weeks ago, around my birthday, I just threw up my hands and gave up the resistance.  I just needed time to know that we weren't going in the same direction as last time around.  I can't tell the future, but for now, I'm pretty damn happy.  Imagine that.