As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, out of the blue, my Ex (the one that broke my heart and got this blog started) emailed me wanting to buy my car.  I would normally ignore him but the idea of returning the car to the original owner and therefore really closing the door on the past seemed attractive and poetic.

I asked him to make an offer.  He offered $5,000.00 for a car that is worth between $15,000.00 and $18,000.00.  The low offer didn’t bother me as much as what he wrote in the email. He made it seem he gave me the car out of the goodness of his heart.  He also mentioned that I have been successful while he hasn’t done so well as if in a way I owe him something because of that.

First, he gave me the car because at that point he would have given anything to have me gone from his home and life.  He knew I had sold my car to move in with him since he had plenty of cars and I wouldn’t need mine anymore.  It was also perhaps a bit out of guilt, but somehow I doubt he is able to have such feelings.  Second, I work hard and whatever I have are the fruits of my labor.  His life hasn’t been so well since I left not because of me or because of the unfairness of life, but because of his own actions.  He is reaping what he sowed.

I don’t take any pleasure out of his life taking a bad turn.  In a way I am grateful I am no longer there to witness it and be involved in it.  Once, after the break up he said that he was not the man I needed him to be and that life would become a mess and it would better for me not to be there.  It makes some sense now.

After I got over the anger over the email I decided to accept the $5,000.00 and move on.

I was not looking forward to seeing him at all but it had to be done.  I just wanted to get things over with.  He had asked if I wanted to go to dinner to talk about the car and I had declined.  We met Friday afternoon at the parking lot where I had the car parked.

Seeing him at first was underwhelming.  He reached in for a hug and kiss and I just said hello.  Again, he mentioned going to a restaurant and again I declined, so we walked over to a ledge on the lot and proceeded to complete the paperwork.

I mentioned a couple of things about the car and gave me him the Carfax report.  He asked me how I was doing and I said ok.  Later he asked me again and I said:  What do you care?  He said:  I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t care.  I let that go.

After he gave me the money and we signed all the paperwork, he wanted to give me a ride back home, I declined.  I said bye and he reached out to kiss me and hug me good bye.

I wished I had just walked away, but words came spilling out:  “We are not friends. You don’t understand, some wounds never heal.  You have lost someone that loved you very much.  We had the world and you threw it all away.  How could you do it?”

At that moment I could feel my eyes burning.  I had dark sunglasses on and I wanted to run away before he could tell I was crying.  I looked at him and he had tears running down his face.  He said: I love you.  I don’t remember what I said but I think was something like good luck or good bye and I walked away without looking back with tears running down my face.

I am not sure the origin of those tears.  Perhaps it was relief, or anger.  It was definitely not love or want or anything resembling that.  It was not wanting to have the past back or him in my future.  It was cleansing, it was clearing, it was a turning point.

Now days later he has emailed me a couple of times to ask things about the car.  Surprisingly enough I have been able to have a conversation with him and not feel anything.

I will have to see him again to give him the stand for the hard top as it didn’t fit in the car and he has to come back and get it.   Again he is mentioning going out to dinner and catch up.

It is crazy, but in a way I wish I could go.  I wish I could be his friend.  I wish he had acknowledged betraying and hurting me.  I wish he had said sorry.  I wish we could sit and talk.  If he only knew how easy it would be, all it would take was for him to say 3 little words: I am sorry.

For now I still feel gratitude to him.  Gratitude for the great times.  Gratitude for the lessons.  Gratitude for the pain that made me start this blog. Gratitude for being spared involvement in a financial mess.  Gratitude for making me realize how amazing and deserving of more I am.  Gratitude for being free and able to date and do whatever I want.

Thank you!

“Closing The Cycle

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.” Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.” 

-Paulo Coelho