emotional hangover

For the last few days, I’ve felt like I’ve had this emotional hangover of sorts.

On my mind: the ex. the man friend. my overwhelming sense that I let someone fade from my life. my loneliness . my amazing friends. my freedom from any mediocre relationships.

I told the man friend that I was “moseying on”. And he let me go. There were flags. Beginning again is such a scary thing, and I want to with the right person. I needed him to show me something, to test me, because he wasn’t for me, and I saw traits in him that the ex had. The old me would’ve folded those flags up and stored them away, acting like I never noticed them. I like this new me. She knows what her value is.

The ex. Why is it when we lose something that we never really had and wasn’t going so well that we reserve a space for it in our minds and always in our hearts? He wasn’t a nice person to me and treated me like a bottom feeder, not even worthy of the truth. High time I realized that and can finally send him a “fuck you”, even if only in my mind.

A fling from my past. A picture of a man who was only a fling a few times in my life popped up on my facebook feed. He was killed in an accident many years ago, and it’s been 17 years since I’ve seen him. I remember the way his long 80s hair smelled when I was 18, and there have been certain times in my life when a breeze would blow by and that scent would be there. It has stopped me dead in my tracks many times since then. The last night we spent together was a night out while he was visiting family. We ran into each other at a bar (we all know what happens when you meet up at a bar!) and began talking about our lives as they were, which were so different, and he stayed at my apartment until late the next morning. I knew that would be the last time I saw him. He gave me his number (he lived out of state), and think back to the mid 90s when there wasn’t cell phones. I never called him. I was 26, going through a divorce, I had a 2 year old, he lived a “can’t hold me down” single man’s life on the edge. We were so opposite.

He was a drummer, and whenever I hear Metallica, it takes me back to 18 years old and hanging out in his basement bedroom. That guy could drum a song by ear. He forever impressed me and may have started my desire for wanting to be an 80s hair band groupie. {I laugh when I say that, because I think I really wanted to be one!}

I’m now just a middle aged woman remembering a man from her past, wishing I could’ve had just another chance to see him. Would we be friends now in the age of facebook? Would I want to know him more? He was a free spirit, gentle in nature, and I remember being attracted to him, for more than just his looks. And sex. After all of these years, I’ll never forget him.

There isn’t a cure all for emotional hangovers. I wish there was! Just time and choosing how to deal with the emotions and memories…which ones to hold close and which ones to finally let go of…