#LOLOSLOVELIFE: The Ex-Cemetery: Mourning the Love of My Life

#LOLOSLOVELIFE: THE EX-CEMETERY

Lately, I find myself thinking of my exes, what was and what could have been. I scroll their Facebook pages and see pictures of their pretty wives, and happy families. I wonder sometimes why I'm not  in those photographs. Why do I ache for past loves when I know all too well why we didn't make it to forever. I stumbled upon an essay from my book 'Good Girl Chronicles' I'm working on.  It reminds me that there is a reason why some loves are only for a season. When I finally let go of my heart's desire, I bury them in a place only I know the way to called  'The Ex-Cemetery'. It's a place where old flames burn to ash, a place we promise to never visit, but in a lonely moment we some how always do.

 Dead lovers never seem to stay buried. Underneath layers of dirt, heartache, and acceptance, they always come back. They lay waiting in the deep, beneath the years it took you to get over them. The soil is moist from the tears you cried for them. Whenever you stumble or walk past their grave sites it’s enough to take you right back to the grief you felt when you broke up. You step on the grave and gaze at the headstone. It reads "The Love of My Life", Met 2006, Broke Up 2011. You feel a tear running down your cheek, your feet apply pressure on the packed soil. Before long you kneel down and dig up some of the soil over you lover’s coffin. You read an old love letter, send a "I miss you text." That moment of weakness gives your old flame enough space to reach his hand through the earth and tug at your heart. I told myself I’d stop coming back to these graves, bury these men for good, but here I am again longing for what once was.

I’ve moved a lot in my 20’s. In all I’ve lived in about eight different

apartments, luxury, old, cramped, and new. Every time I unpack my belongings in a new place, start a new chapter in my life, I always seems to stumble on past the coffins of my exes. I have carefully preserved our flat lined loves, my two dead relationship in two red boxes. There is a coffin for both of the most passionate, intense, disappointing flames of my adult love life; Mr G.Q. a.k.a "the love of my life" and my first Puerto Rican love "The Gamer".

The coffin I used to bury the remains of my first intense love, Mr. G.Q. is tucked away in a soft, red box that once held perfume. I keep it tucked away mixed in with boxes of shoes and sandals. Whenever I unpack in a new place or get lost in a pile of outfits in my closet, the red box seems to always call out at me. My hands run across the familiar material. I know its where is he, where the old us is. 

Mr. G.Q. was and is the most attractive, sexy, gorgeous man I’ve ever dated. A guy that could have graced the covers of GQ magazines, with his six pack, and biceps that always looked ready to burst through his shirt shelves. Not to mention he had the most round supple behind, and I’m not even a butt woman. We met one day while I was at the mall shopping for a party shirt at Express, back when I could fit those super expensive, overly priced clothes. Mr. G.Q. walked towards me as I entered the store. It seems as if time had slowed down. I had never experienced that whole slow motion thing you see in the movies, except for in this moment.  His freshly shaven bald head was shining a bit, and I got close enough to catch a whiff of his cologne as he showed me the sexy clubbing clothes Express is known for. I could not focus on club shirts, I was intoxicated with this man’s sexy. I never got the shirt that night, but I came back and applied for a holiday job. 

Before long we were working together, and I found myself trying extra hard to impress him with my hairdos and Express coordinated outfits. He would call me cute names like lady, pretty girl, and sweetheart.  I got hot flashes when he spoke to me. Our first date was to a hockey game, I was too nervous to function so I drove myself so I could escape if I made a complete goof of myself.  He was everything. He opened the door for me, let me order nachos and cheap beer first. And, he looked at me like I was the only woman in the room. I was in deep. On our third date, I tossed my rules about waiting until three months to be intimate, and let myself be free. It was the first time in my young twenty something love life that a man made love to me. It wasn’t the mechanical, functional sex I had my first time. It was sensual. There was eye gazing, back stroking, and on the other end a man who cared if I was satisfied. I wondered if this was what being high felt like. Because afterwards I felt so light I could fly, and I wanted desperately to lay in that bed forever. 

In our vertical lives he was just as considerate and tender. He wrote me love letters, poems, and left cute notes on my car while I was at work. He showed me off, and bragged about me. I had never known love like this. He was the kind of man who would drop everything to help me with my flat tire on the side of the road, he sat with me in the emergency room when a freak allergic reaction that caused my throat to swell shut. He didn’t sleep a wink that night. He just sat there watching me being pumped with antihistamines. He even had the nerve to call me beautiful when another allergic reaction made my lips swell to the size of that crab in the Little Mermaid movie. I never wanted to leave this man. 

As much as I loved him the woman in me can see now I wasn’t ready for the commitment that he was. I was 21 and so unsure of who I wanted to be. He was 28, confident, ambitious, and ready for a wife.  He wanted me to cook for him when he got home. I wanted to hang out with girlfriends. He wanted to make love every night, I wanted to sleep. I was working two jobs chasing my dream to be on the news, and I was desperate for sleep. He felt neglected. I felt caged.  But, I wanted our love to last. Before long we were moving in together, and looking at rings. I wanted this to last.

The bliss of cohabiting didn’t last long. Mr. G.Q. started staying out late, and coming home drunk. It seemed like he was searching for some thrill outside of our home. Then I received an email from a mysterious man who said Mr. G.Q. was sleeping with his wife. Mr. G.Q. assured me it was in the past, and they slept together. I blindly trusted him. I never questioned him when he went got oiled up to go clubbing with his buddies, and didn’t come home until 6 a.m.  I never questioned him when he called me wasted and confused late Saturday nights. It was always the same line, ‘I’m too drunk to drive. I’m going to crash at on my friend’s couch,” he would say.

I never even suspected he was cheating on me. Or maybe I didn’t think I could handle it if he was so I ignored it. I never got upset when he would come home smelling like Long Islands and trying to have mindless sex with me. I never stood up for myself. That sweet, innocent love we had was fading, and I wanted so badly to find it. In the process of trying to save our love I felt like I was it strangling the life out of me. It made me unproductive at work, stressed me out, and drove me to binge eating. It left me gasping for air, and knocked me to my knees when he started spending more time on the couch, and less time loving me.

I fought hard for us. I signed us up for couple’s therapy. I took anxiety meds to calm my restlessness. I read psychology books on broken relationships. I fought until I didn’t have the strength. He came to a few sessions, complained they were stupid and stopped. Later, he bought me a dog for me. But, it wasn’t a big enough distraction from the dying corpse of our love, and I couldn't resuscitate it no matter how hard I tried. It took all of me to let go. But, six months into our lease I told him to move out. 

I got the dog, but Mr. G.Q. held onto my heart for more years than I’d like to admit. I would give him another year and half of my twenties going back and forth.  One time when I was 27 we seemed so close to restoring the better part of our love. We were both heart broken from other relationships. Some young white girl broke his heart, a steamy Puerto Rican broke mine. In comforting one another, it seems we were healing. I had grown a backbone this time. I spoke up for myself, and drew the line. He seemed to finally accept me. Then without notice or provocation he disappeared. I would learn a month later, after repeated calls, he knocked up the young pretty white girl and wasn’t man enough to tell me. I’m a glutton for punishment so I held onto hope we could still be together. We tried to build on our relationship and for a while I could feel the old us again. My consuming television career caused us to drift apart, but I always stayed in touch. 

I finally had it the day before his dad’s funeral. I went to Mr. G.Q's family home to pay my respects. He had lost his mom the previous year and I wanted to be there for me. When Mr. G.Q's mom died we had some of the most intense sex. I felt I was loving him through his grief. 

On the day I came to pay my respects to his father,  I walked into his house and saw a young white girl holding a brown infant. I thought surely one of his brothers is dating a white girl with a baby. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that the little brown baby was Mr. G.Q's baby. I was that naïve about who this man really was, and our the strength of our love. 

After hugging his siblings, I walked out to the back yard where Mr. G.Q. was standing alone. He was looking at the trees move back and forth in the fall breeze. We had so many memories in that backyard. When we visited his parents, we'd sit on the backyard deck and talk for hours. I once planned him a surprise birthday in that backyard. I bought him a bracelet with a the words “love from your future wife’ inscribed inside. I so wanted us to reach everlasting love.

Mr. G.Q. he turned to face me, I could see his tear worn face found some comfort in seeing me. 

“I miss you,” he said.

“I miss you too. I’m so sorry about your Dad. I loved him so much.”

"I wish things were different," I said. 

Mr. G.Q. nodded his head and said, "Me too, but it's complicated."

We hugged and stood in each other’s arms for what felt like too long. I went to stroke his face, when the young white girl with the brown baby came out. 

"This is what I mean by complicated," he said watching the young white girl approach us. "That's my son Barrett."

Then it all became clear. Mr. G.Q. had indeed knocked up another woman. His wife mama baby smiled, and I did all I could not to show the heartbreak on my face. I put on a fake smile, and headed towards the doors. Our love was dead, when was I going to see that. I wanted to slap him and storm out like those ladies do in the movies.  I wanted to cry and yell. Instead I gave him a bullshit ‘Congratulations’ and walked out the house.

 I promised myself that I would kill this love for good. I would strangle the breath out of the hope I had of him coming back to me, and with shovel in hand bury him for good.I put all of our pictures, letters, momentos in a red box, and shoved them in the back of my closet. 

When I got home I dug a fresh plot to bury my love with Mr. G.Q. The photos of our trip to New York, the jewelry he gave me, it all had to go. I put them all in a red box. 

It’s the same box I always seem to reopen every time I feel lonely or feel I'll be alone forever. Each time I cry reading over those old letters from the man I once wanted to give my life to. The thing about mourning is if you stay in that sad moment too long you never move on.  As much as it hurts to leave "The Ex-Cemetery" I must. If I am ever going to meet another great love, I have to let go of my first. So I slowly turn my back on the grave that was "the love of my life" in hopes of finding a new one....

Add caption