Dear (Ex) Boo,
I sat down to write this letter, typed “Dear (Ex) Boo,” and could already feel the lump in my throat and tears stinging my eyes as I held them back to see my screen. I feel my heart throbbing in my throat, and my lips begin to quiver as nineteen years of memories flood my entire body.
I got a message from you this afternoon while I was on my lunch break, and for the longest time, I was scared to tell you what was on my mind — but I’m over it now. At this point, what have I got to lose? Today, I sat in my car thinking how bizarre it was to communicate solely through a co-parenting platform with someone whose body parts were on and in every single one of mine for the better part of two decades. And what an overwhelming tragedy it is to have ended that way.
On August 22, 2022, I received a letter from my lawyer saying that my judgment had been filed and ‘your material status was terminated.’ And for a split second, it was like someone had told me I had died; everything I ever was since June 18, 2005 — didn’t exist anymore.
I’m only four paragraphs into this letter, and I can’t seem to keep my glasses dry long enough to see the screen clearly.
Do you want to know something else? I watched your online gaming videos last week, and for a moment, I imagined everything was normal: we never divorced, we’re still a family — and life was as wonderful as it seemed on the outside. But when I saw your face on the screen— a face I used to know so well, interacting with your fans, I was thrown into a twilight zone. You sound exactly like somebody I used to know — the man I married. My heart and head are in a constant battle; I want you to be him again, but I know better now.
Remember when we were hanging out in your room for the first time twenty years ago, and you played “Lady” by Modjo and danced for me? I thought, ‘Oh, what a genuine goofball — I should never let him go.’ Speaking of music, I made an “Open Letter” playlist tonight to play as I pounded the keyboard and poured my heart out— then realized how long two decades worth of songs would run on my Spotify account.
Shit. This letter sounded so authentic in my head, but suddenly my hands have turned into lead on the keyboard, and I don’t know where to go from here.
Let’s start over.
Remember how I said I was on my lunch when I got your message today? I was at my new Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) job, the job I always wanted but never felt good enough to put myself first and commit to bettering myself. Remember how fired up I was to go to orientation four years ago— but my school schedule was inconvenient for you (and the game festival you had planned that weekend)? So, I put myself on the backburner — again.
Anyway, I want you to know that I finally did it.
I’ve done many things in the last few years that I never thought I’d do, but none of those things has been to stop loving you. Preserving the deep reservoir of love in my heart for the man I spent more than half my life with — and never wanting him to be a part of it in the same way ever again, is a strange place to be. To still be madly in love with the man I married seventeen years ago — and hate the man I divorced in equal measure, fills me with a sadness I cannot explain.
I loved loving you; I miss loving you the way I used to. And at the same I know with all my heart, that our time together has passed, and I have to let you go. However, it’s not easy to erase the last twenty years of core memories, and, quite frankly — I don’t want to. You are a part of me in every sense of the word, and forgetting where I came from, won’t get me to where I want to go.
Thank you for being a part of my journey: thank you for laughing with me so hard we cried; thank you for sharing your blood, sweat, and tears with me for the last twenty years. Thank you for letting me love all of you, with all of me, because I realize that ending a relationship of two decades is more complicated than terminating a marital status from one day to the next.
So, I won’t.
Instead, I will love you forever — and always remember us this way.
Love Always,
Your Grieving (Ex) Boo
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This post was previously published on ILLUMINATION.
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