I had let this blog lie fallow.  I never really thought I would need it again.  But now I take some comfort in the fact that no one comes here.  I feel like I have a lot of things to say but I don't know who to say them to anymore.  I've been hurt.  And I realize that is what I have used this space for.  To talk about where I hurt.  So I find my self back here.  Saying things to the void.  Maybe screaming into the void.  Because I do not want to do this in the public of Facebook.  And yet I realize the contradiction of posting it on here - which is still a public space.  Yet, here I am anyway.

I hurt... more deeply than I have ever before.  Yet I have learned something.  I used to be confused, even angry about the fact that my ex did not want to be friends after our divorce.   I now understand how wrong that is.  How wrong it is for the person ending the relationship to attempt to dictate the new terms of the relationship.  It is like saying, "I'm dumping you; but I am going to keep the parts that I like."  Its not fair - and it invites the other into a space of false hope that maybe the relationship will restart.  I have come to realize that breaking up in called BREAKING up for a reason.  I even took the painful step of unfriending on facebook.  In part, admittedly, because I was angry... enraged.  It came out of nowhere.  Its not like we were fighting. There were no conversations about how anyone was unhappy.  It simply went from "I don't want to lose you" in October to "Dating isn't working" in December.  What happened in November?  I got a "mixtape' cd of love songs.  For my part I had tried to set up a couple of fabulous dates.  All rejected.  In retrospect I see that, in spite of the apparent interest in trying to have a relationship, I was getting prepped to be dumped.  Except "I really enjoy talking to you."  So there was an invitation to let them keep the part they wanted.  I said no.  The other reason to unfriend was because I cannot stop looking at their page.  Eventually I would have to watch the single status appear.  And then the snippets of them happily going on with their life - without me, the one they didn't want to lose.

So I hurt. And I return here to the safety of the anonymous and the absent public. 

If The Relationship Wasn't Serious, What Was It?