Smells like Tequila and Regret

There are some gaps in my memory when it comes to the glory days of my 20’s, I have a love hate relationship with tequila to thank for that, but I didn’t realize the extent of the gaps until recently.

I have been coasting through life laughing it off and mumbling an “oh ya, good times”, when someone would hit me with a “Remember that time we…” and I drew a complete blank. Usually it was something like remember that time we spent the night on that naval base or remember that time you went on a date with my brother, you know harmless and fairly insignificant details of what was the everyday in a bygone era.

Recently however I have come to realize that those gaps are much wider than I thought when an old friend slid into my DMs on LinkedIn. We used to work together and hung out a few times, mostly after work functions when we would all decide to extend the party a bit longer. So it was a pleasant surprise to see his name when I logged in for an annual review and clean up of my LinkedIn profile.

We chatted back and forth over the course of a few weeks via the app but then exchanged numbers to continue the conversation and to keep in touch a bit more than we had over the past couple of decades.

We texted for a while and then started talking on the phone (not a thing I normally do, but it felt right). Our conversations slowly got more and more personal until one day my little bubble or delusion of what our relationship once was was burst quite abruptly.

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we stayed together?” he asked during one of our afternoon phone calls.

Silence…seriously is this really an afternoon topic?

I thought back to those years when we were close, I tried to recall any memory that we were ever an item, but I just couldn’t. Was my memory really that bad? What else have I forgotten?

“Are you still there?”

“What do you mean, if we stayed together? When were we together?” I blurted out, a sign that my memory isn’t the only thing going, I also lack tact and a filter of some sort.

This time it was me listening to the awkward silence, half waiting for the line to go dead as he hung up on me but finally he just said, “Ouch, you don’t remember what we had?”

I had vague memories of us but always thought we were just friends/ co-workers who occasionally socialized (in large groups) after hours.

It was a time in my life when I was definitely struggling personally. I felt I needed to sew my wild oats after I went from the one I almost married to the one I lived with. I was trying to recover from the horrendous breakup and massive changes in my life as well as some other trauma that I probably should have sought professional help for at the time but I decided self medicating with sex and alcohol was the better choice.

I told him I remembered a few work events, most of which I have photos from so that helps the pieces fall into place.

I recall he drove me home one night, my memory says he just dropped me off outside my building and left, apparently that was not the case. My other memory which is quite vivid is just of us watching a movie, The Butterfly Effect, at his place. All I really remember from that night is we both fell asleep because The Butterfly Effect is a really strange and boring movie and when I woke up the credits were rolling and I slipped away as he slept (a trend I carried on with most of my relationships since) and went home.

His memory is very different, with many other dates and evenings spent together. He recounted them, some in great detail and I listened trying to remember but still it wasn’t coming back to me. To his credit, some of what he said totally sounded like stuff I would actually do so there is a chance that I’ve just wiped it from my memory.

While he was a tiny bit hurt that our short lived tryst wasn’t as memorable for me we moved past it and continued with our text and telephone pandemic-ship.

We spent hours each week texting and having little phone dates. We worked out together, we cooked together, we even had a strangely not uncomfortable phone call with his mother at Easter. Even though it totally caught me off guard and was not authorized ahead of time, one minute I’m talking to him about the garden and the next we’re on some sort of party line and he’s introducing me to his mom.

It was all going quite well and I started to think that maybe this was how normal relationships start, with two people actually talking to each other and getting to know each other on a bit of a deeper level. Something that seemed much easier on do when there was no immediate threat of intimacy. We were after all living through a global pandemic, in different parts of the province that restricted non-essential travel. It was nice. At least for me.

He on the other hand was growing increasingly impatient, even with the travel restrictions and rules that we were supposed to be following he felt like I was avoiding the physical part of our relationship. He wanted to move forward and I was perfectly happy with the way things were. Him in his city and me in mine, 4 hours apart, and bound by public health orders. I wasn’t in a hurry to take things to the next level and as a result tensions grew and the disagreements began.

We grew apart as quickly as we had come back together. We went from talking multiple times a day to once every couple of days and then once a week and finally neither one of us made the effort and days with no communication turned quickly to months and honestly I didn’t miss it one bit.

It was kind of a relief when it fizzled out. There were things he had said throughout our pandemic-ship that I had issues with but I gave him the benefit of the doubt because I thought at times it was merely frustration over the distance between us.

He often criticized my choices and my parenting. (For perspective this was a grown man who had never been in any sort of long term relationship nor had he ever had children but felt he knew better than someone who actually lived those experiences.)

I may doubt myself a lot in many circumstances but never in my almost 16 years as a parent have I ever second guessed a parenting decision that I made for my child. Nor have I ever felt that I was missing out on any aspect of life as a result of my choices. While it’s very true that my priorities are not the same as the priorities of others, they don’t have to be, that’s why they are my priorities and now that said child is older they are also his priorities. My job as a parent is to support him in reaching his goals and that is exactly what I will continue to do regardless of the opinions of others.

He didn’t enjoy being second (he was actually much lower on the old priority list, but I didn’t rub his nose it), he often told me that he felt like I was wasting my life. I guess every minute I wasn’t on call for him was not a good use of my time. He often grew annoyed with me if I had had a bad day and just needed to vent, telling me that I was bringing him down, yet when he had a bad day I better listen and agree that he definitely was not in the wrong and virtually pat him the head and tell him it would all be okay.

He also hated that I didn’t answer my phone every 👏time👏 he👏 called. I could call him back immediately and he wouldn’t answer because he was pouting, the same went for text messages, if I didn’t respond within minutes I was clearly cold and heartless with no regard for his needs.

This was a very long story all to say that while I do seem to have a penchant for recycling the ghosts of relationships past, even when I don’t fully remember the first go around, some things (or people) are best left in the past.

And also, if you’re still in the midst of your pandemic- ship, maybe take a minute to re-evaluate and make sure you aren’t settling for lesser quality just because you’ve been isolating for too long.