bookends

time it was and what a time it was
it was
a time of innocence, a time of confidences
long ago it must be
i have the photographs
preserve your memories
there all that's left you

hard to find a title for this post. most songs about former lovers are sad or angry or depressing. 'bookends' has always meant a lot to me, and even though it has a melancholy tint to it, it doesn't feel particularly pained or uncomfortable. bittersweet, maybe. which is fitting for the day that i got the Epic Ex's wedding invitation in the mail.

it's a lovely card - i'm sure he designed it. it looks like his work and it's beautiful in its simplicity and worldliness. as soon as i saw the back of the envelope in the pile of mail i knew it was the long-awaited invite. and i did a quick body scan for signs of anxiety or pain. and, finding none, i tore it open and let its various parts lie strewn across the bed for a moment. just looking, letting it sink in. a gentle but chilled breath of anxiety about the decision before me: go? go alone? ask someone to come with me?

i do not want to go alone. but having no viable date options, i could either take out an ad on craigslist (wanted: one attractive, articulate, charming man age 25-35 as date to former love's wedding. compensation negotiable. potential for promotion and/or action. non-smokers only please. all expenses incurred reimburseable at current market rate.) or i could ask a friend to be my proxy date. it would need to be someone that Epic Ex does not know. not that he will care one rats rear-end about me that day, but i want to at least leave something to the imagination.

and i don't want his new wife to think that his only other semi-recent serious girlfriend was so deeply shattered by the break up that she has not yet recovered enough to eek her way into a relationship. he's getting married for sobbing out loud! i should at least have the decency to have a boyfriend by now. would make everyone less uncomfortable around me.

i've never even met the bride-to-be. it's been a very long distance relationship (she's in the peace corps). i'm happy to say with all honesty that i am not in any sort of pain about this. i know he is not the one for me, despite the fact that i was totally convinced that he and i were going to get married. i want him to be happy, he and i would have been an adequate but never sparkling pair. i want sparkle. i want Epic. i'm happy that he and i have been able to be friends through it over these last 3 years or so. he's bloody brilliant, and i am sincerely happy for them.

but i'm allowed to feel awkward about this wedding decision, right? with the vows and the rings and the crying and the flowers and the first dance and all the kissing and stuff, right? i've never even seen them together really, so it'll be kind of a shock....

most of the memories i have of him and our relationship are good and happy and warm. the photographs. man, i look so much better now than i did then! (so does he, to be fair). i guess all the things that come before our One True Love serve to add to the person we are created to be. so i can have warm and happy memories of a man i loved once. a man i respect and care for and hope all blessings and joy for his new married life. painlessly.

mostly.

as a side-note confession, when Epic Ex and i broke up, i still had a copy of his favorite book that i had borrowed to read. before i returned it, i scribbled a slightly modified version of my favorite Yeats poem onto a scrap of paper and stuck it inside the front cover. i wonder if he ever found it? anyway, a fitting close to the "bookends" post:

when you are old, by WB Yeats

when you are old and grey and full of sleep,
and nodding by the fire, take down this book,
and slowly read and dream of the soft look
your eyes once had, and of their shadows deep;

how many loved your moments of glad grace,
and loved your beauty with love false or true,
but one (girl) loved the pilgrim soul in you,
and loved the sorrows of your changing face;

and bending down beside the glowing bars,
murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
and paced upon the mountains overhead
and hid (her) face amid a crowd of stars.