12:18 p.m. - 2005-04-11
I Have a Lot of Nerve Feeling this Bad when I Don't Exist.
My ex is getting married in two months.

I knew he'd gotten engaged because a friend of a friend said "congratulations!"to him in her blog some months ago, and because before that, Charlie couldn't stop hinting to save his life, and because for 20 years before that my Ex looked forward to marriage and kids--which means I was foolish to entangle myself in the first place--and his new love?  Seemed to be just that sort of girl.  The kind of girl who knows what she wants to do, wants to be, and has known for some time.

But it hurt to overhear the actual wedding date from my ex's asshole friend, my nemesis Divorced Man, who--back in the day--asked me on a date two days before I broke up with said Ex.

Divorced Man was persona non grata for a time.

"I have lost all respect for him," my Ex told me. 

It made me feel better.

And now I am sharing that particular circle of Non-Notify Hell with that disgraced fucking twit.

...Because I'm petty, I'm vaguely comforted that Divorced Man was cc'd on an invite to a pre-wedding party without knowing there was a wedding that went with it.

But it is pathetic, because that's how I know--at all.  Because he complained.

As if he wouldn't shag the bride in a linen closet at the reception if he got the chance.

It's not that I wanted an invitation.  Those expensive little things are so different from an announcement--from a mass email, an instant message or a postcard.  An invitation would almost have a mocking aspect, considering our lack of closeness now.  I would have been surprised.

But an announcement...that would have been neat. It would have been civil.

It would've been sweet.

It wouldn't have rudely implied that I don't still have friends in common.

It wouldn't have forced me to pretend I don't know.

I have been relegated by default to some sort of psychotic ex-girlfriend slot, like I'm a very dangerous sort of person who mustn't be disturbed.  As if I would wish them anything but the best.  He and I were once great friends.

That there was something that could cause us not to be friends...was ultimately, a great surprise.  Leaving him was the hardest things I've ever done.

I'll always miss the Old Him.  I don't want to bear witness whatever's left of that edition getting married to a girl who'll give him all the things he wanted...warm, settled life, cute kidlets, and a firm hand.

I just wanted the news from a friendly face, as if I still existed--somewhere--to him, or any of them.

I felt like a great, sad nothing all the waking night.

Maybe that was the idea.

previous - next