I don't talk to any ex-boyfriends. I just don't. I keep my distance. I don't go to parties where they will be in attendance, I don't contact them deliberately, I don't even frequent the same parts of Manhattan as them.
Alas, they find me. Beau's birthday was Tuesday and he wanted to go to Cheapshots. Cheapshots is in the Village and is dirty and smelly. It has a guestlist of interesting and weird characters. Me, in my little pleated navy blue skirt and baby blue tank didn't quite match.
So, I'm standing there, FREEZING, looking bored, as usual (I just realized I look bored most of the time in bars...I guess it is because I am BORED), and I look toward the window and see a messy mohawk with a cloud of smoke trailing behind. I poke my head out the door and spot the notebook that looks like it is just about to fall out of the back pocket.
It is...the Balloon Man. [B-man and I dated circa Christina's Bachelorette party in February of 2008 and it ended on his birthday... it's spotty because those months were peppered with Ash]. Quite literally.
But I'm standing on 1st by St. Mark's with B-man, his clear blue eyes still shining so brightly with his dark circles speaking volumes about his nocturnal behavior. He's keeping the messy mohawk at 34 years old. He's still doing his comedy act in the East Village in the middle of the night. He's still fucking Penny (in my opinion). He still jerks his head in a funny way and sucks his cigarette in with his cheeks. Most importantly, he's still making balloons at Lucky Cheng's. The experience wasn't awkward, it wasn't a bubbling of emotions; there was no feeling of sadness or regret, no overjoyed feeling to bump into him, no excitement...There was just plain- hey, good to see you're doing well.
After B-man and I decided not to see each other anymore (which became apparent like a dump truck to the face), I had called him a few weeks post-mortem to thank him because he said things to me that no one had ever said to me about the whole A-bomb fiasco. My brother, my best friends, no one had said what he said. I don't even think either one of my parents would have thought or said what he did. Because truly, despite all of the unpleasantries of our time together, thinking about that period of time makes me smile.
And when one of my friends went to Lucky Cheng's and asked for the Balloon Man, and told him she was K's friend, he said, "Tell her I always smile when I think of her."
So funny how people don't change; how the ebb and flow sucks you into someone else's life and then spits you out (sometimes by your own choosing); and they continue on doing exactly what they were doing before and during you.
P.S. Would your boyfriend be ok with meeting an ex?
