Bygones

Ten years ago this year I deserted a marriage. Literally stole away secretly and urgently in a car containing a few precious belongings and my heart thumping through my chest. I never looked back and will never forget the feeling of immediate and unbelievable relief. That I no longer had to watch my back, walk on tip toes around him and could actually breathe easily without fear.

I do know it takes two to tango, every relationship has its dynamics, and I refused to indulge in hate or bitterness. It seemed pointless. Besides, I’m such a girlie swot, that instead I just wanted to take away a bounty of knowledge – of myself and of human nature. I don’t believe in regret.

Two years later we met outside the court house to file our divorce papers and sealed it with a swift beer. Goodbye bad times and goodbye you.

Another five years on and we met again, at my request, just before I moved to Nelson. I guess I wanted to know if I harboured any hidden feelings from our experiences, so that I could put them to bed before starting out on my next colourful adventure. My motivations were purely selfish.

I returned from that meeting very weirded out that it was possible to sit across from someone that I used to know so intimately – with everything about that person being so familiar, from mannerisms, to outlook, to the way he formed his speech – and yet feel absolutely no emotion, good nor bad. Zilch. It was extremely odd. No matter, another chapter closed.

Two years ago I received an email, telling me he was going to be in town and did I want to meet up. I thought about it for sometime, but in the end chose not to respond at all. While I have often retained genuine close friendships and a depth of caring for other significant exes, I have just never felt inclined to do so with him. Where in the past I might have agreed to meet out of some strange obligation of politeness, I also decided this was ok and I was perfectly happy with my decision.

This week I received a text, again telling me that he was going to be in town. My immediate reaction was to ignore it once more. But for some reason I didn’t. Perhaps plain and simple curiosity, I’m not sure.

Ofcourse there were still all those old familiar things about him that will never change and I’m sure it’s the same for him with me. However, the most interesting thing he told me was that when he was last here two years ago, he got set upon and beaten up so badly by two youths on the cathedral steps that he spent over a week in Nelson hospital, lost an eye and has irreparable damage to his hands.

I’m still considering whether I should be ashamed of myself that, even after all these years, my immediate thought was – yep, gotta love karma.