after the post memorial commemoration

What happened after my post memorial commemoration?

After old lover/not current lover anymore appeared from out of his room, I straightened up my pit of loneliness and headed out of the front door with him as he was leaving, too. I said nothing. I got on the road in a daze, drove home, and went into the comfort and misery of my room.

Maybe several days later, old lover texted me about something specific — maybe asked if I had eaten. I hadn’t eaten much, if anything, in the 7 days that had passed since Love’s death. Whatever he asked me, my response was, “Bo meant the world to me.”

Ok. Well, there ya have it. If old lover didn’t know before, this was it.

I told him I had never felt lonelier than that night after the memorial when I was locked out of his room. He told me that he didn’t know that I intended on spending the night, or that I wanted to come in the room; but that he could not sleep with his door unlocked.

About meaning the world to me, he answered that he didn’t know that Bo meant the world to me, because he didn’t even know that we talked…but that he wasn’t surprised.

He wasn’t surprised? Why not? I guess I’ll never know.

He proceeded to text me things that I originally saved and read probably 50 times, but I eventually deleted it. I don’t remember all of it now.

He did make a statement something like, “So he met all of your needs, you didn’t ask for it, but you enjoyed it.”

Then he flipped the switch and told me to take responsibility for my actions. He told me that’s what I got for believing in man/expecting man to help me…something like that. He told me that he didn’t mean to be mean, but that this is a cruel world…and that he would rather die believing in God and being wrong, than to die not believing and be wrong.

Then he sent me a link from a bible verse website quoting, “Thou shall not commit adultery.”

Damn. Well, tell me how you really feel!

Old lover shouldn’t have felt anything. I would always tell him that he was mean. He would ask, “If I am so mean, why do you keep coming over here?” I didn’t know how to answer that. I felt for him, but never knew what it was. When I first started messing with him, he told me he didn’t have emotions, and that the only thing he could feel was sex. He was right. I didn’t listen to him well enough. The man has been a brick wall for years. I mean, we laughed it up and had good times and great, passionate sex, but as far as emotion that you think you would get after several years…it was absent.

Love had told me that the relationship I had with old lover “perplexed” him. We spent a lot of time in the early summer, and then at the end, talking about it. Love would come up with theories as to why I allowed that relationship to continue. I would tell him he was wrong. He would come up with new theories, or tell me I was wrong!

By the way, I had completely dropped old lover over the summer for Love. Love was the opposite of old lover, which was why I had “juggled” them for years — -I enjoyed the polarity (truth is, I blew Love off for old lover many a time). But when I discovered that Love was fulfilling all of my needs — intellectual, spiritual, physical, emotional — I no longer needed anyone else.

Back to old lover, the hypocrisy of the “thou shall not commit adultery” lies in the fact that when I met him, he was also married. Yes he was. I asked him. He didn’t seem to have a problem with it outside of the one time we “broke up” because he was “trying to do the right thing.” Two weeks after that, I guess he decided that that right thing no longer mattered. I have been with this man continuously longer than any other man in my lifetime. Who comes in second? Love. But not in the same way, because of how intermittent it was.

Also, old lover told me long ago that he would never judge me for “not believing” because his father is an atheist. I actually never told him what I was, I danced around it (being a Black agnostic is a crime); but he would push it in my face all the time that I was the devil.

So, I apologized to old lover at the beginning of the conversation for not communicating my intentions when I originally came over after the memorial. And then I apologized for ever telling him any of the stuff I said in that current text thread. I thanked him for the great times.

I have never heard from him since. He was the one thing that was stable in my life since I’ve been back in Florida. He was my retreat from all the storms I have weathered down here. If I would have ever gotten any semblance of lover’s love from him, I might not have ever continued to be involved with Love. Love changed my life and yet somehow, I imagine that if I hadn’t experienced Love, I wouldn’t feel so fucking awful and confused right now. I can imagine feeling the whatever I was feeling with old lover, as it is less painful than going from LIFE and LOVE to death. I don’t want this pain.