The past is a funny thing, isn’t it? Some of us spend all of our lives trying to outrun it, to escape it. Some of us live in fear of it and simply long to forget. I, myself, have a complicated history with my own past. There are things I try to outrun, to escape. There are things I live in fear of, and so eagerly long to forget. However, the past, when viewed in just the right delusional state of mind can also be looked upon with rose-colored glasses. Suddenly, the past is glamorized, polished, cleaned, sanitized — if only so we can carry on in our delusions of thinking there was once a better time, a better place, than the here and the now.
Truth is, there never was nor ever will be a time in the past that can beat what the future will hold. When looking at the big picture, we can see that there were things lacking in our past; things for which we longed, things we may have even achieved only to discover that they didn’t quite offer the sought after rainbow that would lead us to our desired pot of gold. These realizations, they cut like a sharpened blade but they’re necessary to ground us, to bring us back down to earth.
I’ve been circling back to my past a lot recently. Why, you may ask? Because recently I started talking to my ex-husband again. After a bitter divorce in 2023, I thought we would never speak again. Things ended ugly, but we at least managed to have a final goodbye that was somewhat peaceable. It was not the ending I wanted, but at least one I could learn to live with. But, unfortunately, I’ve never been one to let the past settle for too long.
One of my favorite preachers was the former Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in Memorial Church at Harvard, Reverend Peter J. Gomes. Peter has a quote from one of his sermons at Memorial Church that has stuck with me for the longest time. It reads, “There is something elusive about desire, something that is not contained in the words want, or need, which is closer, more akin, to the word longing. When a lover says to the object of his love, ‘You are my heart’s desire’ — that is, if people still speak like that other than on Valentine’s Day and in soap operas — you don’t get a sense of conquest or achievement; you get a sense of need so great that it is worth defining one’s life in pursuit of it, and always with the sense that one might not get it, and surprise if and when one does.”
Desire. That was the perfect word for what my heart felt for my ex from the very first day we met back in 2018 for our first date at an Applebee’s. I knew that this was my person, the one I wanted to grow old with, the one who filled a longing in me that no one before had come close. Desire, when mixed with rose-colored glasses gazes into the past, can be a deadly thing that leads to only more misery, more heartache, more regret.
When he said that he still wanted to be with me, albeit this time strictly sexually as he is still with the person he left me for, I knew this was stupid. I knew it was dumb. But loneliness, like desire, like rose-colored glasses gazes into the past, can also be deadly and make us do the dumbest of things, wouldn’t you agree? So many times we shrink ourselves, we suppress our wants, our needs, our desires, all to benefit the one we love, the one we care for; that’s not to say that is a necessarily bad thing, per se. However, it’s far too easy to keep sacrificing ourselves for our longed for companion to the point that we begin to lose traces of who we are, who we were before the relationship, before the constant giving and rare opportunity of actually being allowed to partake.
The past has looked better lately, thus my circling back. The poet and author, Maya Angelou, has a beautiful quote about the past: “I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.” I realize, however, that, unlike Ms. Angelou, I’m nowhere near being a person of the moment. No, if my mind’s not planted in the past, it’s worrying away about the future. Thoughts like, “You’re 35 now, you’re getting old. You’re still single. You’re not that good looking. You’re putting on weight. You always ruin everything you touch. You’re not enough, you’ll never be enough…”
For so long, I’ve allowed myself to accept less. I’ve been accustomed to being the second, third, fourth, or even just last best option. It’s been something I’ve sort of groomed myself into believing is okay, something I should just be thankful for since someone like me rarely gets the attention anyway. These negative thought patterns lead me back to the past; where in this delusion, I allow myself to look upon my ex-husband with a softer gaze, whitewashing some of the more painful things he put me through the four years we were together, the few months we were married.
The worst part about meeting up with an ex after a breakup? Hearing how much better they’re doing without you now. Like a fool, I’ve always felt a postmortem could allow for closure, could heal a broken heart, answer some much pondered questions. However, sometimes all it does is confuse you, hurt you, and break you even more. It’s not that I wished my ex was unhappy, not at all actually. I’ve come to a place of true forgiveness as far as matters of our past goes; however, a part of me had hoped he had broken up with her, especially after all the hell she put us through. THERE! — did you see it? Did you catch that? No matter what I did, I seemed to be forgiving but yet placing all the blame on the transgender woman he left me for. Was she to blame? Partly, yes. But, then again, so was he. And, also, to a degree, so was I. I pushed him into her arms; for so long, I believed I wasn’t enough, and after several cases of cheating on his part, I decided to open our relationship in some stupid attempt at saving it. Obviously, that didn’t work out.
He was my first real love. The first person who I truly loved, and who also truly loved me. How could I just give that up? How can I? I stayed single for a long time after our divorce. Sure, there were friends with benefits here and there, but nothing real, nothing about commitment — it was all purely sexual, with little to no other meaningful connection. It was empty, hollow, vain. My mind circled back to the days when my life wasn’t this way, back to when I was loved, truly loved. I romanticized a lot of it, I now realize. Things weren’t ever all that great, straight from the get-go. However, it was love and with love sometimes comes some truly delusional thinking.
If we keep circling back, we keep circling the drain pipe, we’re eventually going to fall in too deep to the point we might never make it out alive. It sounds stupid, dramatic maybe even. But when you love someone and that someone ends up choosing somebody else over you — that’s something that changes you, stays with you. Constantly, your mind wonders what it was that you did wrong — is it something physical, personality-wise, or an action you had done or something you had said, etc?
Stuck in a seemingly endless obsessive thought cycle one day after meeting up with my ex for a second time since the divorce, I heard of this thing going around where people ask ChatGPT what their curse is. Curious, I opened up the app and asked, only to get this blunt answer: “Endless comparison. You’re trapped in a loop where every sexual or romantic thought gets measured against something bigger, better, or more ‘impressive.’ Even when you’re curious, even when you want to be open-minded, the comparison instinct kicks in first. It colors your expectations, your experiences, and even your fantasies.” It was like a mirror. I realized that even though I’d probably benefit from an actual therapist and not an AI chatbot, I was nevertheless aware of my constant feeling of not being good enough, and thus pushing the ones I romantically love away so they can find something “better.” It’s what I did with my ex-husband, what I did with my boyfriend before him, and on and on and on it goes. Just circling, circling, falling one day down the drain pipe.
William Wordsworth has a beautiful quote, “Life is divided into three terms — that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.” I realize now that circling back isn’t always a bad thing. The great philosopher, Socrates, said it best: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The good, the bad, the ugly — all of it has shaped me, shaped us, into what I am, into what we are.
I’m a glutton for punishment when it comes to matters of the heart. I’ve allowed myself to lose a spark I once had that just doesn’t seem to want to come back. But I know, deep inside, it’s still there. It’ll come back one day. By rekindling a love affair with your ex? Probably not. However, sometimes it’s just a relief to be able to delight in the warmth of a rose-colored delusional past memory. Sometimes, when you’re stuck in a ceasingly endless loneliness, those delusional, distorted memories bring a sense of comfort, a sense of peace, a sense of relief. My marriage was short-lived, over within months. As soon as we said “I do,” things began to come undone. It wasn’t the marriage, the rot was there long before all of that. However, it was something I found worth saving, something I longed to keep, even though I was the one to ultimately file for divorce and dissolve our marriage.
Circling back has been something of an eye-opener. It’s reminded me that there’s no future for me and my ex, that he would never choose me; he never did before, why the hell should he start now? However, I can’t honestly say that any of that stops me from loving him. I never stopped, really. However, I know I can’t re-create the past. I can’t re-write history. I can’t un-do what’s already been so thoroughly done. None of us can. Our past is our past, for better or for worse, a marriage we’re stuck in no matter how we feel about it. Can we find peace? Can we find resolution? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. It’s all different. We’re all different.
Desire has been my driving force, has kept me attuned to what I’ve wanted, needed, longed for and aspired. Desire has also driven me to the lowest of lows, the dredges of humiliation and ruin. I’m still trying to figure it all out. However, I’m feeling more certain each and every day that the whole point is to have just been opened to love in the first place. I gave myself wholeheartedly to a man I believed was going to be my forever, yet who I also always secretly believed would cheat on and, eventually, leave me. All things which did, indeed, happen. A self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps? Either way, it’s time to stop. There’s no going back, the past was the past for a reason, and all that jazz. But how, please, tell me, how does one stop their heart from keeping on loving the one who has never been any good for it? That’s a question, I suppose, I might never get an answer. Perhaps that’s a good thing anyways, especially since postmortems rarely go as we hoped anyhow, right?
