. On Others .

We celebrated a couple of birthdays this weekend. The Boyfriend's was one of them. This picture almost sums the night up entirely. So much laughing - so much joy. His friends were there, and my friends were there, and his family was there, and there is something peaceful about that ... you know? Something natural in the co-existing of our people. 

The thing that this picture doesn't show is the girl directly behind me. The Boyfriend's ex-girlfriend was there and that was interesting for a couple of reasons: 

1) In my life, there seems to have always been "another" girl. 
2) In my life, the man I'm with has never made me feel like the "only" girl. 

She walked in and The Boyfriend didn't even look at her. She walked by, and still, The Boyfriend didn't say a word. Not until I leaned over and whispered to him, "Is that your ex-girlfriend?" did he even acknowledge the fact that he knew someone who had just walked in. 

[Momentary Girl Pause in Solidarity for how well he played that biz.]

Eventually? She approached the table. Jutted herself in between The Boyfraaan and me. Put her hand on his shoulder and said hello. Asked how he's been. In front of his friends. In front of his momma. In front of his girlfriend. Welllll ... Maybe not in front of me, since her rear was in my face. 

I leaned over to Mary-Mary and said, "In what world does this even happen?" And she whispered back the f word, but I'm not going to say it because Mary-Mary's mom reads here and she'd be horrified.

Our small group went downstairs to the piano bar. Sat down. And there she was, directly in front of us. The Boyfriend asked to move. 

And then? She was behind us. For the rest of the night. 

And for kind of like ever. 

Not once did The Boyfriend look behind him. 
Not once did The Boyfriend pick up his phone and text her.
Not once did The Boyfriend shy away from any sort of public affection. 

[How about another Momentary Girl Pause in Solidarity for how well he played that.]

Every now and then, I'd look up to see Mary-Mary facing off in some sort of don't-mess-with-my-posse-all-the-eye-hisses battle. And kind of every time I went to the bathroom (which was a lot, thanks to my not-so-favorite-friend-until-next-time Miller Lite), she followed me. And that's kinda catty in my small world. (Kinda like maybe blogging about her to all of my million and two readers.)

My point, however, isn't her. Even though right now you think it is. 

My point is that there will always be Other People. The Boyfriend has a past. I have some baggage. Everyone has something. The trick here - the one that I've just learned in the last 48 hours? 

Let it go. 

The Boyfriend and I laughed all night - like abs sore the next morning laugher, and then, standing out in the freezing cold waiting for someone to take us home, he looked at me and said some pretty powerful things. Things that matter. Even though I don't remember the color of the car we were driven home in, I remember those things. 

Find someone that will make you feel like you matter. Even when you wake up, and your day old mascara is blinding you because no way in hell were you even going to think about taking off your makeup, and all you can really focus on is how it felt to have some Other Person touch the person you touched last ... When all you can remember is everything that's come before - find the one that doesn't let you turn away. 

With a couple of strokes on my knee, with a few whispered words downtown, on a snowy street at one a.m. ... The Boyfriend did what no one else ever has done. 

He made me feel like the only girl.

xoxo, B.