Do We Ever Really Get Over Our Ex's?

I was contemplating this very topic earlier today when I received a voicemail message from a guy I used to know back in the day. Ok..forget the politically correctness..he's an ex and its been more than 4 years. Things didn't end that well, and we disappeared from each others lives. Now after all this time, I get this message. A message asking me to call him. Why?

Do we ever really get over the people in our past? Personally, I don't think so. Even if it ended wonderfully (which they never tend to do) and you're all blissfully happy for each moving on ..there is still something to be said about sharing your life with someone. Even if its for a brief time. That person shared a piece of you.They set up shop in your heart. Heard all the intimate details of your life and went through a part of your life with you. 6mths or 6 years. It was a part of your life that will never come back again. You changed them and they changed you...forever (wow, that sounded pretty final)

So when it all ends, how can we really believe that a person's influence in our lives is truly over. Yes, we go through all the usual breaking up rituals. Like crying at every stupid thing that reminds you of the times you shared together. Eating gallons of Hagen Dazs. Blaming yourself for the whole mess and wondering when you'll ever get over him. Those feelings pass and slowly you can get through one day..and then one month. Life goes on. But does the fact that you are no longer "together" with someone mean that they automatically are denoted to something less. Like they were the President of the Company who gets shafted back to the Mailroom? Does all the time you've spent with them just get thrown away..kaput.

I guess thats why I don't like the word "Ex". Why do we give people our love to then only "Ex" them from our lives. Like they became some fungal growth, flesh eating disease bacteria that we must now cut off forever. Be gone, I say! I can't truthfully say that there aren't some guys in my past who were like toilet scum and ate away at my heart through the whole relationship, but I do know that each and every person who I've crossed the friendship and I love you lines with will always have some sort of influence on me. Good or bad. Maybe thats why he called. To see how the girl he loved once upon a time is. You're probably thinking I'm one delusionally naive chick. Maybe I am.

I haven't called him yet. Still pretty shocked to hear anything from his end. But I guess it gives me hope that even men who you think truly don't give a crap about you..do. Somewhere, sometime..our minds all wander off to those days from the past. Where something you see or hear reminds of you of them and that thought makes you happy.

I'm not sitting her typing and wishing he is calling me to tell me how much he missed me and how he was a total jerk for how things ended. The time for that is long gone. I'm past that and I'm sure he is too. But I do know, that for whatever time we did spend together, I did have some influence and effect on his life. As he did on mine. His imprint on my heart probably has changed me for the people I have met since then. (and this folks is what we call "Baggage")

Hearing his message today made me think of my other past bfs. Some I hear from and some have vanished. I wonder where the ones I don't hear from are. Are they happy? Have they found The One? Does my memory ever cross their minds or do they ever wonder what happened to me and my life? I'll probably never know the answers to those questions.

Oh well, c'est la vie. I'm going to go have some ice cream. Why save eating the good stuff only when the bad stuff happens?!