The Truth is Still Hidden

Tonight I went swimming after dark. Swimming at night is one of my favorite things to do, provided it's in a swimming pool or somewhere well-lit enough where I can easily see what's going on in the water (I've been swimming in the ocean at night and that's just terrifying-exhilerating, but terrifying). For some reason the pool at this apartment complex tends to get pretty hoppin' after dark many nights, but since it was early in the night I had the whole pool to myself. I had intended to use my pool time to get in a good workout, so at first I was diligent and did a whole bunch of laps. But then I did my first lap of backstroke and, well, that was the end of any productive workout time. I was floating on my back looking up at the sky and the stars were incredibly bright and beautiful. I was surprised I could even see any stars at all. I remember when I lived in the metroplex the light pollution was so bad that most nights I could see just a handful of stars at most. After a few months I just stopped looking at the sky all together. I don't usually notice the stars here, either. But tonight I did, and they were mesmerizing. I did laps of backstroke slowly and leisurely until my hands and feet were wrinkled from being in the water so long, and I just stared up at the starry sky and I thought. I thought about everything. I thought about where I've been so far in life and where I want to go. I thought a lot about why I believe I have the goals I do in the first place. I thought about disappointment and fulfillment and how I've had so much of both in the past year. I thought a whole lot about transitions and dreams. I thought about how at one point in my life I thought I'd have a lot more figured out and settled by now. Then I reminded myself that for being only 23 years old and only one year out of college, I already have a hell of a lot figured out and settled. I also reminded myself that the only person telling me I ever have to settle on anything is me, and that I could change every single thing about my life at any moment if I really wanted to do so. And I laughed at myself, because to ever have thought that I'd have everything more or less figured out and settled on by the age of 23 is laughable. I think that maybe nobody should have everything figured out and settled on by the age of 23, especially considering the fact that the rational judgment center of our brains isn't completely formed until we're about 25 (the single fact that I vividly remember from the Marriage and Family sociology class I took in college). I'm not sure if I came to any profound or important conclusions tonight. It was probably just the stars tricking me. But I feel really good, like maybe I really am doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing right now.

I think part of the reason why I'm so introspective today is that I had a weird night last night. I had a very strange dream where I was an observer instead of a participant. This has never happened to me before, as far as I can remember. I am always an active participant in my dreams, and I am always myself. But this dream was very movie-like and kind of sci-fi and unlike anything I've ever dreamed in my life prior to now. I won't bore you with the details, but throughout most of the dream I was watching all of the action taking place, and when I was a participant in the dream action I wasn't myself, I was an adolescent male. What the hell?! I have no idea what that could possibly mean, if anything, but it freaked me out.

I don't think I'd have remembered the dream so vividly at all if I hadn't been woken up right in the middle of it by a text message from my ex. Not Mike, the other one. My college ex.
I often wonder how other people define exes. Like, when I'm thinking about exes I really only have two. Despite the fact that I've obviously had relationships in various degrees of intimacy with more than two guys, I only consider a guy an ex when I feel as though he had an inalterable, unforgettable effect on my life. Basically, I have to have cried over him at some point in order for him to get Ashley's Ex status. So I only count two: Mike, and my ex-fuck buddy. Everyone else is just "this guy I used to kinda date", which covers pretty much any other variation on an actual relationship that you can think of.
I'm not even positive that I can technically call my buddy an ex since he was never a boyfriend except that, well, that relationship went on for years. For most of my senior year we were spending three or four nights a week together, which is more than a lot of actual dating couples. He spent time with my family on many occasions. In retrospect, we had a lot of very couple-y talks (okay, arguments). He was never my boyfriend and I was never his girlfriend, but for better or worse he's the guy that more or less defined my college years (well, the latter half of my college years and the parts of those years when I was actually living in Fort Worth; it would be unfair to leave Mike out of the equation since I've always considered his presence in my life equally definitive). He always tells me that I'll be remembered as the girl that defined his college years as well. Although I admittedly take every single thing he says with a grain of salt, so who really knows how he actually thinks about me.
And when I say "for better or for worse", I really mean that. The fuck buddy dynamic is worthy of an entire blog entry or ten and now that I'm almost a year removed from the whole experience I still haven't decided how I ultimately feel about it all. A lot of it was wonderful. No-strings-attached sex, when there really weren't strings, was great. Really great. And then inevitably some strings did get attached (YEARS went by, people! How could they not?!) and we got to actually be close friends and that was good, too. We did have something unique, that's for sure. But ultimately not knowing whether or not he was having that unique sort of relationship I thought we had with a bunch of other women-and not having any real right to care and call him on it even if he was-started to wear on me. Also, here's the thing women need to realize about having a fuck buddy: for men, it's easy. It's amazing, at least in my experience, how many girls are willing to sort of share the same guy. You wouldn't think that would be the case with how catty girls are, but girls are actually much more willing to put up with that than guys. I know many guys who juggle several girls at once and are completely open about it. I don't know a single girl that juggles several guys openly. Secretly, maybe. But while a guy can be sleeping with Jackie and Stacy and Kara and the whole world knows about it and everyone involved knows about it and is more or less okay with it, a girl can't openly be sleeping with Mark and Jason and Greg. Oh, sure, the whole world might know that the girl is sleeping with Mark and Jason and Greg, but the guys themselves can't know about it or the whole thing blows up. The guys can have their suspicions, but the minute Mark knows for sure that Jason is sleeping with the same girl he is, it's all over. This is a double standard I haven't totally figured out, but it exists. So that's one downside to having a fuck buddy: he could and did stay on the market, but even though I liked to think that I was still available, I really wasn't. Also, there's the fact that having a fuck buddy makes you very complacent. When you're having regular sex you're not gonna knock yourself out looking for an actual complete relationship. And let's face it, looking for an actual complete relationship takes some effort. After a while I realized I was passing up opportunities for normal relationships, but it took me a long time to actually admit that to myself. There are so many more things I could say about this, but this entry is already ridiculously long and I'm losing my train of thought anyway.
The ultimate point is that I don't regret having that relationship. I learned a whole lot about myself, and in a sense I feel like that was something I needed to get out of my system. I did wild, crazy, and stupid things with him, and I needed to do that. I needed to do it to prove to myself that I could and to know that I don't need it again. Because of him, I've done enough now that I'll never have to worry about being forty and going, "I wish I'd tried..." because I've pretty much tried it all (with a few notable exceptions-I realize this makes me sound insanely wild and I really am not some kinky sex freak, I swear). And ultimately, I've decided that the "all" in "trying it all" isn't all that great. It's definitely fun for a while, damn, is it fun! But once you've done it you've done it. It's not like your run-of-the-mill, drug-induced threesome can grown and flourish (that is just a random example and not necessarily something yours truly has particpated in, although it certainly might have happened...you be the judge. Ha.) This is why I shake my head when people like Mike say they want to be single for life. The shine on that lifestyle wears off pretty quickly, as most people figure out. Yes, there are legitimate reasons for wanting to be single for life, but wanting to be single for the reason most young people think they want to be single--the wild, crazy, Sex And the City-style sexual adventure--is a pretty pathetic reason to want to stay single. But I also know that everyone needs to figure that out for themselves, and should go wild and crazy and figure that out for themselves, actually. I sincerely believe that people who don't actually let themselves go at least a little wild and crazy and try a few things for themselves will regret it later. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not ten years from now, but I know far too many women my mother's age who married the only guy they ever slept with and now at fifty are seriously wondering what else they missed. So get the hell out there, ladies, and make sure you really know that you're not missing anything good when you do settle down. Settle down knowing for sure that you have the best because you've tried other options. Because if you know you know, but assumptions can and do falter. Oh, but be SAFE for god's sake! There, there's my disclaimer.
Anyway. As for my relationship with my buddy, I guess in some ways I wish I hadn't let it go on as long as it did, but deep down I also know that I would have left that partial relationship behind in a split second if anyone completely worthwhile had come along. And nobody ever did. And in the meantime, part of the fun of our relationship was that we both knew it was never going to go anywhere. He and I ultimately just weren't all that compatible. More than anything I just need to be with someone I can talk to about anything, and right up until the end I was still sort of playing a role with him and censoring myself. No matter how much I wanted to let go and just fully be me around him, I never quite could do it. I don't think he ever once saw me in the sort of boxer/tank top pajamas I usually sleep in, for example. It was all lacy slips and red lingerie and candles and sultry music, always (when we were sober; otherwise it was intense, liquor-fueled romps). I was sort of a sexy caricature of myself, and it was fun and hot and exciting but it wasn't the stuff a lasting relationship is made of. And all that sexy sexy sex? Believe it or not, even that gets old. And he drank too much, and he was way too irresponsible for me, and blah, blah, blah. It just never would have worked as a "real" relationship. Sometimes I think he really did love me. I know now that I never really loved him, and that sort of makes me sad, that discrepancy.

Our whole thing mostly ended when I moved and then ultimately ended completely and spectacularly when I threw a screaming fit at him over the phone a few days before Christmas. There was no real problem--at least, not a problem that hadn't already existed for the past two years--but I finally was just fed up with it all and it was over.
I felt bad for yelling later, but I'm glad I ended it. And I am 100% positive that it was the right decision. I know this because even though it was the renewal of my relationship with Mike that ultimately made me end things with my buddy, even after Mike started dating Jenny I didn't want to go back to my old relationship. I didn't even consider trying to start things up again. And I don't want to now, either. It's funny how something that can be such a major part of your life and so important for such a long time can suddenly just be completely over, like a chapter in a book. I keep trying to find some inkling of the way I felt for him before, and I can't feel it. I'm not saying that he still particularly cares about me, either. Like I said, I never knew what was going on in his head in the first place and sure don't now. But he does send me the ocassional message, like this one last night:
"I think about you a lot. I love you and we should talk soon. Sleep tight, doll." And I wonder briefly if he's just sending that message to me or if he just forwarded it to a dozen other girls in his phone. And I wonder if I were to initiate flirtation what the reaction would be. Something tells me it would be pretty easy to start all that up again.
But I just have no desire to do it. And that's a very good feeling, to realize what a change I have gone through in terms of that relationship.

I can't wait until I finally feel that same way about Mike. I really hope that someday I will.