New year, new me.

Just kidding. It’s a Friday night and I just played with my cat for a beat, while listening to Paul Simon, until I asked myself if I still had feelings¹ for my ex-wife, who filed for divorce almost nine years ago, after six years of marriage.

Given the therapy, the hookups, and the relationships since, the answer (I assume) should be, no. The answer is, I don’t know.

I told that woman, in front of all the family and friends I was allowed to invite, that I’d be with her until death. I meant it. I never amended or retracted it.

I don’t want her. I don’t want to be around her.

I don’t want to hear her voice, because I associate it with scorn. I don’t want to see her face, because I associate it with contempt.

But I want to be who I was, with her, in the good years.

I miss the first four years of our marriage.

On our honeymoon, she told me she regretted getting married, not that it was about me, but the practice is patriarchal and archaic, and the ceremony was just to appease her parents².

Toward the end of our first year of marriage, we started an apartment fire.³

We were living in Boston when the marathon bombing happened.

We were broke for half that time and making just enough money to pretend to be OK for the other half.

But I’ve yet to be happier than I was for those first four years of marriage.

I’m writing this to help myself understand why I still think of her. I can’t think of a person I’d detest seeing again more than her. But I can’t think of a better day than any given day I had with her in those four, turbulent, fucked-up years.

I don’t miss her. I miss who I was with her.

I miss optimism. I miss believing I was special. I miss easy smiles.

Fuck. I miss youth.

1. love
2. She could have told me that before I jumped through myriad hoops and bought that stupid ring. I didn’t want to get married, either.
3. She started a grease fire while trying to make tempura and I threw water on it.