The Ex-Factor
By Patty Hirsch

"Your posture sucks." he said as if he had been waiting years to give me this innovative but not rather insightful appraisal.

I looked up from behind my computer with that disapproving look – head cocked downward, eyebrow lifted and smashed together, eyelids slightly ajar. I noticed that his back was unusually straight, even for him.

I laughed, "Ahhh – you’re so sweet – don’t spoil me with such compliments. A girl like me could get used to a life so good." Sarcasm – it makes the world go around.

"Babe, don’t take it the wrong way. Take it as a useful bit of information that’ll help you in the long run." He smiled and softened his back.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," was all I responded but with a smile that said I knew he was right.

Is this what relationships with ex’s amount to? Each party brings a checklist of your intimate details they feel need improving. To boot, you both feel with absolute certainty that the other is completely oblivious to the fact that they are running around with such flaws – making it not only your right, but also your obligation to set them straight. Who else is going to help shape them up? And really, aren’t these collectively the reason you broke up in the first place? And somewhere along the line, a decision is made to not lose another opportunity to love them enough to provide them with your words of wisdom. Words you are convinced will set them free. And admittedly, some of it is helpful and justifiable but realistically, most of it is a load of self-indulgent crap designed to make you and only you feel better. You are after all, the one that agreed to resume a relationship that failed to work before.

As usual for my life, it is once again 11:11 p.m. For some reason, I am prone to always and only look at the clock when it is behaving in threes or fours (2:22, 3:33 and so on). And although this seems relatively benign or even lucky to some, it has become my curse because it now and forever will remind me of all my ex’s. This is all because of Chris – another ex. I was with him when I first started noticing this oddity in my life. I was rather animated when I told him of my good fortune because as a superstitious person, it seemed to me that it could only mean that good things were coming my way. I told Chris this in detail and he proceeded to tell me about how as a child, he had tried in vain to capture 11:11 (either a.m. or p.m.), but despite his conscious efforts to do so, he never saw it. He said it with such sadness in his eyes, that I was determined to get it for him. From that point on, every time I looked at the clock and read 11:11, I would ring him up and proudly proclaim, "it’s Chris time." I was kind of like the cat that wants to express their undying love for their owner by killing a mouse, prancing around with it and finally leaving it on their owner’s pillow. In this case, I am not sure that Chris ever understood the gift I thought I was giving him.

When the relationship ended, I was tormented every time it was 11:11, which only served to remind me of the pain of all my relationships that didn’t work out. It became an anthem for me. Every time the clock declared this repetition, it had stopped reporting time and had begun to mock me.

And for years, it served to remind me of another that I loved once. Ok, actually I loved him twice. The second time was three years later and although the love was not nearly as intense or as self-consuming, the ending was still traumatic and left me feeling like a piece of me was permanently missing. Admittedly, I was much stronger the second time. The details of the first aren’t necessary, but I was such a wreck that even the Clock God laid low on his mockery for a few weeks because even he found it too painful to watch (er, no pun intended). Nonetheless, it is important to understand why it was so hard – he is the only person who has ever made me feel like I was home. And from the first moment I met him, it felt so good that nothing else really seemed to matter. He even had a bad habit of never answering with a full sentence. And although this would drive some people crazy, it never ceased to fascinate me because when I heard him respond to me with "uh-huh," I knew that everything was going to be okay. It was single-handedly, the number one thing I missed when he was gone because no matter what the situation, his "uh-huhs" always made me feel safe and cozy and warm. I will miss the sound of it for the rest of my life.

"You’re never satisfied and it worries me about you," he said to me. I was standing in line waiting for my coffee, obsessing about whether or not I made the right choice ordering a large latte with a half shot of hazelnut over my usual Earl Gray. He apparently was still letting me in on the defects of character I seemingly had overlooked.

"That’ll be $7.77 ma’am." Great, now triplets were sneaking into the rest of my life.

"Excuse me?" I responded to him as I was handing her $8 – waiting for my $.33 to be returned.

"You know – look at your life. You are always moving, leaving, changing jobs or just generally looking for the next best thing to come along. How do I know you won’t do the same to me?"

"No worries Babes, you’re outta here tomorrow. Something better is supposed to arrive by Fed Ex in the morning." Sarcasm – it doesn’t make relationships go round. "Seriously, we’re both that way, so you have nothing to worry about."

"Uh-huh," was his only response.

We swore that this time we would stay friends and we would still hang out – but realistically we both know that was totally crazy, at least for awhile. My love for him made me realize that I had to let him go. I had to move on and learn whatever it was that I needed to learn from the loss of him. Perhaps he was an angel in disguise, sent to teach me what great love is all about. Or maybe it was to teach me how difficult, but rewarding it is to comprise for another. Or maybe, most importantly, he taught me how to love and lose without losing sight that relationships and their ends are really what teaches us the most about life.

It’s been awhile, but I know that in a couple of years, I’ll unsuspectingly pick up the phone and I’ll ask if it is him and he respond with "uh-huh." And he’ll ask how I am and at first my heart will pound and I will lose my breath, but then a warm feeling will fill my heart. And I’ll realize how happy I am to hear his voice – not because he is still my home, but because his presence in my life taught me so much and made me all the better for it. And I’ll straighten my back and begin telling him of my new home and the daily wonders of my life and how I moved again, but that this time, it wasn’t because I was running from life. And I’ll listen to his stories and I’ll realize that maybe the time has come when we can truly be friends and I’ll look at the clock and realize it is 11:12.

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