So the other weekend I ran into my ex from high school. Anxiety and insecurity has entered the chat.

Now, in my mid 30’s, I am in a way different place than I was when I was late teens/early-mid 20’s. I have gone through some traumatic events, I am now 2.5 years sober, I am in grad school and quite frankly, I grew up. I also ran into him in a way that no woman ever hopes to run into any ex: I was wearing no makeup. I also had just walked two miles, so I was sweaty (my anti-depressants make me sweat more than normal), my lips were chapped (ew,) and I am prob around 70 lbs. heavier than the last time he saw me. Currently, I am really insecure about my weight because I gained 40 in the pandemic and 20 in my first year of sobriety. Just for my own ego—I did lose 4 lbs last week tho. 

Every Saturday, I like to go to this one Farmer’s Market. Currently, it’s more like a necessity because it is the only place I can buy Ambrosia Apples, aka the only type this FODMAP following lady can eat, due to acidity. Anyway, as I was walking up (granted it’s literally around the corner from his apartment that I assumed he no longer lived in, because last I checked he lived out of state), I saw him. At first, we were just going to wave, but then I saw him coming up to me to talk. Fuck. This would be a more ideal situation any day but today. Thank God I put my eyebrows on.

We had the most surface level conversation—err, exchange. I had wall of armor on due to my insecurity (I couldn’t bring myself to smile) but tried to keep my game face on. I was telling him about where I was in my grad school program as I saw him look me up and down. This is when I felt super uncomfortable because I could see his brain processing. You know when you can just see the wheels of someone’s mind turning by the look on their face? I’m fairly certain that he was thinking about how I’ve gained a lot of weight. The conversation was awkward at best; he never asked me what I am studying in school when I was done talking. He seemed uncomfortable (maybe he picked up on my discomfort), and he clearly wanted to get out of there. After an awkward silence, I said “so, what have you been up to?” He answered, I offered some encouraging words, and then he said he had to go. “Take care,” I believe he said. Idk why but that felt super weird to me, so I just said “it was good to see you,” and walked away, returning to being just another face in the crowd.

On my way to the Market that day, I was listening to this Alicia Keys mix on my YouTube. A lot of the songs reminded me of that time when I dated him, and I had just thought about our relationship prior to running into him. I thought about how wonderful it felt when we had met at a summer job and had this little fling, but then it turned into more the next year. I thought about how he cheated on me and I still took care of him when he broke his leg. I thought about how he cheated on his ex with me—ultimately forcing him to cut me off even on an amicable level because his girlfriend told him to. How lame it was that he literally unfriended me on social media because of her. I had concluded that he was an asshole of epic proportions, only to moments later see him walk around a bend. 

After our conversation, as we walked in our opposite paths, I thought about how it is so crazy that at one point I was so in love with him and now we are truly strangers. I thought about how we were once so intimate with each other, and now I don’t think either of us even considered hugging or even shaking hands (but that would be super weird, lol). One of my favorite memories of him was after we had broken up, we were still friendly, and I asked him to go to Atlantic City with me. I wanted to go to a Backstreet Boys concert and he liked to play poker. We literally had such a good time together. That’s probably one of my favorite memories. But there was so much pain. SO much pain. I remember walking up that same street that I ran into him on over a decade earlier, I think I had cheated on him, and he was so hurt by it. We ended up laying in this wet field crying, making love, and crying some more. Most of the songs that remind me of him are ones about being hurt yet still loving the person so much. A decade later, I can barely even offer a smile. 

Coincidentally, I had gone through a random journal that I uncovered last week from high school. I wrote about him. How much he cheated on me. How much that hurt. The beginning of not understanding why I wasn’t good enough. The beginning to a lot of my insecurities. I wrote an entry about how he was mad I didn’t have my “group of girls.” Like, I went to a high school with 26 kids in the graduating class. I didn’t have the same high school experience as him. My insecurity about weekends started there. He made me believe that if you weren’t out drinking on a Saturday, you were a loser that had no life. To this day, while I do enjoy staying in on Saturday nights, I still sometimes feel super insecure about it. I was able to conclude that I didn’t realize back then how bad he made me feel, and I instead questioned if there was something wrong me. I used to be so immature, and alcohol made me worse, but all I ever wanted was for someone to care for me the way I did for them – unconditionally. No wonder we are now strangers; I don’t even recognize our past and I don’t know who he is internally today. But, I can forgive him on some level for his own immaturity or insecurities, and hope that he forgives me for mine.