How to Survive a Situationship

Hi friends! I had recently taken a trip to Denver, Colorado with my nursing friends to visit our once colleagues and still very good friends who left New York to pursue travel nursing together. Every minute of this trip was filled with laughs, memories, and a concerning amount of alcohol consumed between the eight of us. Saturday was the most eventful day while we celebrated our friend’s birthday the only way we know how… a lot of day into night drinking.

Brunch has always been my favorite meal of the week because it starts at 10am with Champagne and it ends until 2am the next morning with tequila and red bulls. And after over twelve straight hours of adult beverages, embarrassing myself on a mechanical bull, and getting bullied to stay out way past my bedtime by a 23 year old… I was left alone for too long and texted my ex-boyfriend. This is something I cannot say I am happy to have done, I am NEVER the type to do this and it was something I use to pride myself on (once I am done with you I am a ghost). But I don’t know what came over me as I traveled the seven minute walk to my hotel alone at 2am. Maybe it was because I was mixing alcohol, maybe it was the altitude in the “mile high” city, or maybe it was something that I can’t explain that made me pick up my phone and finally reach out after ignoring him for five months. But it was done, it was weird when he texted me back, and I feared that I soiled whatever was salvageable from our relationship once it was done.

The next morning when I saw his text back to me I couldn’t help but grieve how we used to be. He went from being one of my favorite people to a stranger. So much happened in the time spent apart from each other, but I wasn’t going to get involved in that. He asked me how I’ve been and I wanted to let him know how f**ked up I had been, how I wanted to text him so many times but didn’t have the courage to reach out until I was hammered in another state, how I haven’t stopped thinking about him since the day I ended things… Instead I said I was ok and left the dramatics for my own head to overthink.

Once I had gotten home I didn’t text again and he once again left me alone… until about five days later when I got a phone call at work. I was sitting at the nurses station charting when his late grandfather’s girlfriend whom I still keep in contact with sent me aa concerning text asking me to give her a call. I snuck into my break room as fast as I could to call her… someone died, someone is sick, something isn’t right is all I could think about. When she finally answered she told me that my ex’s father was diagnosed with throat cancer and was on his way to starting chemo therapy. My mind and body went numb at the thought of it, I literally just reached out to him and I had no idea he was going through this. I told her I would reach out to him and when we hung up I broke down.

When I got home I had already told my mom and dad and spent about an hour figuring out how I wanted to word my message to him… through tear filled eyes this was all I was able to put together.

Hey… so [grandpa’s girlfriend] gave me a call today at work and I know about your dad. I want to let you know I am always here for you, my phone will always be on, and your family is on my mind. I am so sorry I’ve been so distant over the last five months while you guys were going through this. Nobody should go through this or watch someone they love experience what your dad is living through at the moment. I am completely beside myself right now and I’m planning on reaching out to your mom tonight too… You haven’t left my thoughts over the last five months and you’ll continue to stay there… I love you guys.

We texted for another hour after that when he showed the most affection I’ve seen from him in several months…

Don’t feel bad and don’t worry about these past five months between us. You also haven’t left my thoughts. 

I know it doesn’t seem like much but the boy has so much trouble expressing feelings (one of the reason’s why I broke up with him) and although I knew he thought about me from all the text messages he sent unanswered by me… I was nice to read it in text. And then for a split second I entertained the idea of divine intervention attracting me to him again, maybe I was meant to reach out to him in Colorado because he was thinking about as much as I was thinking about him, if not more.

I opened up a real can of worms by texting him but like I said to him, My phone will always be turned on for him and I will always answer him… But the challenge to myself is keeping my guard up while staying in contact because at the end of the day… just because we miss each other doesn’t change a thing and it’s not enough to change my mind at this point in time