That Time I Had Tea with My Ex and It was SO Damn Healing…

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I’ve been sitting on this story for a bit now. A month and a half to be exact.

Now I know that might not seem like a long time but in the past I would have written about it right way.

But I wanted to wait. I wanted to keep it to myself for a little. I wanted to make sure that how I felt in that moment was something that was true and rooted and not just a reaction.

So what better time than now to write about having tea with my ex!

If you’re anything like me, at this point you’re looking for blogs and podcasts that are taking a moment NOT to talk about our current pandemic to give your overactive brain a moment of peace.

So here we go. A blog post that has NOTHING to do with pandemics, social distancing, staying home or flattening the curve. All of which I am fully supporting by the way.

And if you need some context as to why this was a big deal for me may I direct you to this post and this post. Oh and this post! Yes, I’ve written about him a lot. Heartbreak will do that to a person.

I thought about him the day Kobe Bryant died. I felt the grief of that pretty deeply. It surprised me how much actually. But my ex was the first person I thought of. He’s the person I would regret the most if I never talked to again.

So I sat with my urge to reach out to him. I gave it a few days to make sure my reasons where clear and not manipulative.

I checked myself and came to the understanding that I wanted to reach out because I simply wanted to see how he was doing and tell him about how I was doing. Simple. And true.

It had been almost 1.5 years since we broke up and about 5 months since we decided to stop trying to be friends. It really wasn’t working. But now I didn’t want to try to be friends. I just wanted to check in and say hello.

So I reached out and he took a few days to get back to me (because he too wanted to check in with himself and make sure it felt right) good lord, we are learning! But he said yes. A fact that really surprised me.

A few weeks later me met at a neighborhood coffee shop. The entire front was made of glass and sunlight poured in from every angle.

I felt calm and grounded. Basically the complete opposite of the last time we met up after only 5 months of being broken up. Oh what a difference a year can make.

And then… we had tea. Yup. Thrilling stuff.

We hugged and shared all of the changes in our lives, him on the path of a new career and dating a new person, me and my tantra sex coaching certification and the decision to not date any additional peoples other than my primary relationship.

We chatted. We caught up. It was all ok. It was quite lovely actually.

And then came the time for him to leave. In that moment I felt my attachment style come out to play. My anxious preoccupied self become nervous and worried as to how we would leave it. What would happen next.

Then he said goodbye and left. No plan. No follow up besides agreeing that it might be nice to catch up maybe once a season.

The lack of plan when coming to a situation like this is AGONY for me. After he left I just sat there for a moment. Feeling those all too familiar urges to control the situation in order to feel safe. Instead of doing any of that I just sat. And waited. Then it passed. And that my friends is healing.

Interestingly enough my body reacted that evening with nausea and a fever. It actually started that morning, eased up during our chat and came back that night. I was fine in a few days.

Was this my body processing something my mind didn’t need to be involved in? Maybe. Maybe not.

All I know is that something did shift for me. Something felt more complete. Call it closure if you want but I think I realized that what was causing me pain wasn’t not being with him it was simply not being able to know how he was doing. So I reached out and it was completely fine.

We can overthink and overdramatize things like this because our egos LOVE the opportunity to distract us from our truth and our power in an attempt to protect us. It is in these moments when the striking act of simplicity can really flip the script.

A month and a half later I am SO happy I reached out and checked in.

For some time after this breakup I felt unable to trust my decisions because in that relationship I betrayed myself so many times. But with time, forgiveness and trust I gave myself the opportunity to show up in a new way. And that felt so good.

A few weeks ago a song came on while my husband and I were in the car. It’s a song that even the first note put me in tears in the past. I instinctively skipped it immediately.

Then I went back. Just to see. I listened to the entire song and for the first time since my breakup my eyes were dry. It felt like progress. It felt like healing.