How have you been?

 Social media is a good outlet to share too much information with others about your life and terrible decisions.  Really try not to perimenopause and Facebook people.
I have quite a few pages and websites i manage so I tend to overshare to a degree. I am learning less is more with age.
We ALL look up our exes. And they look us up too.
 I decided to do some ex searches in my first years into perimenopause and it was...wow.

 There are only a couple exes in my life that ever mattered. Two, both from my high school age years, both my best of friends turned lovers into my twenties and then of course us all taking off into different places only to find each other later here...on social media because we cant go to clubs and bars every night anymore. We Facebook like adults and attend online events together.

 The two Mikes have always been an issue. They both came into my life the fall of 1993 and here I was two decades later staring at my inbox at a photo of Bug ( Mike 1 ) with a note saying, How have you been? Hmm is this the chance I take to remind Bug of the crap we went through and what led to us not speaking back in 1997?

 Bug was now married with three boys still young at that. My kids now adults we had little in common for people that couldn't stand to be apart just decades ago. He messaged me out of the blue after years of a turbulent friendship we left behind to come meet up.
 Part of me felt like so much had to be answered. There were so many emotions still carried over and anger over him and how we ended our friendship. In some ways I even blamed him for me getting married too fast. I'm not convinced I would have married my ex husband if I hadn't heard about Bug and Julie getting married but who knows.

 We sat next to each other in a pub I was shifted to my left Bug sitting to my right in a shy unspoken way that led us  both speaking at the same time interrupting each other to start a conversation.
 He, completely unapologetic killed any chance for me to seek an apology because he stated right away he had very little memory of much and that he was there for one thing only. To start a relationship with me because we never got to have a fair go and continue staying married to Julie for the sake of not hurting her and the boys.
 His vision was clear and precise and I was the person he chose because we knew our past would allow for us to have those feelings again.
 Except I don't have those feeling anymore. I felt sorry for him now and worse for Julie.
 The kids didn't affect me one way or another. Kids are resilient and don't know stuff that goes on and most marriages end in divorce but the fact he was so crass about his wishes and desires led me to believe he had been thinking about this for a long time.

 I listened to his last 15 years of life without me in it, often looking at this boy I once spent every day with now a man so defeated by life and the hard times he was going through because he chose to get married too young to someone I knew he would never be happy with. I felt no sorrow for Bug only for Julie and what she would have to learn should Bug ever get caught. It wont be me to sleep with him but men like Bug will find someone to fill the empty.
  I thought about how I would never be able to do that to another woman regardless of the circumstances and I thought about how much it destroyed me when it happened to me.

 The irony was the hatred had for Julie only a few years prior when I learned of them getting married now felt like sadness.
 I had thought for years how I would easily come back into Bugs life later and pick up exactly where we left off. I knew my body well enough to know I could get what I wanted from it if I played it right.
 But here I was thinking of only Julie and her feelings and how sad the whole situation of Bugs unhappy life was. I suppose I walked away that day with closure but he never knew either way what I was thinking.

 Bug continues to reach out and I allow him to vent and share his issues with life but keep him at a distant place from me.
 I am not the same person I was before Perimenopause. I am not the vindictive one to show Julie the messages her husband sent me because I respect her as a woman.
 I wont act on impulse because Khalid helped me learn to control my body to every degree.
 I have just changed.

  The two Mikes would be back in my life starting this day but I was in control of the distance and hurt that happened. It was up to me to act like a person with morals or act on impulse and I chose to accept this new controlled me and walk away from Bug.

  Ducky ( Mike 2) well, that is a whole different chapter in itself.

 The point is we all have these incredible past lovers and memories and emotions we miss and remember. We search for them privately to see how they are doing.
 From the surface everything looks perfect when you are visiting a window into social media but if you look hard enough you can see the pain in peoples eyes.
 They are all seeking something out there from others and with social interactions. But we are all just lost inside until we take time to process loss, love and our selves as adults.

 I fear many people don't get that luxury because they get too caught up in kids, work and home life to remember that people are watching and they see the cracks in the walls and the paste we keep filling them in with on social media but no amount of likes makes us like ourselves and no amount of time is worth wasting in life. If you are unhappy remember that you have one life. If your marriage is not good, make choices to do what feels right not what you are told to do for others.

 I am not attracted to Bug anymore. At one time I would have never thought I would say that. He was my best friend for many years and I thought time would never take that from us but sitting across from that broken boy gave me to confidence I needed back in 1997 to walk away and know I was going to be happier. He made the wrong choice and I wasn't a second thought anymore to anyone. I decide what I allow and do not allow.

 I left the restaurant giving Bug a long embrace that day a few years ago. He looked defeated as I told him I would see him again sometime and he still texts to make small talk. He doesn't realize that was the last time I ever chose to see him. He hasn't processed the death of our life together and the decisions he has to make for himself, for his own mid life mental health well-being.

I got home and there in my inbox sat another message from Ducky ( Mike 2) on the same exact day. Duckys message "whoa! How are you?"
 Really life? You send me the two hardest relationships and longest ones I ever dealt with on the same day? No thank you! This one made me get hypnosis to try and forget him. I have learned by now to stay far away from Ducky.

 Ducky would have been someone normally I would have stopped for right away. Adult me knew that relationship was doomed the minute I wrote back "I'm good, how are you? aren't you married now?"

 I sat watching the .......Mike is Typing.......
 No I am divorced and live near your moms house again..
 Oh, the same house I am in only two miles away.....fanfuckingtastic my hormones couldn't be more confused and I couldn't be sweating more.

 The weird part about being 25 year old me was never imagining me being single and dealing with these life changes again with 44 year old me.
 It feels like a punishment of some sort. Like groundhog day.
 I wake up in the same story a decade later with the same characters only mine age and have real life issues and aren't as funny as Bill Murray.

 I invited him to play basketball. I figured if I got there early enough I could play it off like I was sweating from a game not my friend Peri.
Not today hormonal free riding friend. Not today.