Lately it’s been harder than ever to find time to blog.  I’m so grateful to those of you who read regularly.  I know what it’s like to follow a blog and become irritated when it doesn’t get updated.  Especially professional bloggers.  Hello, people, this is your JOB!

But enough about Heather Armstrong.

I posted a “Happy Birthday” on my ex-boyfriend‘s Facebook wall and he messaged me back.  I couldn’t help but notice that he sent it at 11:51 p.m.  Drunk dialing me?  I’ll never know for sure.  All it said was “How’s the family?” A nice neutral question that began a back-and-forth that lasted a few days.  The content of our conversation isn’t very interesting.  There was no flirting or suggestive reminiscing over the old days (by which I mean the oodles of sex we had). 

Despite not talking about the sex we used to have (which I might have mentioned was tons), I found myself looking forward to his messages.  He sent me a message one night at 1:30, and I happened to pick it up around three. Baby V was restless and I’d woken up when she kicked me in the throat.  I got her settled and nursing, then looked at my phone to check the time.  Might as well look at my Facebook updates.

I felt a twinge of marital guilt; however, it was the attention that I was getting off on, not the memories of scads of sex. I wasn’t fantasizing about him doing anything but paying attention to me. Something he never did enough of (and the sex was really not so great, just abundant).

Again, there was nothing at all salacious about the content of the messages.  He wrote about how he has 4 kids and no time to himself and how his wife broke her tailbone 3 out of 4 times giving birth, and would never let him hear the end of it if she caught him looking at porn.  I wrote about how I love being a mom, but am not sure I want to make the sacrifices it takes to have two kids, that I ran into his best friend who hates me, and I finally tried the ice cream he recommended.  You know, boring shit (you’re probably already dozing off).

Eventually, the conversation died out. I wrote him about why I wasn’t at the 20-year reunion after he wrongly assumed it was because I didn’t look good enough. I explained that it was actually because I was never part of “the in-crowd” and I didn’t need to pay upwards of 150 dollars to be reminded. Even more, I’d had a baby 8 weeks earlier.  He never replied to me after that.  Each time I felt tempted to write him another message, further explaining my explanation, I remembered the scene from Swingers. Jon Favreau calls the girl’s answering machine over and over and you cringe every time until you scream “No!” at the screen when he calls yet again.  I didn’t want to be that guy.  And for the first time ever, I resisted the temptation.  I didn’t make a Favreau of myself.

I finally feel a great sense of closure over this, so contacting him with that oh-so-friendly “Happy birthday,” ended up being healing for me. 

And who knows, maybe he stopped writing me because I didn’t stroke his ego enough.  Or at all.