March 9th, 2019

Dear B,

You came up in a conversation the other day. It hasn’t happened in a long time, but I needed to talk about you and I realized that I still have a hard time finding a way to describe what we were. I want a word, a name to give the beast. I just don’t know what to call you. Your status alternates between “ex” and “this guy I had a thing with.” “Ex” takes things too far. After all we never referred to each other by any of the labels that usually come after that prefix. And “a thing” doesn’t justify what we were. We were more than a little fling. I’m not sure of much when it comes to us, but I am sure of that. Do you remember that night in April? I asked you what we were and your reply was “we’re just us.” That’s the closest I ever got to a label; just another red flag that I ignored. I wrapped it up in excuses of not needing a label and being more modern and evolved than most people, exactly as stupid twenty year olds do all the time.

“Just us.” I wish that satisfied me. I can’t talk about it with others and say “we were just us,” and there certainly isn’t a better past tense for that. Ex-us doesn’t work at all. After all of the examining I’ve done I can’t find a satisfactory descriptor. Perhaps debacle is a good word.  But it doesn’t seem right. Nothing does. It doesn’t matter as much as it used to, but there are these moments like last Monday when I could have used a quick description of you. I don’t have it. All I have is what we were… just us.

            K