Becoming "friends" with your ex

You ever feel like you have so much going on you just don't know what to write/say?

Where to even begin.....

I guess, first things first, The Hoff and I are officially no more. He came over a couple weeks ago and told me that he thought it would be best for us to make our break permanent, since he could never fully trust me. It kind of knocked me on my ass, honestly. I felt like Jennifer Aniston in the "Break Up," hoping that by not being with me The Hoff would miss me so much that he'd want to do whatever it takes to resolve our issues and be together.

Well, things didn't turn out so hunky-dory for Jen and they certainly didn't go any better for me. At least she got a nice dinner out of it and an attempt at salvaging. I got nothin'.

I will say though, it's nice that The Hoff and I didn't have some horrendous break up where we can't even stand to look at each other. We're still "friends." As much of a friend you can be with someone who used to know every inane detail about your day and who you shared all of your intimate secrets with. Someone who is now regulated to the status of receiving random gchats or texts every few days and awkward silences when you do finally hang out in person. Because really, after the obligatory "how's work going?", "how are your roommates?", "the weather we're having is hot-as-balls" chit-chat, what is there left to say?

I don't want to know what girls he's met, who exactly he's been bar hopping with on weekends, how he's thrown away every card I ever wrote him...

Trecherous terriorty to venture into, folks.

And when we do hang out, I want to hold his hand, call him the pet name I so creatively/nauseatingly created for him and have him kiss my forehead the way he always did to let me know that everything is okay in the world.

But it's not. The Hoff and Miss Procras. chapter is over. And the reality of that slaps me across the face everytime we hang out.

Like last night.

For his birthday (which was in May), I bought tickets to the Red Sox vs. Orioles game. Nothing too horrific happened. The Hoff just kept pulling out his phone, texting someone repeatedly who had a name that more than likely belonged to a female. Of course, being a girl, my mind started wandering. I mean, who does a guy text multiple times while he's watching his favorite sports team? I gotta assume it's to converse with a girl he's interested in/wants to sleep with, but that's just me. (Side note: I did some Facebook stalking this morning and confirmed it most definitely is a girl around my age, who is cute, which makes it that much more of a low blow.)

Granted, I hold no claim to The Hoff. He is a free man who can text, hang out with and date whoever he pleases. But to text someone so blatantly infront of the person you spent the last two years of your life with, the person who is taking you out for your birthday, well...that sucks.

No other word for it. It just plain and simple sucks.

So, I guess the age old question remains - can exes be friends?

I think to a certain extent, yes. I'll never have the type of relationship with The Hoff that I once did. I'm pretty sure it will remain a very surface-level friendship. But, I can still laugh with him and have fun.

And at the end of the day, I can look back at the past two years and smile. I don't think of the fights or harbor bitterness toward anything that happened. I think of all the trips we went on as a couple, our inside jokes that only made us keel over laughing and all the new experiences I shared with The Hoff. Are there some things I'd do differently? Absolutely. But I've come out of this relationship a better person. And I think that's really all anyone can ask for.