closure, 363 days later

after getting home from a lovely dinner and a movie date with fraser last night, i logged into facebook on my phone out of habit and the second status i read, from an acquaintance, congratulated beamer on his engagement to his ex-girlfriend. WTF?!?! in shock, i sent texts to a handful of friends and quickly received responses from them. there were a lot of f-words and variations of it. it would've made me laugh had i not felt a sting in my heart. fraser asked what was wrong and i vaguely implied that we were all just trying to figure something out.

five minutes later, my phone was down and i faced fraser.

fraser: are your friends okay?
me: yeah. they're fine... i have to tell you something.
fraser: what's up?
me: beamer just got engaged to his ex-girlfriend.
fraser: who?
me: beamer... my ex just got engaged to his ex.

silence.

when fraser asked how i was feeling, the word that came to mind was shocked. he asked if i was hurt. yes... but i wasn't sad and felt that i could be happy for beamer at some point. not just then. i used the word rejected last night but betrayed is a more accurate description of how i feel.

one of my best friends, sassy, articulated what i wasn't willing to say out loud or even put together in my mind. i had spent the last three years of our relationship waiting, expecting, hoping for beamer to propose. there were numerous times i tried to give him an out by telling him that it was fine if he didn't want to marry me but i needed to hear him say it. he never did. in fact, the day i moved out, he told me he always thought he'd have more time, which flabbergasted me. more time? we'd been together for nine years. i left six years in and he begged me to come back promising me we'd get engaged, married and have children. three years and many conversations later, i decided it was time to go and i still lived with him for three months after that... i simply wasn't the one for him. apparently, the one who cheated on him and broke him so completely is. that's a low blow. it's also true. both his ex-fiance and current one cheated on him, and i don't feel like playing nice in this moment because beamer betrayed me.

it hurts because i just had a conversation with fraser about possibly meeting up with beamer for closure. i was worried about how he was doing and wanted to see him. it hurts because beamer was my best friend for nine years and he lied to me. i'm not even sure he knew why it didn't feel right for him to propose to me nor did he try to figure it out. therapy was discussed but never really on the table. it hurts because i gave so much of myself and my time to him because i believed him. i trusted him. i loved him... and he betrayed me by not being honest with himself and not letting me go. i had to be the one to leave again when, clearly, he was the one who wanted out. maybe he was afraid of being alone, even of losing me, but he should've been man enough to do it.

i remember a woman with the same name as his now fiance calling beamer, who took the calls privately and told me it was work. there are movies in my head about how they got back together but none of them matter. the fact that they are back together has nothing to do with me and i do wish them well. even as my mind races with various emotions, i am not sad.

fraser loves me better than beamer ever did. and i'm happy. not just on the outside but inside, where it really counts. i have received so much love via texts and phone calls from an army of friends, who support my well being. more than that, i do not want to be with beamer. we are each other's pasts. processing this has my mind racing and, when wingwoman2 told me she googled his name with hers to make sure the engagement was real, i had to do the same. they have a wedding website and are getting married in may. as in three months from now. fourteen months after i left.

disappointed does not begin to describe how i feel about the fact that beamer did not give me a heads up about his engagement. don't get me wrong, i understand that he doesn't have to do that but, after nine years together, i deserve at least that. especially when he used to always tell me that he just wasn't ready for marriage and it wouldn't make a difference if he was with someone else. i don't even think he was lying to me; he was lying to himself... unless his ex was always in the picture. and even that's fine.  what's not fine is letting me believe it would happen eventually if i just wait a little longer.

blondie, another friend, asked me today if i thought i maybe should have waited another year. absolutely not. i did what was best for me and stand firmly by my choice. i've known for months now that beamer and i are over. still, it's been just under a year since i left and he'd been on my mind recently. i thought it was because i needed closure and asked god, the universe or whoever is in charge to give me a sign. i feel like i'm at the right place, with the right person, but i wanted reassurance from something bigger than me... and my mom.

me: do you think i should see beamer for closure?
mom: why? did he contact you?
me: no.
mom: well, who do you want? beamer or fraser?
me: fraser.
mom: then don't see him.

i wrote beamer's best man speech for his brother's wedding several years ago. his brother met his wife on a dating site and part of his speech read god works in mysterious ways and, apparently, in the world wide web. had i not logged into facebook when i did last night, i would have missed that acquaintance's status completely, but god, the universe or whoever is in charge clearly works online. i was meant to see it.

i have been careful not to air out our dirty laundry on social media and in life; i have not said anything bad about him this past year. when we last saw each other six months ago, there was still love between us. it was different and unfamiliar but it was there. we said i love you when we said goodbye and reassured each other that we'd be there for the other if needed. he cried and told me it was so hard to say goodbye to me... even as betrayal, shock and hurt flow through my veins and try to poison my heart, i refuse to engage in name calling or finger pointing because i take responsibility for my part in the demise of what we once had. for all the words that have been used to describe beamer by my friends today, the only ones that i will use are not for me... never was. i was just too stubborn to see it.

let it out. let it go. move forward.

i'm done.