Should You Still Talk to Your Ex?

Should you still talk to your ex? "Ex," "divorce," "separation" - in the falling out from a real love these terms are meaningless, and if there were ever a thing to be respected, it's the fundamental concept of love.

Many people abuse the word, but it has no bearing on the reality; though it sounds the same coming from their lips, they're speaking on a different thing entirely. You did not love one person last year and another this year. That person who you broke up with over a petty argument and moved on from a month later - that was not someone who truly had you. Love is a second rib cage, something that wraps around all your vital parts, and if it leaves, you leave with it.

What does the heart that has experienced love know of such a minimizing term as an "ex"? Is that what we label those whose image appears in our mind every day without failure for years after we've last seen them? Is that what we're to call that person who we cannot discuss even now without a subtle shakiness coming over our voice, and the slight pressure on the eye of a tear duct that swells at their name? The person who changed us in sundry ways, who we gave our years to, and who we introduced into every part of our life; the very same who, should the situation ever call for it, was once the most relied upon to rush to rescue us in the darkest hour of the night; and who we unfurled our entire soul before, revealing every trouble and vulnerability, like a shelled animal that can ever only show its true self in the rarest condition of total safety - this is who we try to sweep under the rug as if they are an object of disinterest or even antipathy to us?

I laugh quietly to myself when I hear people bashing their former lovers. Their spite betrays a sensitivity. You have to angrily shoo any thought of them from your mind because you are scared of the effect it will have on you if you let it stay. You don't hate them. To the contrary, you still love them so deeply, despite having every reason not to, that you must try to convert that swell of emotion into something else. And that's okay. It is precisely because it never ends that it is love. The vow of "till death do us part" is always besides the point; it is either a redundancy or a fake. Real love weaves itself into our DNA as part of its natural course. It is a brand, an incurable ailment, an implant - or better yet a transplant - and until we draw our last breath, we will be marked by it like a scar on the skin, felt by us and observed by whoever else has eyes for it.

Try explaining the significance of one day versus the next to an immortal. You weren't gifted enough years at birth to watch a real love meet its expiration. You see people who fell for each other at a young age, but who, for one reason or another, after a passionate affair end up parting ways; yet after 5, 10, or 20 years time has passed, they come across one another in some chance encounter, reconnect, and immediately they are as they were, the love resuming never to see them separate again; and you might think that, "oh, they have not changed all this time," but to the contrary, 20 years can hold more unkindness in them than we can ever detail, and the individuals can end up quite unrecognizable, and it is not them but something else that remains eternally young. It's that connective tissue which knows no limits to its elasticity and stretches across all measures of distance, and which is mantled in precious metals, invulnerable to rust and decay, and thusly endures the passage of time with complete impunity.

We return to our titular question again: Should you talk with your ex? You should be with your ex. For every day that you are apart from them, you stand in defiance of the all forces that animate this universe. If it was a real love, gravity should be heeling over, and all the stars and planets in your sky falling towards them, and you tumbling down alongside of them. Anything else is unforgivable, a violation of nature, a life of sin. If you're to walk the dark path away from a veritable love, you must have a permit issued by the only higher authority - that of self-love - which declares that you stand justified to be removed from your soul's counterpart because that love was so fraught with dangers to your health, mental or physical, that you would've had to forego your own personhood, your own appreciation of self, for the sake of that bond. And it is by this same measure that we determine whether or not it is acceptable for you to treat them even lower than one who is no longer your lover. If they cannot be your lover, they should be your friend - though, truthfully, it is hard to say that one can be the latter, if they could not be the former. Thus, the final prescription is this: Love them exactly as much as is possible for you without losing yourself.

If you can be a lover, despite all else, be that. If you are capable of being a friend, no other question must follow, be a friend. If they are so fraught with flaws, or wield such a dangerous power over you, that you can be none of these things, then you must still love them from afar, and this is nonnegotiable. Clear your mind of that silly anger. This faux outrage is like a cosmetic one puts on their puffy face to conceal they were weeping. Hatred towards those we love is nothing more than a mask or a bandaid, just something to cover up that we will forever remain remorseful that the love was not able to fulfill its potential. Instead, be true to yourself, give to them those sudden bursts of warmth you feel when you recall your time together, and let those go to them like a prayer or well-wishing.

Love is ancient. It predates us all. It engendered not only you but every member of the species. History is just the longest love story. Two countries war with each other, and perhaps from a distance it may look like it was fought for a patch of land, resources, or whatever else the text might name, but no soldier has ever volunteered to venture out into a field plagued by death, and to risk their life and soul and sanity, for things such as these. It's the recollection of scenes from a quiet night in their lover's arms, or the expressions of boundless joy on their child's face, or that incomparable feeling of comfort in their family home which drives them to do the impossible. Love is the true engine of industry, it is the ultimate cause behind all social dynamics, and it is the force that ensures life's evolution will march forward without end. Yet, talk to strangers in the streets, and people will speak on it like a piece of trash to be disposed of after use.

There are many who will never experience the genuine article, and they will mistake their weakness for strength, imagining they're paragons of fortitude for being able to turn with ease from a drop of the flood that is the thing in full. If you've ever really loved, you'll know you don't have the power to make this decision. There is only one thing that runs deeper and that is self-love, as one precedes two and in this union only the individual can come before the pair. We cannot be forever miserable or completely abandon our personhood for the sake of love, but if this was truly the issue, then we also had no choice but to separate. Those in this unfortunate state know that every day apart is a crime and a perversion of life that they simply must endure. In other words, there is nothing to say on the matter. Those who love truly have only one reason to leave, and if that's the case, there was never a choice for them.

Love throws us about like rag dolls. If you have to ask something as trite as "should I still talk to my ex," then, either you have deceived yourself for a moment to play at having the illusion of choice, or you have deceived yourself all your life because that which you call "love" is a fake.

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