Mozart, Mercy, Moving On

Pardon my language at the outset, but shit got crazy weird since my last post.

Communication from my ex did not end with the surprise texts last weekend. Nope. It got so much worse. I started receiving emails professing his remorse and his love and his desire to prove himself to me. Pretty heavy stuff that I never expected nor had any desire to hear, feel, or respond to. I don't feel mad or sad or glad about anything he could say or do anymore. I simply don't care. The first day I realized that I couldn't remember when I last woke up thinking about him or her or us was awesome. Huh. That sounds way colder than I mean. Let's see if I can explain without making myself sound even more like an unemotional sociopath.

"Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest."
-Mozart, Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse

According to Mozart, learning to laugh is the secret to life and becoming Immortal, and I agree. I rarely take much, including myself, very seriously for very long. What I consider a major perk to being A) a Gemini, B) a little bit flighty, and C) cheerful by nature can get annoying to people who are more grounded or focused than me, people like my mother for instance. One of her most common phrases during my smart-ass teen years was, "Oh MathMercy. Stop being so mercurial!" Ha. She probably hasn't said that to me for almost 25 years, but it still comes out with her voice in my head. Basically, I am positively moody, emphasis on positive. I have no attention span for things that don't delight me, so I don't hold on to bad moods, anger or sadness very long. Once I decide to change my mind/mood, I pick myself up, dust myself off, move on, and don't look back. I am a master conflict-avoider mostly because I generally don't have the patience to argue for more than a couple minutes and I am too easily distracted to hold grudges. So when I say I really don't care, I mean it. I have moved beyond feeling (good or bad) for a marriage that seems like a lifetime ago. I am looking forward, not back.

At the same time, I can't just ignore someone - anyone - telling me they are in pain. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I replied to my ex and told him as tactfully as I could that my life is different now, that I can forgive but would never be able to forget what he did, that I have started dating, and that I enjoy living alone and free of commitment and baggage. Whew.

Mercy
In his reply, he mentioned something about me living up to my name. That brought up memories of my grandmother quoting this to me when I was little:

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
-Portia, The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare

Arg. I am straining to maintain an un-strained quality of mercy, but I refuse to sacrifice the un-strained Quality of Mercy. In other words: no stress, no bad days, no time to do anything that doesn't make MathMercy happy. I hope you find happiness soon. It won't be with me. I don't want to be rude, but I refuse to deal with this. 

Moving On
This afternoon, I went out for coffee with a guy that I had only chatted with a couple times on POF. I usually try to get to know someone better before agreeing to meet them, but I think I needed to assert my independence. I wanted to prove to myself that my life wouldn't change just because my ex moved back. I'm a single lady who is free to date whomever she wants, right? Well, today I was free to date a very nice gentleman who looks like a clean-cut Snoop Dogg/Lion. At the end of our coffee date, I was also able to assert my independence and self-reliance by calling AAA when my battery kicked the bucket.

While I waited for AAA, I ate some delicious street tacos (goat! I am so adventurous) and played Candy Crush. Anyone out there have tips on beating level 245?. When the AAA dude arrived, he tested my battery, starter, and alternator, and then showed me on his printout just how old and dead the battery was. He sold me a new battery, we compared levels on Candy Crush, and then I drove on home. No stress, no bad days, happy MathMercy is on her way.

Surprise!

This is the grill of the Mack truck that just smacked into me head-on a few hours ago. Metaphorically, that is. In an extremely rare turn of events, MathMercy is speechless. I literally have no words. Please help.

Hypothetical to the scores of scorneds out there: How would you react if you were informed that your ex was coming back from the other side of the country, and that you had something - however small - to do with it? Think about it for a second. Now really think about it. Do you have your response in mind? Good. Hold onto that thought. Let's continue.

Are you feeling vindicated in the knowledge that you were right? Are you feeling at all pissed that your ex has the audacity to pop back into your brain and your life when you have finally rediscovered yourself and realized that you will never be yourself with him, or probably anyone else? Are you imagining what you would say if a mutual friend said your ex wanted to meet up with you?Are you fantasizing about the things you would say to said ex's face if you happened to bump into said ex at some event? Are you feeling perhaps just a little too much glee that everything is going right for you and not so much for him?

So, I have this friend. Let's call her, um...MythMary. These are her reactions to the hypothetical situation above: Um, I don't want to be all, like, "told you so", but who didn't know that moving away with your mistress/rebound wasn't going to work out? What a jerk.  I just hope his friends let him know that he has nothing to gain by contacting me, as I have nothing to say to him...except maybe "told you so". Ha. Told you so. 

As you can imagine, MathMary MythMercy Myth...screw it...MathMercy is extremely grateful to her multiple sources. Yes, moles, you can rest easy in the knowledge that you were not the only one to warn me, so no one has to know I heard it from you. I am eternally grateful that you all tried to warn me of the blindside. Armed with good intel, I felt I was prepared to know that my ex-husband was living in the same state as me within the next couple weeks. Now I can avoid unpleasant surprises. No drama, no sweat.

Okay, new hypothetical: How would you react if your ex started texting you from the road on his epic drive "home"? What the FUCK?!?! 

In the first hypothetical, did you ever imagine that your ex would actually contact you? It never occurred to me. What if the things he said were all things to which your only response would make you look like an asshole? You know this is not your home, right? Yep, you are a coward. Of course I was right - you don't have to tell me. Sorry it didn't work out for you, but my life is honestly a whole lot better now, so thanks for leaving. As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't have the right to use my name and/or phone number anymore, but I'm not really enough of a bitch to tell him that while he's driving cross-country with his tail between his legs. I haven't replied yet. What would you do?