I very much enjoyed your essay. I guess I fit in the “Not over it” category.

I don’t want to be friends with my ex. I actually want to get back together after many years of no contact.

We were together for 6 years, living together as a couple. Not just dating but life partners. At least to me. We both are well over 50, not just starting out in life.

Dating late in life is just too much work for me. I never wanted to break up in the first place. She was the one who gave up and broke my heart.

External business factors led to a lot of our problems. Money and sex. Isn’t that the major cause of so much relationship disharmony. (Or kids. But she had none and mine were already adults when we met)

Maybe she is feeling the same way as I am? And in the same quandry.

What we each said in anger and tears almost ten years ago may not be how we feel now.

But I don’t know. Neither of us wants to go back to the bad parts. It was so painful.

Now what?

What if there is actually a chance of making it work, because we are both much older and wiser. I now see everything more clearly. I see the things I did that were not kind and loving. Maybe she does too?

Or am I just being selfish because after many years apart, there is no one I have found who is anything like her.

I am still in love with her. Or the memory of her. I didn’t need a date night to be happy. Going grocery shopping together or for a walk around the block made me happy.

Do soulmates exist?

I haven’t done anything about these thoughts. But I sure do think about the whole subject a lot.

We live on different continents. It would take a little work but I could find her without too much effort.

But writing to her would not work. She knows the old me, the person she chose to leave for her own reasons. No way she is going back to that.

We met by accident. After we were together, she told me she would never have responded to me on a dating site based on my profile and location.

She totally does not participate in any social media. No Facebook, no Instagram, nothing.

So I really have no idea about any aspect of her life today. She might be married? Or not? She might be in a great long term relationship? Or not?

I don’t even know what she looks like now. Would we still have any chemistry after so long apart?

So I think about it, about her, about us. A long time ago, I used to cry easily about it too. But the tears stopped long ago. I continue to respect her 10 year old boundaries. For one more day.

I know for anything to happen between us we’d have to meet face to face. By accident just as we met initially. Because her mind may say one thing to protect herself. But her heart may have other ideas.

She will either be happy to see me or angry that I found her. Knowing her as well as I do, my odds aren’t good.

And so I do nothing.