OK, Here is the scoop. Tell me if you all think this is a back slide and if so, how bad. I can't tell for sure.
Here goes...
Ex sent me jewelry. I always get jewelry from him which I love of course. I hate writing word for word what ex wrote in case someone I know saw my thread, especially ex, but this is the card he enclosed.
It was a cutesy hallmark card that said:
"When I first saw you, I thought, "Wow, great eyes!" "When we first talked, I thought, "Wow, great voice!" "When we first kissed, I thought, "Wow, great lips!" "When we first... Oh yeah, we haven't done that yet...." (With a pen he added below this line, "Well, sure we did. We just did the other 3 within 36 hours of meeting 10 years ago.")
When you open up the card it read...
"Looking forward to the next "Wow!"
He wrote at the bottom...
"Dear Sam,
The only thing I can say is that we have been through a lot the past 10 years. Most all of it has been great, and I would not be the person I am if I had never met you. I'm so glad I met you 10 years ago. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I love you.
Ex"
He also wrote the date at the top. He has never really wrote the date at the top of a card like that. We save every single card or letter we get from anyone. Of course he saved the paper that I wrote my phone number on the day we met. I know I am speculating here, but it is like he is trying to chronicle our lives together so we have it to look back on in the future. I know, I know, I need to stop speculating!
Now for the thing that I did. I think I did too much. I pretty much made the gift I sent to ex. I put together ten different chocolates in a chocolate box, decorated the front of the box with
Ten Assorted Years 10/95 to 10/05 our last name chocolatier
I included a decorated booklet that listed each chocolate, what was in the chocolate and a description of how that chocolate correlated to that year of our lives together. For example, the year the drugs got so out of control, I included a chocolate with nuts because things were pretty nutty. The year our business took off I included a mint covered with dark chocolate because the money was bittersweet and seemed to magnify our problems. The year of our wedding included a pretty white chocolate...etc. It was more in detail than that, but you get the drift. It was pretty mooshy which may have been a mistake, but what the hell. Also, it included mostly happy things. I know I included a lot of negative stuff in the examples I gave but I wanted to list the ones that were most clever.
I can be pretty crafty, and it turned out beautiful. I also included a card (on really pretty stationary of course) and thanked him for 50 specific things that he did for me last year.
Ex's response bothered me some, but I am feeling less and less bothered by it. He called me and thanked me before I got a chance to call and thank him. Our gifts arrived for each other almost at the same times. I didn't answer when he called so he left a message. In it he said, "I want to talk to you in person instead of on the voice mail, but I must say that your gift was wonderful." He then went onto say, "The time you spent, the work that went into it, that was great. I loved it.” The problem was that his voice sounded funny. At the end, he added, "your gift out did mine, that is for sure."
That is what is bothering me. I feel that he feels I one upped him, and I did not want to do that. Also, he seemed to be very grateful for the 50 things that I thanked him for and didn't say much about the chocolate descriptions. That kind of embarrassed me because I think I was too mushy. Darn!! Oh well. I can't take it back now. I actually think describing each year like I did made him think of the past--mistake on my part.
He said, "I love the list of 50 things. That made me feel good about myself."
I was originally going to send him the thank you list and a Top Billboards hit CD from the year we met until my friend got me sidetracked. I should have stuck to my original plan! I got a little carried away. My friend told me to make up a collage of our years together. Thank God I didn't do that! Can you imagine……. And here is a ticket stub to our first movie together, and here is a picture of us on our wedding day, and here is a copy of our divorce decree.....
This post is very detailed, but I am going to post it anyway. I am always so paranoid about someone discovering all the gritty details of my life and figuring out who I am. Here goes…………
