The other day, I had a conversation with my ex, Mina.  We’ve been  apart for two years now, after a six-year relationship, if you can call it that.  Mina was not OK with ending our association, and because we weren’t on the same page, it was difficult for me to do.  I remember sitting down with her and explaining, painstakingly, why she would eventually be happier without me, and why she would find someone she could really love long before I will.  She thought she loved me, and in some ways I know she did — but in very important ways, I wasn’t what she wanted, and unfortunately I saw it more clearly than she did. 

I miss her, though … she is a highly intelligent and funny woman, with a quirky, deadpan sense of humor that I’ve always found delightful.  For a year after we broke up, she would call me on a fairly regular basis, asking if we could just get together to have sex.  I consistently refused, although I really did want to go to bed with her, because I couldn’t bear the idea of her taking it more seriously than I would have meant it.  She finally stopped calling me after a heated conversation in which I said I wished I’d never become involved with her.  She hung up before I could explain what I’d meant, which was that I wish we had stayed friends without becoming lovers, because our failed intimacy had damaged us both so badly.  I called her and left a message to that effect, but I didn’t speak to her again for nearly eight months after that unfortunate remark.  Although I regretted having said it, my unintentional insult accomplished what I’d been begging her to do, which was to establish at least six months of complete silence between us, so we could gain some distance that would allow us to explore renewing our friendship on different terms. 

I spoke to her last August, and heard that she was involved with a man who is, in my opinion, exactly right for her … he’s laid-back, a little sentimental, has several children who come and go from their house at all hours … Mina has always had a longing to be part of a community or a large family, and that is a need I could never come close to participating in, as my lifestyle desires are exactly the opposite.  She sounded happy.  I was so glad — I had felt guilty about the way our relationship had ended, feeling as I did that I had been forced to make a unilateral decision.  But I knew it was the right decision, and I think that finally, she knows it too.

When I spoke to her last week, she told me that she had acquired a Doberman Pinscher puppy.  She said that she thinks the breed is a very solid one, and she won’t have much trouble with vet bills.  I happen to have friends who breed and rescue Dobermans,  and so I am in an odd position to know that the breed is prone to a small electrical defect in the heart that causes sudden death.  Usually the dog will have several episodes of fainting, due to the heart stopping, before it dies.

“I don’t know whether all of that was helpful, but I thought I might as well tell you,” I said, after imparting this information.

In her dry way, she replied: “Oh, yes.  It’s helpful to know that if my dog dies, it will, indeed, be dead.”