I never realized it took so long.

I heard from Him about a week ago. We sent several one liners back and forth on facebook, but I was bored and found the conversation tiresome and so I politely curtailed it. Wished him well on his travels and went about my business. It didn't occur to me until days later how significant that was. How hard it was for me to get to that point. And, most surprising of all, how many YEARS it took. If I had to pin-point a moment when I finally, fully, got over him, it would probably be in the first few months of my PhD. Somewhere midway through this blog.

I haven't really ever discussed the relationship and what happened with Odin. For the most part, it is in the past and although I'm very pleased with the person I became as a result of those experiences, I don't really feel the need to visit them again. Especially not with Odin. While there are some similarities to the experience of being in love, the experiences have very different qualities to them. Things with Odin are more comfortable, safer. Frequently less stressful, but far far richer. I don't think I could explain that to him without it sounding like a comparison. The truth is, it could never be a comparison, one experience paved the way for the other and now I can't see the first without the marks the second have made on me. I'm not really sure he knows the extent of the relationship, how intense it was. I told some colleagues about it recently. A few women in my academic department I'm trying to get to know. They wanted to know how I ended up in the UK, and I gave them the whole story. They listened with a sort of rapt attention that surprised me. I guess I supposed that the story was primarily interesting to me because of how much it shaped who I am now.

But, I can't help but feel a little satisfied that he still sometimes comes around like and injured bird and I'm the one who can see why it was meant to end.