The Dead Ex

The Dead Ex:
     So I've been struggling about what to do with the ashes of my dead ex. He's been dead since July of 2004. I'm writing this in May of 2012. Yeah. For almost 8 years that carbon ash has been sitting in a hermetically (did I spell that right?) urn either on a shelf or in a closet collecting more ash on top of it from the particulate filled LA air.
     That sealed urn of ash has come to be a sore spot in my relationship, a symbol of old luggage I just won't be rid of, and an anchor to the past that for some underlying reason I haven't cut loose. And I I don't know why.

Me and Johnathan in the spring of 2004,
shortly before he died.

     My partner John died at age 37 from congestive heart failure. He was young, reckless and often times pig headed in his life. He was a conman, a sweetheart, an abuser, a romantic, a thief and a liar. I loved him with what I thought was everything I had despite all I knew he was. I ignored it. I told myself he was just misunderstood. No one knew him like I did. And in part that was true. He was a liar and a cheat right from the beginning. Everyone knew it from me. People told me that he was cheating. He got busted cruising for sex in a public park, he stole my ID to give to a guy to use to fly with so he could make a large drug purchase... insanity. He lied to me about why he lost his jobs. He lied to me when he told me he was HIV+ six years into our relationship about when he must have gotten it. He lied to me about going to AA meetings. He lied to me about an affair he was having with a "friend". HE LIED TO ME ALL THE TIME...but I refused to believe it.
     I was 20 years old when we met and he was the first real man whose head I turned. He was the first to show real and true interest in me. I had just come out in college not to long before and was new to the whole dating world. I knew nothing of relationships. This 12 year relationship would turn out to be all I knew of relationships. for what little better and for much worse.
    Anyway, so you can see why I feel conflicted about those fucking ashes. Some days I want to do a ceremony, find closure and release them somewhere at sea or some shit like that. Other days I want to drop them down the trash chute or flush them down the toilet. Lucky for my dead ex that urn is sealed shut and I will need a professional to pop the fucker open, because if it wasn't, he'd probably be in a land fill by now. I love him and hate him. And have yet to make peace with that...

     I've managed to fool someone new to fall in love with me. Someone whom I love right back. he's been patient, loving, undestanding and sweet about those ashes. But he's tired of being in a 3-way relationship and I don't blame him. So just as much for us now as it is going to be for me, I need to dump those ashes somewhere and, at least symbolically, be free of that luggage.

And here is the man I love now. the man that showed me how you treat another in a relationship, how you respect someone and how to really really LOVE someone as you should in a relationship. I used to think John was the love of my life... I was naive and young. Peter is the greatest love I have ever known, the most honorable man I think I've ever met, and one of the wisest people in my life.
He not only opened my heart, but he showed me what to do with it.