Holly D. Mattson

A few years ago, I got a call from A after work as I was driving to yoga. "Hey, I've been in a car accident. Can you come rescue me?" The accident was on the route I was headed, just five minutes ahead. Glass in the road, a police officer, diverted traffic. Nothing horrific--just bad news at a bad intersection. Thankfully, A was fine. It wasn't until we drove over to the tow lot that I got a good look at the car and its gnarled-up front end. With our hands on our hips, we surveyed the scene, replaying the what-ifs. We reminisced about all the good memories with that car. We chuckled at the irony of being hit by a vehicle owned by the tow truck company. Even having seen the wreckage, I was certain that a trip to the body shop would fix things up.

Not so much. The insurance assessor deemed it to be totaled. But what about this and this and this? They're all still good, right? A few days later, with a big check in hand, A was deciding whether to go with the latest model in black or blue. Everybody had already moved on . . .

* * *

A few weeks ago, I got a text from A as I was leaving the office. "When it rains, it pours. Just got into a car accident. Minor, but ugh."

Traffic was crawling, and with all the stop and go, he dinged the back bumper of an SUV. From the outside, it just looked like a scuff, a bump, and a busted-up emblem on his front end. Not such a big deal. The other, bigger car was fine. While the damage behind the scenes on A's car was more serious than visibly apparent, at least this time the car was reparable. But the headache and the expense of this tiny ding seemed to be so much more frustrating to him than the car that was totaled.

* * *

Totaled. Ex. Break-up. Split. There's an abrasive finality to these words that I don't like. When a relationship ends--even amicably as ours did--society resorts to the "game over" lexicon. But what about the relationships that are worth salvaging? We need new words to describe these transitions. Realignment. Adjustment. Tune-up.

Neither one of us is looking for a "good as new" or "better than before" fix as we move ahead separately. To do so would just diminish the journey we've been on--these past 14 years, as well as the journey of the last month and a half. So what if our "boyfriend/girlfriend" emblem has cracked under pressure and fallen to the ground? So what if the cause of incident sounds so trivial? It just is . . . so let it be.

So for now, we're going to just drive around in this mightily imperfect and time-worn exterior with no plans to take ourselves in for repair. No damage here. Only character. Only stories. Only life experience. We may have a lot of miles on us, but we we're still moving forward.

"Scars are souvenirs you never lose . . ."

Soundtrack: "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls

Ages ago . . . Before this last love of mine, I dated someone for 2.5 years. I was baby-faced and so, so young when we first met. Freshly graduated from college, on the cusp of starting a new job and living with two of my college roommates. Still traipsing around in the Doc Martens from my study abroad. Life was good. Everything was exciting and new.

I wasn't prepared for him to break out in hives--yes, literal hives--on the day we moved in together, two years after we first met. Or for the suffocating feeling of buying household crap at Linens n' Things together. Or the sinking feeling of grocery shopping together on a Saturday night, stocking up on Lean Cuisines and bags of frozen broccoli. Was this really my life? Our life? And yet, we persevered. We bought a dining room table. We adopted a cat.

So it really was no surprise six months into our living together that he announced wanting to end things. We had gotten so comfortable, so . . . boring . . . with one another. Yet that comfort was no small thing to me. Still, I absolutely stand by comfort and camaraderie as being an important part of a loving relationship. But there's a lot of truth in that ol' cliché about sparks. You just can't sustain a true, deep, loving relationship on comfort alone. At least not if you want to feel sparks in other parts of your life, too. Our emotions and experiences are all woven together.

We broke up on a Sunday night in January 1999. Me in my polka-dot robe, him in his tennis whites. Both of us sitting on the floor slumped against the refrigerator. As right as I knew the decision was (damn wisdom), it still hurt. And I was scared. I was making pennies in my job as an editorial assistant, and I had a falling out with my old roommates. I didn't know where I would go.

In the days that followed, I moved myself into the second bedroom across the hall. We agreed that we could ride out the remaining six months of our lease together in this way. Plus, we'd both grown pretty fond of the cat.

But the comfort and the camaraderie--at least for me--aren't things I can readily let go of. I'm not programmed that way. "On" and "off" are such extremes in my book. Perhaps this explains my infatuation with dimmer switches around the house. Anyhow . . .

Memory has a way of smoothing out the jagged edges over time--so perhaps it didn't go as easily as I remember--but our transition from boyfriend & girlfriend to dearest of friends was as subtle as a flicker of that dimmer switch. So much so that we renewed our year-long lease--three times. Moving out in June 2002 very well may have been more bittersweet than the breakup. But it was time for us to go our separate ways--he to a condo in the Fenway, me to live with the guy I'd been dating for nearly three years. The guy who proved himself to be confident enough, trusting enough, and caring enough to love someone so ridiculously close with her ex. But the growing up I had done in those two-plus years of dating and four years of living together was monumental. He was a huge part of my post-college "finding myself" experience--and I for him.

But isn't everything in life monumental? Especially in hindsight? I can damn well tell you that the growing up that A and I have done these past 14 years together has been profound.

So, now what do we do? We're only three weeks out in this breakup. We've been broken down and now it's time to build ourselves back up. Individually, for sure; but together, too--I hope.

History has taught me that I can indeed be best friends with an ex boyfriend. But is this an anomaly? Or is it just me? Am I the ex boyfriend whisperer or just that afraid to let go? Can't we just dim the switch a nudge and carry on?

Soundtrack: "Separate Ways" by Journey (because in true best friend fashion, there's an inside joke that goes with this song)