... to give me back my black tee shirt

How quickly moments are created and embedded in your day. My trusty side kick Marcus called me tonight and asked if I wanted to run out and get Wendy's with him. He joked that we live less than two blocks apart and see each other less often than we see our parents. And so I threw on my touque, grabbed some cash and waited for him to come and pick me up.

Now, 2 hours later, I'm glad I decided to go. I don't know why I keep expecting things to be awkward between us. What we have now, three months after breaking up (and almost a year since the emotional death of our relationship), is everything we had before, minus any sort of attraction or physicality. It seems almost better in a way; we can now joke about things that used to be taboo. He teased me about my excessive sensitivity, and the fact that we got "too married, too soon". I told him that I hated his belt that had skulls on it and that he probably already said 'I love you' to his new gf of a month. Everything was easy. We talked a lot about our new relationships and how happy we were, in general. We can still finish each other's sentences, but now it's in a casual, comfortable way. We parked outside of my house, and talked for almost 2 hours, but when we were done we didn't hug goodbye. There wasn't really a need to.

At the end, we had the following conversation:

Bri: "Marcus, are you glad that we broke up?" (pensive silence follows)
Bri " I didn't mean to ask such a loaded question. I guess what I wanna know is that you're happy again. That you aren't upset with me in some way, y'know?"
Marcus: "I am happy. And I'm better being me than I was being 'marcusandbri'. But, like, I miss your presence in my life, and your companionship. I just don't miss ... everything else. I don't miss the way that we didn't fit on big issues. Logistically, this is what needed to happen so that we could stay friends"
Bri: "I miss having a movie date on Wednesdays, but I don't miss feeling guilty for not being able to fully be IN LOVE with you"
Marcus: "We can still go see movies - I'm just not going to watch your stupid chick flicks or buy you your popcorn anymore"
Bri: "Done"

And then I shut the car door. And I thought to myself, is this the end of an era, or the beginning of a new one? It's hard to tell. I'm just so surprised sometimes that we aren't mad at each other, that we still genuinely respect each other as people and want one another to be happy. Isn't that against every rule of ending long-term, emotionally invested relationships?

Or maybe I was never so emotionally invested that I would allow it to hurt me.

Either way, I had a really cool night with a good friend. I almost feel motivated again to get back to work on this paper that's due at 11:30 tomorrow. Almost.

Song of the Moment: "Nothing Better" by the Postal Service
Best Lyrics: Tell me, am I blind to think that there could be nothing better?