right person, wrong time
every story needs an ending. and i think this might be ours.
Every week, you guys. Every week. I say to myself, “Take a break from the newsletter this week. You can go one week without.” And without fail, every single time I become detached from the idea, the letter starts to write itself.
It’s 4:44 AM in our very cold, but very sunny, Toronto. I have to be honest, I kind of love when the temperatures dip into the below 0’s and the sun still shines - only because your cheeks have that perma-flush and you still want to stroll around the city, holding your latte to keep warm.
I’m up early. This is due to my new sleep gummies which knock me out for solid 4-5 hours. The problem with this is that I took them at 9 PM last night, which meant that at 3 AM, I was wide awake, craving a breakfast sandwich.
My Friday night consisted of my favourite things: gluten-free pasta (Rummo Rigatone Forever) with a rosé sauce on my mom’s old china, the newest episode of Southern Charm, and this eye and cheek mask (I love this brand).
I have to be honest. I never thought I’d come back to Toronto, and start a new chapter that I genuinely have been enjoying so much. I’ve filled my space with candles and dried flowers, and always make sure the light dimmers are set to the lowest. I listen to Taylor and Ariana and Flower Face (you guys will love). My skincare is sprawled out all over the bathroom counter. I make my bed with the fluffy white duvet every morning. I use coffee from Forno in my French Press. I see friends for cheap wine and good pasta at our usual spots.
I like my peace. I like my quiet. My calm. My sanctuary. My inner world. The Venusian beauty of it all. And sometimes (most of the time) we learn that we need to go at lengths to protect it.
-
I hadn’t seen OFM since that fateful run-in after my apartment viewing at the beginning of November. His work got “busy”, we never went for wine, he went away on business, I stopped reaching out. He went to Turks, and messaged me from there.
“Hi Emily. How are you?”
“Tired. Moving day. You?”
“Moving out of the city??”
“No. Signed the lease.”
“She signed it?!? You were having cold feet.”
“She was. But she signed anyways. How’s Turks?”
“You should be excited. Think of all the shopping.”
I smile. He knows me too well.
“Turks is amazing. My favourite island for sure.”
"It looks beautiful. Very romantic.”
“Wait. Do you think I’m here with a woman?”
I switch the subject. I do not care to know, and part of me wishes he was so it could make things easier.
“??”
“What?”
“Do you think I’m here with another girl? Because I’m not. Can we catch up when I’m back? I have stories for you. Martini stories.”
“Sure.”
-
A week and a half after he came back from Turks - radio silence. Nothing. None of which surprises me, because this is, unfortunately, OFM’s pattern. It’s like being sold a dream, and then feeling like someone’s pulled a gun on you. It’s promise after promise, then excuse after excuse.
So, I do the natural thing to combat the routine internal dialogue of disappointment and blame. I take myself out on an Emily Mais date. The Toronto version. Without Franco, and without the characters at the bar. It’s not the same, but I’m hellbent on trying.
I wrap myself up in my vintage fur and throw on red baseball hat.
“I love how you’re trying to be in disguise with this outfit. Except nothing about it blends in.” My friend tells me.
It’s Happy Hour. I take advantage of the $5 reds. The problem with red wine, I realize - is that it kills any sort of desire I have to eat food and makes me extremely teary eyed. I wonder what the MATF would tell me. Some sort of line about seeing the good in everyone. Some sort of line about being honest with myself. Then he’d hand me his cigarette and ask to come over after work.
I cave and text OFM instead.
“Hi.”
“Hiiiii.”
The multiple i’s indicate he’s been drinking too.
Another message from him comes in.
“What are you up to tonight?”
“Wine on Ossington. You?”
“Work event. Been here since 1. Can I message you in an hour and see where you are?”
“No. Don’t worry about leaving your event.” I wasn’t in the mood for a last minute hang out. I wanted a date. An actual, real life, planned out date to show that he was actually interested, or that he actually cared. Just like how it was before.
“I know you’d never ask me to. But let me see if I can swing it.”
The bigger part of me just wanted to end it, all of the back and forth. That was the easier option. Putting an end to that internal dialogue that felt like an eternal spiral.
“Breadcrumbs.” My best friend texts me. “And I hate that word. But that’s what it is.”
And what exactly am I clinging onto? I ask myself. The hopes that he would change? Your biggest fear is becoming a therapist to your partner. Or worse, becoming their mother. Which explains my long reign of being single. We’re protecting our peace, remember?
But what could be on the other side of this?
“I miss you.” I press send. It’s vulnerable. “Kind of wish I didn’t though.” And it’s the truth.
“There are worse people to miss? I think.”
“I think. Enjoy your night my friend.”
“Emily.”
The friend comment catches him off guard. And I don’t do it intentionally. It just happens.
“I miss you too. I do.”
Those $5 Happy Hour reds. I think of our first date, 7 years ago - and how we ended up back at his place and talked about our favourite books in his bed (completely clothed). The Hardy Boys was his favourite series as a kid. I think of how I took “he’s different with you than he is with other girls” as a compliment back then, and now I’m aware of the red flags that come with that statement. Because I was different, and he didn’t choose me. We couldn’t fight it. It just happened.
I think about those accidental group dates that I found myself on, and how we always held each other’s hands under the table. And how his friends still make fun of him, to this day, because it was so out of character for him. I think of him teaching me how to use a wine opener.
“Jesus Emily. I thought we got past this.” He slid into my story DM’s of a photo of broken cork a year ago.
I think of me cooking him dinner and using too much garlic in my pasta sauce. I think of him pretending to like it. I think of sitting on his lap, my arms around his neck and his around my waist. “At least we have the wine.”
I think of all of those nights that turned into mornings, and I wonder how and why things moved as quickly as they did.
I think of how that was the first time I realized home could exist in a person.
There wasn’t a year that went by that I didn’t think of what would have happened. Or what could have happened.
But maybe, the timing was always right. And maybe, I would just never be the right person for him. And maybe, he just would never be the right person for me.
We were a moment in time. A beautiful moment. And albeit, it was a quick moment, but it was a beautiful one.
“We really did have everything, Emily - didn’t we?”
-
It’s been a few weeks since that $5 Happy Hour Red night. I told him, in the most wish-I-hated-you-coded way that I didn’t want to do “this” anymore. To which he didn’t respond.
“He can never let you have the last word. And he also doesn’t want there to be a last word.” My best friend says.
Then, the universe had us run into each other AGAIN, to which he said “don’t worry about those messages - you were just a little drunk”, to which he messaged me two days later at 10 PM to see me, to which I said no because it felt like a booty call, to which he replied, “wasn’t a booty call, just have been busy every day for two weeks”.
Here’s what I’ve learned, as I finish typing this newsletter to me, and to you. It’s now Saturday evening, and of course, we have Taylor playing in the background and our gluten-free penne boiling on the stove.
After OFM and I ended in 2018, I viewed love extremely differently. My walls were higher than ever. I didn’t trust any man that I came into contact with.
The term, “right person”, to me, holds weight. It says, “you are everything”, but “wrong time” feels like, “I cannot be the one to hold you”.
Then I met PN. The Man at the Front. All of the Roman men. Who, unknowingly, broke down that barrier. I became aware of my fears, led with my heart, and let each one of them hold me, or at least - a piece of me.
A friend once said to me, “Some people choose to remain tightly wound. And it’s not our job to untangle them.”
I am proud to love. I am so proud that I loved back then. And I am so proud that I loved now. I am proud that, despite the outcome, I kept my heart open to change. That I believed in something. Because what is life if we don’t carry just a little bit of hope?
But most of all, I am proud of myself. I am proud of seeing the good from the past, recognizing the good, but also learning that I need more. I deserve more. I deserve a planned martini date in a corner booth somewhere. With a cute make-out. From someone who believes they are enough to hold me. All of me.
I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know what this Gemini Full Moon holds. But it does feel like, it’s the end of an old story. And the start of something new.
Can’t you feel it? Because I can.
Emily