Breakfast in Bed… With the Ex
For dramatic effect, I would say that I can’t remember the last time I woke up in bed with a man who could be bothered to make me a cup of coffee in the morning.
But I can remember.
I remember the exact date, the exact circumstances that led to our waking up together, the exact extent of what we did and did not do; I remember exactly what I was wearing (an outfit carefully calculated to remind the unfortunate fellow just how much he had cared for me before I decided to call it quits). I remember the moment his face emerged from the crowd at the Covent Garden tube station, a wintry mix of resignation and regret.
Lastly, I remember our final goodbye, a few hours later, halfway to Paddington Station on the Hammersmith and City Line, and I remember asking him to call me—for the sake of “closure”— one last time before I boarded my flight back to Philadelphia.
He did not. Instead, he sent an email to explain that he “would have called” but hadn’t wanted to make me “emotional.”
As if I wasn’t already emotional. As if I regularly fly to London and end up going home with my ex-boyfriends.
Of course I was emotional.
I’m sick of writing about “types.” According to the careful analysis of my dating spreadsheet, there are more– one more, to be exact, plus a few that seem to defy categorization all together. But it’s almost the end of the work week. My “analysis” can wait.
Until then…
He wasn’t perfect—far from, to be honest—but he had this way of tucking me in, of rearranging his pillows so that they were just so for me, of slipping out of bed in the morning to buy me muffins and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from the corner shop, of slipping back into bed after he’d set our cups of coffee upon the Nintendo console that served as his nightstand (black for him, white for me) and of making me feel as though I was the most beautiful creature to ever fall asleep in his arms.
It is moments such as those that I miss after all these months of dating: those drowsy weekend mornings, those nights when you’re too tired to do anything more than cook dinner and watch illegally downloaded sitcoms together, those evenings when you fall asleep on the bus, not upon the hard, cold window pane, but upon the shoulder of the man seated beside you.
And so when I say “I can’t remember the last time I woke up in bed with a man who could be bothered to make me coffee in the morning,” what I really mean is that I can’t remember the last time somebody made me feel so…
I’m told there’s a word for that. It seems, however, that I’ve forgotten it.
Kat Echevarría Richter 
7 Responses to “Breakfast in Bed… With the Ex”
Awww Kat. I nearly cried reading this post. There is so much heartache in those words.
You WILL find the right man … when you least expect it.
Thanks for another amazing piece of writing, and a look inside your life.
Take care,
Lisa
Yes there is a word for it, but I dare not mention it. But the feeling is one of feeling like you have been snuggled up in a big soft quilt on a cold winters day.
I think you need to go traveling again. Throw the dating out to the wind and just seek out (mis)adventures instead.
I hope that serial dating isn’t making you immune to the possibility of being swept off your feet. As much as I enjoy your posts on ‘types’, and outfits and “Date #50, “, I imagine that all those spreadsheets and high heels and witticisms cover a more urgent need to affirm that love exists. From Retail to Romance to Resignation or from Retail to Romance to Renaissance? The latter may require a tearing up of those virtual spreadsheets though.. 😉
I admire this piece, I wish it and hope it… the cute parts of course. I hope you -and I find what we are looking/hoping for.
Wow I better not download you anything else now that I know what it’s being used for.
That’s really beautiful… sorry it didn’t work out. That happens sometimes… I hate it. And, thank you mostly for sharing.