Surprising Weekend

So this weekend I went home for the 2008 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. For those of you who have no idea what in the world that is, basically it's over 800 hot air balloons all getting together for about 9 days to fly every morning. It's amazing. Anyway, I am friends with a balloon pilot who flies Fiesta and so I help crew. If you don't know what a balloon crew does, they are the ones who help set up the balloon, fill it with air, and get it into the air. Then they chase the balloon with the pilot inside and when the balloon comes down, the crew is there to catch them and help bring the balloon down. It's sooo much fun. Thus, this weekend I decided to enjoy my time and go crew. It was good stuff. So here's what made it weird.

I was introduced to my pilot, John, by my ex-boyfriend, Sam. Sam has been crewing for John for at least 11 years (I think). Well, his parents aren't really crewing much these days and he lacks a car, so he wouldn't be able to crew Fiesta this year unless he had a ride. Last year I was his ride, but since we broke up this past January, we hadn't really talked that much and I was under the impression that he pretty much hated me with a fiery passion. Still, Fiesta is the BIGGEST time for crewing, and definitely the most fun. Because I wouldn't have had the opportunity to ever go to Fiesta, let alone crew it without having had Sam in my life, I figured it was only appropriate for me to ask if he wanted to go as well during the one weekend I was going to be there for it. So I called him up about two weeks before Fiesta to ask if he wanted to go. He was kind of busy so he said to call him later. During the week leading up to Fiesta, I called him again and we decided that he was going to come with me and crew that weekend. It was weird because he talked to me like we'd been friends for the past nine months rather than on a non-speaking basis. That Friday last week we arranged what time I'd be coming to get him and when we'd be meeting up and all those finer details. So at 4:15 a.m. on Saturday morning I showed up at his house and we went to crew Fiesta.

It wasn't bad, actually. However, it did prove to be a bit awkward. For one, his scent was driving me insane. What you have to remember is that we started dating when I was clinically depressed, and his smell helped make me feel better (mainly because I'd be held to him and I'd be smelling him so his smell comforted me). I haven't smelled it in over nine months (because I can't remember smelling it much during the last few months we were together) and so to have it take over the van we were in was driving me insane. Another thing was I didn't know how to act towards him, and I don't think he knew how to act around me. We both felt a little weird. Still, by the end of the day, we were talking at least, and messing around a bit like we used to. Still, it was a little awkward.

That night, I ended up hanging out with him (unexpectedly, for it wasn't planned). We pretty much drove around town for about an hour and a half just talking and catching each other up on our lives since we'd last really talked, which was in January. I also found out in that conversation that he never hated me, and that's when I learned just how much it was affecting me thinking that he hated me all this time. It was amazing. Just suddenly how much everything changed by hearing the words, "I never hated you." It hit me then just how much he still meant to me. And then everything I've been trying to block up in my mind for the past nine months starting breaking my wall. More and more started to slip through. I went home that night feeling so relieved it was insane.

The next morning, we didn't crew, because it was raining all night. But it was okay. My friend, Kim, had come with me to crew, so her, Sam, and myself decided that even though we weren't crewing we'd hang out anyway. All we did was sit in my car next to a park just jamming to Jack Johnson and talking. It was nice. And I learned that Sam and I were friends again. Just like that. Nine months of hating (by me) and silence and angst and then after 24 hours it was shattered and suddenly we were friends just like before. I was stunned. I went back to school that afternoon completely dazed from the shock. It was like the past nine months hadn't happened, or like it had just been a weekend apart. My wall blocking all my thoughts and emotions towards Sam completely crumbled beneath the weight of everything. And then I started to realize some things.

For one, what if Sam had been hurting this whole time as much as I have? I wouldn't feel so bad about everything if I knew he had hurt as much as I had. I spent so much time denying the fact that my heart was crying every day because I'd lost my best friend and my other half. For nine months I'd been denying the fact that I was so upset. I lived my life pretending that I didn't care and that I hated him, but I couldn't, because I still loved him. I pushed myself to do so much that I wouldn't have done before as a means of trying to forget about him, to move on, and yet I still couldn't do it. I'd still have days where all I could do was think about him and how upset I was. And I realized that maybe he felt the same, and maybe he was doing the same thing.

And then, what if I had hurt him as bad as he hurt me? He broke up with me, but I flat out told him I didn't care because I was going to break up with him anyway, he just beat me to it. What if that hurt him even more because he hadn't really wanted to break up, but was just scared to do it? Then to find out that I didn't even care, because it was coming anyway. I mean, that had the potential to be the destroyer of worlds. And what if some of the stuff that he had said, like how he had supposedly never loved me, had only been said because it would make the pain of losing me feel like less than it was? What if we'd both been living a lie to try and deny the fact that we both felt like death about being apart and not speaking?

That's when I realized that I couldn't just pretend like he hadn't affected me the way he had. I am who I am because he was a part of my life. I grew and changed and matured with him and it was because of our relationship that I am who I am. And so much shifted in my brain that I don't know what I'm going to do now. I guess I'll just keep going, and see how this develops.