“The ongoing life of exes is an odd landscape.”

People change. Pretty constantly. We are always evolving in our values and our truths, beliefs, and receptions. The feelings that are caught in our throat and heavy in our chest are never as everlasting as we think them to be; within a month or a week or a year they have dissipated. Given a year, we will never be the same people we once were. Even so, in the present, we are unwavering in the knowledge of what it means to be ourselves. We are essentially blind to our own evolution.

Today I found out that my ex-boyfriend got married.

Six years ago he had sworn that he would never do such a thing. I’m a bit hazy on the details of his reasoning now, but I remember clearly his resentment.  Then again, he also condemned anyone who partook in any variety of drugs or alcohol, and I understand that he’s reversed both his opinions and his participation there as well.  Six years later you may as well not know somebody.

But that’s just it: all we ever have of any relationship is a snapshot. What we knew about someone six years ago is almost entirely irrelevant. One day there will be a chance encounter in a grocery store and in that you’ll realize that you’re strangers who happen to have a past.  It goes the other way too, of course: sometimes people could evolve into someone astoundingly attractive or interesting to you. The point is that what we know about people expires. Always.