It’s been a weird week. Two of my exes emailed me and I ran into another one while I was having lunch with a friend on Saturday. And just like that, I’m going back, back down memory lane…

***

It’s the year 2000 and I’ve just moved to Virginia after being in Hawaii for six years. It’s the year of Dave Hollister’s Chicago ’85…The Movie on repeat. I’m still wearing weaves down my back and hoochie mama clothes like I’m still in the damn tropics. I meet C at a club while we’re dancing to the Percolator. He’s a nice boy, and even though he’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic, the fact that he worships the ground I walk on keeps us together for about a year.

Earlier this week, C emails me (at my business email address, so I know he must have Googled me) with this subject line:

“Hello there nubian princess”

I didn’t even know people still said this. Maybe it’s my hair. Anyway, he goes on to say, “I just wanted to congratulate you on all your successes in life.” How nice. For a split second, I think about writing back “thank you,” then decide that I don’t really want to start up an email chain with an ex-boyfriend from 10 years ago. But I did say it in my head.

***

And then it’s early 2006. I’ve just broken off my engagement to K, and I’m not yet ready for anything but learning how to live on my own again. Then I meet A, who was the epitome of everything I would have wanted at the time…if I had wanted anything, that is. He had beautiful locs down his back and a smile to match. I think we met on Myspace, when Myspace was full of cuties that you’d actually want to date. His only flaw was that he smoked marijuana, and yeah I know weed’s from the earth, but it’s still a drug, people. And I just cannot date a pothead without wondering if he’s high while we’re talking on the phone. We date for a few months until I do something stupid that I can’t even remember now. But I know that whatever I did, it was probably just to avoid telling him that I didn’t like his drug habit.

When I get a glimpse of A having lunch at Eatonville, I do a double take. He waves. I wave back. And wonder if that’s his girlfriend sitting across from him. I don’t have to wonder long, though, because they come by our table on their way out. The girl is his friend in town from Chicago and we start chatting it up about nonprofits since apparently she is starting one in DC. He asks me how I’ve been. He’s standing above me with those long locs laying over his shoulder as perfect as they wanna be. He says, “I see you finally went natural,” AND THEN PROCEEDS TO TOUCH MY HAIR. Lawdamercy. At this point I basically zone out as he continues to talk. I’d meant to casually throw out an invitation to get together some time, but my brain must’ve realized that wasn’t such a good idea, so the words never made it to my lips. It was nice to see him, though.

***

Finally, we come to the summer of 2007. I meet J on Craigslist at a time in my life when I hadn’t really been seeing anyone seriously for a while. I wanted some stability, and he was it. We dated for almost a year, within which time we moved in together in a big 2 bedroom apartment in Laurel, Maryland. I wasn’t into the relationship as much as I could’ve been, but I was so heavily focused on my career at that point and I told myself I needed something low maintenance.

I don’t exactly miss J, but I do miss the life we had created together. He was the kind of person who wouldn’t let me be a total workaholic. He made me slow down and watch a funny movie or go for a night out dancing at the club and leave work alone for a while. When we moved in together, he even found a cleaning lady to come help us keep up the house since I was so busy at work and traveling all the time for my consulting business on the side.

J emails me this weird message this week:

Hello Rosetta- If possible, and if you still remember the password to the yahoo account we had together can you delete that acct if possible. I have no idea what we set the password to and Im still getting reminders from the accounts calenders.

Um, seriously? We broke up in late 2008. So you’re telling me you’ve been getting my calendar reminders for over a year and just now contacting me for the account password? How strange. I try to figure out the real motive behind his message and end up not writing him back at all. In any case, I can’t even remember my address from 2007, let alone an account password that we created back then.

***

And now it’s 2010. I’m on my way home from taking myself out to dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill when this song catches me off guard on the radio.

Now I love Eric Benet and all, but his new joint hits a little too close to home. It makes me wonder about what could have been, what my life would be like now if I had stuck it out with any of my exes, really. What might have happened if we’d tried a little harder?

It’s a song about moving on, but a little bit about regret, too. A fitting way, I suppose, to end the week of the ex.

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