Excellent It gets harder with time From Better to Worse by Elizabeth Emerald Artwork by Linda Bickston at FanArtReview.com

“All my Exes Live in Texas.” Don’t I wish. Then I wouldn’t chance running into them. It’s been years, thankfully, since I’ve crossed paths with any of the three. In the first year post-break-up, I’d encounter each of them regularly at the nightclub we used to go as a couple, where we’d first met. I wasn’t blindsided; I expected to see them and their latest ladies. We all managed our weekly “Meet and Greet.” Tough all around in the beginning, for sure, but, just as they say, it got better with time. Until, with more time, it got worse. Time cuts two ways: The triple A’s—agony, anger, awkwardness—abate as the connection between you loosens the more time goes by. The more time goes by and the connection between you loosens, the less you are able to recall just why in the world you stayed with the dick so damn long. Consequently, the more pissed you get at yourself for having stayed with the dick so damn long. Time: that phony faith healer. Father Time’s mindless flock spews such an insipid chorus of  “rah, rah, rah”—baa, baa, baa—about toughing it out to the other side of Mount Misery. When hearts are torn asunder, you dare not tarry in the valley of despair; no, you must trudge along, hang on, pull yourself up and over; after six months of hard climbing all that’s left is a dull ache, and before the year is out you’ll find yourself—poof!—in the magical land of “Let’s-Be-Friends.” I’ll pass, thanks. No hard feelings (ha!), just…NO.  Why contend with continual reminders of romantic failures and disappointments? More to the point: How demoralizing to devolve from once-upon-a-time-forever-afters to friends-in-name-only.   Friends. Ha! What an insipid misnomer to describe the void that’s left after pain has faded and each has gone his/her separate way. How can we be friends when there’s no “we” anymore? That silly ditty “Let’s Be Friends” implies an “us” that no longer exists. Better faux friends than flat-out foes, I suppose. Better still: Let’s pretend we never met. Oops! That won’t work. Drat! Those pesky pronouns again.   Recognized Author Notes Thanks to Linda Bickson for the artwork: Sam Elliott, Icon ''All my Exes Live in Texas'' was written by Sanger and Lyndia Shafer and recorded by George Strait. Consider this piece as a companion to my recent spouting on the subject: Can We Be Friends? By now you should realize that the question is rhetorical.

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