Now that it’s officially summer – aka the season of summer love – I thought it was high time to bring back our semi-regular relationship series. And this go-round our love guru Megan McCarty is tackling a topic we can all relate to – how to divvy things up after a break up. There’s the dividing of belongings, perhaps the question of who gets the apartment, maybe even pet co-ownership, but what about your favorite haunts?

I’ll let Megan explain – I strongly suspect you’ll understand where she’s coming from!

Somewhere along the way, probably between the day my braces came off and, well, yesterday, I learned the difference between for now and forever. Most relationships come with an expiration date, and I get that, so I’m fairly rational when it comes to breaking up. No long-winded, wine-fueled texts. No begging for you back. No bashing you to my friends.

However, come my next “this isn’t working for me,” I’ve considered setting one little ground rule that may seem less-than-rational: a certain restaurant – the one I’ve worked at for years – is now off-limits. I get it, I get it. The brunches are Insta-worthy, that shrimp dish is truly life-changing, it’s a go-to for a late-night sip of something.

But when a man I dated a couple years ago came waltzing into my work on a bustling Friday night, his seemingly lovely girlfriend on his arm, my eyeballs just about popped out of my head. WHY. It felt alarmingly akin to him barging into my home and then expecting me to serve them dinner.

He has every right to go there. But why would he want to? There’s simply zero zilch no way he thought of going to this restaurant out of all of our city’s James Beard-y restaurants and didn’t consider the possibility that I’d be there.

Did he not think it’d be a big deal? (We ended things on a good-ish note, after all.) Was it his girlfriend’s idea and he didn’t want to make their date night awkward by saying no? (“Who’s Megan? You’re over her, aren’t you?”) Did he cross his fingers that I’d have the night off? (Not the worst strategy.) Did he want to show off his new girlfriend, like a prideful peacock? (Yes, she’s very pretty, we all see.)

I put on my big girl pants and said hi, how are you, you like the wine? and other chit chatty baloney. Thing is, I don’t expect us to tip-toe around each other forever. Even the biggest of cities can turn into the tiniest of towns once there’s a collection of ex-boyfriends to avoid. Inevitably we’ll brush shoulders at the same crowded concert, or our mutual friends will get married or I’ll pop into the grocery store after a particularly hot yoga session and we’ll bump into each other in the ice cream aisle, because the universe finds that sort of thing hilarious. It’s bound to happen and that’s fine, because we’re grown adults who can be kind and civil, particularly to the fellow grown adults who have seen your behind-closed-bedroom-door faces.

But why would he purposefully put himself (and his sweet, innocent girlfriend!) in that awkward situation? I surveyed friends. “That’s how you know they’re still hungry,” said the ultra-wise Nora Purmort. “They are like, ‘Megan, look how good I’m doing’ *dying inside.*” A guy friend, speaking from experience, concurred with Nora. I still think he was just trying to stick it to me somehow.

Nearly every day on my way to work I drive past a coffee shop that another ex and I would crawl to most mornings while we were together. I miss it, sure, mostly for nostalgia’s sake and partially for the chai, but I would never ever ever (ever ever ever) go in. That’s his coffee shop, he won custody of it in the breakup, and I can take my caffeine-deprived self to literally dozens of other ones. And how stalker-esque would I feel if I ran into him there?

So tell me, though ultimately it’s still our city, is it fair to assume some custody: my restaurant, your coffee shop? Or am I less of a breeze than I like to think I am?

To catch up on our entire relationship series, CLICK HERE. For more of fabulous insights on life and love, you can also follow Megan here and here

photography by daniel faro

It’s been a little while since we resurrected our Love Series penned by the uber talented Megan McCarty. But on the heels of Valentine’s Day, it seems like the perfect time to bring Megan’s wonderful insight on all things relationships back into the fray. Because even if we’ve been coupled up for quite awhile (can you believe I blogged about my wedding 6 years ago!), we can always relate to these types of stories.

I’ll leave it to Megan to explain further.

My ex-boyfriend texted me last week.
Not an “I miss you.” Not a “get your bicycle out of my basement” either.

Instead it was a photo of our basil plant. (Stay with me.) Since we didn’t pop out any little ones or adopt anything furry with four legs, this little sprout was the one thing we took good care of together. When going got rough, and boy did it get tiptoeing-around-each-other-level rough, and we weren’t taking care of ourselves or each other, we still made sure that little guy had a healthy share of sunlight and water.

In the photo, it was propped on his windowsill, overlooking the neighbors that I once called neighbors – including that b-word Betty, who would constantly leave hand-scribbled notes on my car, even though it was a public street and we could all park there, ya hear me Betty? – in the home that I once called home.

Such a silly thing to feel warm-fuzzies over, right? But this little plant with its delicious little leaves (what can I say – we both really love a caprese salad) in one little text whispered so much about how I’ve navigated life post-breakup. In the months and more months since our anguished and necessary split, the basil upgraded from a plastic cup to a ceramic planter and is greener than ever. Though it also looks like it had survived a rough winter, as its leaves have been pared down, and it’s just now stretching to the sky again.

In a way, I relate to the basil. (Again, stay with me.)

There’s a learning curve to accepting singledom after being a part of a duo for so long. Sleeping alone. Ordering that pizza just for yourself. Not having someone ask how your day was. But after I licked my wounds and propped my chin back up and let time do its healing voodoo, everything took on a new perspective. Getting the whole bed to myself. Ordering whichever pizza I wanted, not the one with the all the meats and all the peppers that he knew I hated. Walking in the door whenever, not by 7:00 p.m., which forced me to skip yoga, so we could quick rush to our dinner reservation, in order for us to spend a little bit of quality time together at the end of just another week during which we both worked too much.

And like the basil, I had to shed some layers. Of resentment, of regret, of possessions that no longer served my moving on mentality. Living in my own place again gave me the opportunity to comb through everything I owned and had easily lived without during our relationship. I’m not the type to cry over movie ticket stubs and rip up photos of us or chop off my hair after a breakup, but I will clean the hell out of my house and make a few trips to Goodwill to unload.

So, my dear, sweet basil plant, doesn’t it feels good to stretch your branches again? Oooh, yes it does. Just don’t let Betty bother you.

copy by Megan McCarty // image via here