stay gold ponyboy

Today is the birthday of my ex-boyfriend. It’s his 30th birthday, and while I had anticipated that we might not be together as lovers for his birthday, I had never in my life expected that we would be on non-speaking terms.

Yuri and I met when we both 22, around the beginning of January. It was a friend’s birthday party. I had seen him at various parties but never had any occasion to say hello. That night, before leaving, based on pure impulse, I stood on my tip toes and ran my fingers through his sandy blonde hair. He was too tall. Two nights after, we met up by chance at a cafe…he walked in through the door just as I was walking out. He asked me what I was doing, we went together to a club to dance, then he lit a pack of matches in the snow, and we did a little shmeezle-shmozzle dance on the street, and the night finally ended when he taped the sound of my cat eating with Glenn Gould in the background. He slept on my couch that night. We didn’t touch. I wasn’t even sure if I liked him so much as I was charmed by his way of being.

Then he didn’t call me. Then he called me while I was out and didn’t leave a number. And then I stared out my window three nights, scared to miss him if he walked by. Finally, frustrated with being inside the whole time, I walked out and there he was, right on the corner. He asked me to cut his hair and we spent the next couple of days together without stop, barely speaking, not touching, just spending time together.

Two weeks later we went to the island on the coldest night of the year. It was something like –40 with the windchill. The boat broke the ice as it went and the sound was like bone cracking. We broke into a house, hung out in the attic. Then the cold became too much, and we went to catch the boat back, jumping up and down and screaming to keep warm. When we got back, we drank hot roasted barley tea. And then, while sitting on the couch and listening to music, he turned around and kissed me. I was happy…not over-excited, not turned on…but completely happy.

We stayed together for 6 years, we lived together for 5.5 years, and we broke up in the most heart-breakingly unpoetic abrupt way. I have no news from him, no phone number, no mail, no contact, and his new girlfriend :fiancée :wife (not sure) sent me hatemail just a couple of months ago. He cut himself off from the rest of the world shortly after he met her. None of his friends know where he is. He’s disappeared.

But when you grow up with someone, all through the 20s years, it’s hard to let go. I mean, I’m glad we broke up, because it would have been hard to be together as man and wife for the rest of our lives, but it’s hard not to think of those years without him. Despite all the bad moments, and the fights, and the ugly decisions, I like to remember the best of him, the lost boy and the brilliant artist, too sensitive to talk, pure joy in his laugh. I hope he is happy, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing.

Stay gold Ponyboy.