I downloaded Instagram again today after a long break. The first thing it suggested was a picture of my ex. Apparently, getting back into an app requires a small emotional entrance fee.
We were together for almost four years and lived together for most of them. We broke up about a year and a half ago because she cheated on me. It had apparently been going on for almost eleven months, which is a long time to be sharing a home with someone while missing a fairly significant part of the story.
Six months after we split, she had a new boyfriend. Since then, through friends whose lives still overlap with both of ours, I’ve gotten the impression that things have been going pretty well for her.
Then I saw the picture. Her appearance had changed so much that I barely recognized her. She looked almost like a mirror image of her boyfriend, as though they’d arrived at the same version of themselves.
The new look wasn’t what really got me, though. It was seeing her seem comfortable with things she hadn’t wanted with me. Posting pictures together, for instance. Including her boyfriend in her social circle. Things I’d wanted during our relationship now appeared to happen without any hesitation.
I know how much I’m filling in. A photograph doesn’t tell me what their relationship is like. Mutual friends don’t deliver a complete account of someone’s life, either. But knowing that doesn’t stop the comparison from starting.
I’m still carrying what happened into how I see myself and how easily I trust people. Meanwhile, from the little I can see, she’s settled into an entirely new life.
I don’t begrudge her having a future. I just wasn’t prepared to have it suggested to me before I’d done anything else on Instagram. I barely recognized the person in that picture, and somehow she could still make me feel exactly the same.
