Savoring My Key Lime Pie

I just pulled a key lime pie out of my freezer. Well, the closest thing to key lime pie money can buy in Colorado. You really can't get the true, authentic thing anywhere but Florida. Here's a hint: if it's green it isn't real. One of my managers at Disney turned me on to the stuff. One taste of that smooth sugary virgin margarita across my twenty-two year old tongue and I was hooked.

I shouldn't like key lime pie. In fact, I should be revolted by it. Why? Because the sugar daddy boyfriend, the one I held onto for ten years for some god awful reason, used to buy one from Publix for me whenever he came over. Maybe it was his way of trying to seduce me, but I would've preferred something that didn't go straight to the hips (or the behind). And then of course there's all the times he would order it for me when we went out on the town. Oh well, he knew it was my new favorite and I suppose it was just another way for him to show his appreciation. I didn't argue because for that first year he drove all the way to Orlando to see me, even after midnight.

So now we're single and I'm still eating the stuff. Tomorrow I'll be working it off on the treadmill and the elliptical for two hours, but I'm not letting the fool pop into my head while I'm trying to enjoy it. Well, ok, he still pops into my head. I wonder if he's ok. I wonder what he might be doing. I still worry about his youngest daughter, the one that got pregnant at 16 and has been raising her child by herself for the past nine years. The four "B's" still cross my mind and I miss hearing about how they are doing. At times I miss hearing his voice and the way it would comfort me when I couldn't sleep.

I miss the butterflies that I'd get when I would look at my phone and see that he'd called-sometimes three times a day just to chat and to plan what we'd do the next time I could get away. I miss the candlelit dinners in the Greek restaurants along Gulf Boulevard in St. Pete. I miss the way we used to argue over how he wanted to go to Gator's instead of the Italian place and I'd give in so he could watch his Devil Rays. And I miss the closeness, being with him, seeing his face in the morning, and watching the sunset at the beach. Yeah I even miss how he'd get a little arrogant when he had too much to drink.

But ten years is too long to say goodbye to someone who can no longer give you what you want. That's the whole point of a relationship-it's a discovery, a journey. You find out things about yourself that were hidden and you help the other shed light on what they may have hidden. That's a process and a gift you shouldn't regret, even if it ends badly or more easily than you thought it would. That process may in fact be opening the door to something (or someone) you'll end up cherishing more someday.

Reminders of it, like key lime pie, shouldn’t be automatically abandoned either. After all, a taste that good only comes around once in a lifetime. Offers from potential Sugar Daddies, on the other hand, seem to drop in daily.

Perhaps it's time to "force myself" into Cougarville. I've already spotted a prime candidate.