When Your Ex’s Ghost Haunts You Everywhere

I could do without the reminders.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen my ex, Jon. Twenty-one days to be exact, but who’s counting?

This is the umpteenth time I’m back to getting over him. That fucker got under my skin.

Life moves on, and so has he. Despite the heartache, I’m making an ardent effort to wait 30 days since the last time I saw him before starting anything new with someone else.

I guess it’s a testament to how deep I feel for him and some weird commitment that I have to him, that while I’m in love with him I can’t easily be intimate with someone else. Which is ironic since our relationship was an affair.

The reminders of him are everywhere when I drive. Especially when I go to Newport for appointments because his office is off of the main road to get there. We’ve never had photos taken together but with a private medical practice (and a quick scene in a reality show), Googling his name yields a million pics. I’ve stopped doing that; it feels stalker-ish and pathetic like I’m fangirling over a celebrity.

I have reminders on my body. A scar on my knee from fucking in my car. Another scar from when he redid my tummy tuck surgery. It annoys me that he has no reminders of me anywhere and having bounced between myself, the new chick, and the ex-wife all at the same time, he really doesn’t know what it’s like to feel this breakup of ours. Not that he didn’t feel pain, but not like this; Jon admitted that he shopped around for a replacement before we ended things.

It’s been a year since he began mentally checking out.

And so, life goes on.

A letter from a sweet reader gave me a referral to a plastic surgeon since I need to redo my breast implants. The only person I trust one thousand percent is Jon, but I sure as fuck am not going through months of seeing him for post-op appointments. Plus, I can’t afford him because I’m a poor asshole who’s saving for divorce.

I Google the referral and see that her office is next to Jon’s. Nope. Fuck that noise. Instead, I make an appointment with the doctor I would have used to do my tummy tuck if Jon hadn’t offered. This doctor operated on a friend, his office is near me, and he doesn’t charge Newport Rich People prices.

Last night, I went to bed at 6 am. Yes. Six in the morning. I was up writing a Medium article about a fight with my quasi-ex-husband and how I need to fast-track our change in living situation. In other words, I look like death and I’m emotionally hungover.

With a cancelation, the doctor squeezes me in today for my implant assessment. The issue is that one of them developed a fold on the side. I’m also noticing the other implant is noticeably lower. My Mini Facelift Fund is now my Fix My Boobs Fund, but I need to know how much to put in it since I save for expensive things before I buy, rather than charge and payback.

When I’m in the doctor’s office, it hits me that the last time a guy has seen or touched my breasts was Jon, three weeks ago. The last time I saw myself in a plastic surgeon’s full-length mirror was when Jon marked my body in his office pre-surgery last September and then we fucked enough to ruin his fancy leather white chair.

“You’re a smart girl, I know you’ve done your research. What do you think the options are here?” asks Dr. K. Yes, I’m one of those annoying people who Googles the shit out of everything so I can challenge doctors when they tell me a prognosis. I babble about a mesh doodad that can structurally keep my boobs up or how I could gain weight but it’s been hard ever since the tummy tuck surgery.

“Who did the tummy tuck?” he asks. My initial reaction is to say “Jon”. I think I may have called him “Doctor” during sex but otherwise, calling him “Doctor” seemed pretentious. I fumble and say his name.

Dr. K pauses to think. “Oh, yeah I know him. He’s board-certified.” I answer that we don’t live in Mexico and I can’t imagine there are any quacks here. His assistant corrects me that even a dentist can label themselves as a surgeon. “But don’t people just put their doctor’s name into the American plastic surgery board website to check?”

“You’d think,” Dr. K says, “but anyway, yes, Dr. S. is board-certified”. I know this already, having checked myself when I first met Jon. I don’t care how good your dick is, I’m still going to check your credentials before I let you operate on me.

Somewhere out there, Jon is not stuck having a conversation with my name brought up dozens of times. He has no idea what this feels like.

“What did he suggest you do about the implants?” Dr. K. continues. I mumble how removing one implant means it’s optimal to remove both. Having forgotten anything about the implants themselves, I tell the doctor how Jon looked up my implant serial numbers in a database and that they’re smooth, not textured.

This is enough information for Dr. K. given that I didn’t bring my implants’ warranty card. Yes, if you’ve never had implants, you get a warranty card with your implants’ serial numbers. You don’t get a free toaster with registration on their website, sadly.

He pokes and prods at my left boob. I flashback to being in Jon’s office when he whipped out a measuring tape and wrote down my breast measurements. These memories are killing me inside. Dr. K. has me perform various movements with my arms to see how the implants move.

Then comes the babbling about surgery, the age of my implants, and a bunch of other things that I’m not listening to. I’m cursing that I can’t even be in a plastic surgeon’s office without a reminder of Jon. The universe is an asshole who gives no mental reprieve.

Dr. K. begins telling me my options. Mesh is out, it’s crazy expensive. Getting all new implants is overkill since mine are relatively new. “You could gain weight, but you look…” he rolls his stool back and points to my half-naked body, “dynamite. So that’s probably not what you want to do.”

I have no makeup on. I’m wearing a ghetto, free mask from work. My hair is a frizzy mess. I’m running on no sleep and there’s still the lingering emotional hangover. “Dynamite” is not a compliment anyone has ever given me.

Thank you, Dr. K., you have no idea how badly I needed to hear that in your office at that moment. You stopped me from leaving as an emotional hot mess.

For anyone curious, Dr. K. suggests taking out the implant, creating a better pocket, putting my implant back in, and recovering in one day. Sold. Especially since that lowers the cost considerably. So far, I’ve hustled and earned $3k in less than two months to pay for any potential surgeries. I’ll get the quote on Tuesday.

It feels like reminders of Jon will never end. Unfortunately, all of my reminders are positive. I can’t say, “there’s the restaurant where we had a big fight” or “that’s the hotel where he called me a bitch”.

Jon’s ghost follows me everywhere. Fortunately, these reminders don’t leave me in agony anymore. Talking about him (which I’ve never done since my friends don’t know about him and I only write about him here) feels foreign and it makes me uncomfortable like the other person will realize Jon’s the apple of my eye. The affair is long over and only now am I afraid of getting caught.

There isn’t much I can do about his haunting memories and reminders. The best I can hope is that the emotions evoked from today’s conversation will quell themselves by the end of the evening. And then tomorrow, another day forward in my effort to move on.