The future is not always conformable with the past

I have reached a decision in regards to X and my daughters.  I know that in the most extreme case I could absolutely insist that he have ZERO contact with my girls, that is well within my right.  But I know that doing that would devastate the girls, hurt X and the family would feel attacked.  The truth is, I don’t know the full story, I don’t know all the facts, and I don’t believe that my girls are in any imminent danger.  So, as a compromise, I have decided that X will only be allowed supervised contact with my daughters.  I know that in the past it is very rare that he has ever been alone with them, so this decision will not feel or sound like an attack.  It is an easily agreed upon compromise for everyone.

I have other news, on the personal relationship front, but I’m not sure exactly how to bring it up and how I want to write about it.  It’s just so surprising to me, and I could have never predicted this at all.  

A person from my past life, who is no longer a part of that life, has resurfaced in my life, in a completely new and different way from before.  We knew each other when I was married. In fact, he was friends with C2 when we met.  BK was married and already had his 2 kids.  In fact C2 is the godfather to BK’s daughter.  Back in the day though, BK and I had our moments, but for the most part, didn’t really get along.  

Turns out BK worked at this last gig I had, and we would occasionally run into each other.  We would talk for a few minutes, mainly about his kids, or my kids.  He had long since divorced his kids’ mother, and had moved on to other relationships.   He had long ago moved out of the past life, no longer a friend to C2 (for reasons I would discover later), had turned his back on that life and moved ahead to make a new life for himself and his kids.

My last day at my job, he happened to catch up with me at work and just joking around asked me “So, are you remarried yet?”  
Oh hell no.  I’m not even dating anyone.  
Well, can I get your phone number; maybe we could get the kids together this summer.
Sure, we could do that.

I gave him my phone number, and he called that night.  We talked for a while, and eventually he and his son came over to my place.  I was still really gun shy, because this is the guy from my past life who wasn’t always my favorite guy to be around.  I know way too much about his life back then because he liked to talk, and tell stories.  He was a kiss and tell kind of guy.  But talking to him Friday night, I saw a new BK, a different, more mature BK.  This guy is all about his kids, being a great dad, putting the kids first.  He’s grown up, he’s matured, and he’s changed.  He’s been hurt a lot and he’s gun shy and he’s looking to protect himself and his kids from being hurt again.  We talked for hours that night, just talked, trying to avoid the pitfalls of the past, but knowing we may have to go back and revisit those ghosts on occasion.  

Somewhere along the way, things have changed.  We’ve spent time together every day since that night.  Not whole days, but we’ve seen each other every day since Friday. The cool thing about this is, when we’re together, we just hang out.  I could have never predicted this a year ago, a month ago, hell a week ago.  If someone had told me that BK and I would be spending time together like we are I would have called them a liar.  This was just so completely out of left field, so completely unplanned.  And yet, it’s easy and comfortable.  We both know where the other one has been.  He knows what my life was like with C2 because he watched it.  He knows the games that C2 played, how cruel and abusive he was.  It surprises both of us how easy this is how comfortable this is.  We are taking this very very slow.  Between the 2 of us we have 5 kids to consider.  Sometimes though, if we think about and talk about the past too much, it gets hard for me to separate the past from now, and it kind of wigs me out that I’m spending time with him.  But then I realize this is now, and that was then, and things are different now.

I don’t know where this is going, and for once, I’m not over analyzing things. I am just taking it one day at a time, and enjoying whatever happens.   He is actually taking me on a ‘real and proper’ date Thursday.  He will come by and pick me up, take me to dinner, and whatever else he has planned.  He told me he wants to take things slowly, to prove to me that he’s different now.  C2 always thought all of his friends wanted me, wanted to have sex with me, and BK wants to prove to me that he’s not like that.  Yeah, maybe he’s just feeding me a line, lulling me into a false sense of security.  But maybe he’s not.  

This is definitely different than anything I’ve had in the past.  It’s totally different than anything I would have expected with BK, but then again, I would never have expected to have anything with BK in the first place.

My philosophy professor once told me “The future is not always conformable with the past.”  Just because it was always that way in the past, it doesn’t have to always be that way in the future.  Things change, people change, and not always in the way we would have expected.