This Week's Letter
I don't even know why I'm writing this. It's embarrassing, honestly. Twenty years ago, there was someone. We never put a label on it, but it was something. And then Mercury retrograde hit — don't judge me — and I reached out. I don't even know what I was expecting. She wrote back warmly, we caught up, it was nice. And then somewhere in the conversation she mentioned the girlfriend. A Muslim woman. Sweet, apparently. And I'm sitting there like — of course. Of course she does. This girl has never not been with someone. Her whole life, always someone. And yet somehow I forgot that detail when I decided to open that message thread at midnight.
Here's the thing. I'm asexual. I've been celibate for over six years. I made peace with all of that. I genuinely did. So I don't understand why I'm annoyed. I'm not even jealous, exactly. I'm just — stinging. And I hate that I'm stinging. Why does this still have teeth?
— Stirred, Not Shaken
Mercury retrograde didn't make you do it. You did it. And that's actually the more interesting problem.
Let's start with the elephant in the room, or rather, the planet in retrograde: Mercury was a convenient excuse and you know it. Mercury retrograde gets blamed for a lot of things — missed flights, broken chargers, ex-related midnight decisions — but the truth is you reached out because some part of you wanted to. You don't have to admit that out loud. But you do have to stop pretending a planet made you do it, because that framing is actively preventing you from asking the more useful question, which is: what were you actually hoping for?
Not in a dramatic, secret-feelings way. Just honestly. Were you hoping to feel something? To confirm you'd moved on? To see if they'd remember you the way you remembered them? Because here's the thing about reaching out to an ex after twenty years — you never fully know what you're fishing for until you feel the line go taut. And it went taut. They were warm. And then came the girlfriend.
The sting isn't that they have someone. The sting is that they were warm with you first — and then the door closed anyway.
That warmth is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. If they'd been cold or distant, you'd have gotten your closure and moved on. But they weren't. They responded like someone who remembered you fondly, caught up like it mattered, and then mentioned the girlfriend — not as a warning, just as a fact of their life. And now you're left holding this little flicker of something with nowhere to put it. That's not weakness. That's just the specific cruelty of a conversation that opened a door and closed it in the same breath.
And yes — this person has never not been with someone. You know this. Their whole life, always someone. You reached out anyway, in the middle of the night, during a retrograde, and somehow expected to find them sitting alone in the dark thinking about twenty years ago. They weren't. They never are. That's on you, and it's okay, but it is on you.
Being asexual doesn't mean you deleted your history. It means you changed your relationship to desire — not to memory.
Because here's the part I really want you to sit with: you are not broken for feeling this. Six years of celibacy, an asexual identity you've built and claimed and lived in — none of that is threatened by a sting. You are not backsliding. You are not secretly longing for something you've moved past. You are a whole, complex person who once had something unfinished with someone, reached out, got warmth, got a closed door, and felt it. That's not your identity failing you. That's your humanity doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
The annoyance at yourself — that's the real thing to examine. You're not angry that they have a girlfriend. You're angry that you felt something when you're not supposed to anymore. You've built a very intentional life, and then one warm reply at midnight cracked a window you thought was sealed. Of course that's annoying. But feelings are not a referendum on your identity. They're just weather. You don't have to rebuild your whole house every time it rains.
Here's the actual advice: let it sting for a day or two. Don't reach back out. Don't dissect the conversation for hidden meaning. Don't do the thing where you reread the messages looking for a door that isn't there. Just sit with the version of yourself who sent that message — the one who, retrograde or not, wanted to reconnect with something from a long time ago — and be kind to them. They weren't wrong for trying. They just caught a feeling they weren't prepared for. It happens.
Then come back to the life you've built. The one with six years of intention in it. The one where you know who you are. The sting will pass. It always does.
And maybe next retrograde — just, you know. Put the phone down.
— Dear Brewtiful · BrewtifulLiving.com
