bringing up the past

I've noticed a couple of (straight male) friends are hanging onto the past.

My past.

I've been divorced for nearly 12 years now and rarely think of my ex. I mean, months go by. Whole years. No hate, just moving on with my life and relieved and happy no longer to be partnered with the person and fairly certain they feel the same.

But these two friends can't seem to let go. They both stayed in touch with the ex, even though they were never really friends with the ex to begin with. One messaged me a year ago to say the ex was moving out of our former shared house and he (the friend) had met up with the ex and taken a few boxes the ex found while cleaning out the house. And could he (the friend) drop by with the boxes.

Well first of all, hell no.

And second of all, HELL NO.

I still haven't accepted the boxes. As far as I know they're still in the friend's garage. I'm mildly curious about what's in them but clearly there's nothing I've needed in the past twelve years. I'm more curious why this friend felt the need to do this. I offered, he said, when I asked why the fock he would even put himself in the middle of something so dumb. I wanted to help you both out. 

Friend two messaged me a month ago to tell me he'd had a dream about me and the ex and he wondered what it meant. It means you need to leave the past behind, I messaged back. I do wonder though why my friend felt the need to tell me about this particular dream, why dredge up someone I have been willingly and deliberately unpartnered from for a dozen years? 

A small part of me thinks there's some judgement lingering in there, some minor male outrage that I dared separate from someone who had done me no harm, but just whom I, a woman, no longer loved or needed to keep around to provide for me (and the ex did offer). There were no kids involved, no abuse, no financial misdeeds, just the pain of accepting the emotional truth and moving on. 

Not one woman in my life (that I know of) stayed in contact with my ex, none of them bring him up or keep shit he's been holding onto in their garages. I guess that is the metaphor. I've let go but my guy friends keep hanging on.