Having just finished a memoir, I am in the process of writing my acknowledgements. I know I have to thank my editor, my publishers, my agents, my family, my cats, my dogs, my friends, etc. I know who falls on the perfunctory list: people who made me tea; those who came to get me when I was reliving and re-writing that awful thing that happened to me on that awful day during that awful fall that that awful girl left me… but how in Shiva’s name do you list your exes?

This book took me a few years to pen. There were the years I was writing snippets, poems, theater pieces. Then there were the years I first started penning prose. Then there were the intense years after it was sold — when it was apparent to everyone that I was writing a book. Those years spanned a series of lovers. It somehow feels a little wrong to list them in the friends, or even the family group. The term “friends” may well offend them because they were/are so much more than friends. And the term family may well offend the current lover, as in, “How dare you list her as your family? I am your family! I am your family! Me! Here you are, listing her as family when your family won’t even acknowledge that I’m your family!” You understand the complications, folks?

After the nature of your relationship with a lover has changed, what do you call the woman who was your sun, your moon, your raison d’etre? I don’t know if this is true for anyone else, but after someone has been diving face-first into my coco-bread, it is difficult to switch to thinking that we are sisters or cousins or any configuration of a family relationship. I do not and have never had sexual relations with any member of my family. Maybe I could with an in-law — but not any of the current in-laws, so I still can’t make the cognitive leap. But I digress. The relationship between exes is a very specific and delicate thing to define.

Which brings us to the question at the core of this issue. Can the relationship ever really make the switch from old lover to platonic friend? Do you ever “forget” that you have seen this woman ass-up and incoherent with pleasure under your hands? Isn’t there always the barest hint of the carnal in that subsequent interaction? And if that is true, what are the rules of acceptable engagement between your current girlfriend and her ex? Is it simply a matter of trust? Or do we need hard, cold regulations? Is this a matter of my insecurities? Or does it depend on the situation? Should these things be decided on a case-by-case basis?

For myself, I know that there remains, between me and the women I have loved, something tender and intimate. And for the most part, particularly when I am in a new relationship, I choose not to abuse the contracts/promises of my current relationships by indulging that intimacy. But I know that there is something of me that is known only to that person who used to be my lover, and that if we are not careful, that carnal knowledge can tip us into places that we do not knowingly intend. And keeping that in mind, I require my lovers (especially if we have an exclusive arrangement) to respect boundaries that best protect all the relationships involved. Don’t spend the night snuggled up with your ex, if we are girlfriends. And if my feelings matter and you claim to be acting in consideration of those feelings, do not ask me to spend long periods of time with an ex with whom you are still in love. Common sense would stipulate that, no? But I have been in and continue to know plenty of women who have been in crazier scenarios. Again, I am straying.

Let’s get back to the issue of public listing of the exes. I am still trying to figure out how to list my exes who have all stayed up late listening to my sob stories, holding me and encouraging me to keep writing. Maybe we should come up with a term which means friend with whom I used to be lovers, and I still love her and I still need her in my life. How about love-friend? Or friend-in-law? We really have to coin something, otherwise every woman who gave you a cup of tea in passing is immediately collapsed into the larger group of people who really support you in significant ways. And the word friends, as it stands, does not differentiate between everyday friends and the particular group of women who used to serve you breakfast, make love to you and stay up with you while you hammer away at a draft that was due last Tuesday. Does anyone have any suggestions for such a term? Such a term would prove most helpful as I pummel away at the list of friends and lovers and tea-makers that make the writer’s life possible.