a good friend of mine and his wife had their baby yesterday. i'm so excited for them. and of course i had to turn this a little inward on myself and how a year ago i thought that would be me and m. so pathetic. but i've been like that lately. turning every event or thought back to "US". as if any of it could happen again. or matters now.

except i guess it does matter to me, if i'm still thinking about it. i just want....i don't know. i went for a run this morning to try and figure it out. and had lots of conversations with myself and her while i was in the woods. and i know i don't want us the way we were. i love that i've rediscovered myself, after being in thrall to her. but i remember the promise, and the potential and the reality were all pretty damn good. i'll say again i didn't think our problems were that unsolvable. but i guess the only person i have to convince here is her. and i'm not sure i want to. my happiness is hard won these days, and i guess i assume that going back to her in any form would mean giving that up. which is a little dumb. and it's not like i think about this all the time. just as i'm going to sleep. it all rushes in on me. which is probably why i don't want to sleep right now. i don't know what i want frankly. i know i don't like having this uncertainty. but i think i want her rectify it. not me.

i've been dreaming lately of the stuff i've left behind. sometimes it's a book or a pillow or something like that. other times it's just her. i've been flashing back to good times and bad. i'm not sure if this is because this week has been so stressful and i would have liked someone i could talk to about it. or maybe i'm just moving into the wistful phase of all this. it's not too sad anymore. but i still wish i wasn't doing it. i came to another little conclusion the other day that i can only heal so much on my own. i can only go so far without an aknowledgment from her. so there will always be a little hole that she can only fill, be it with an apology or something else. i know that i will move on, in some ways i already have. but until i finish things with her that piece will always remain unresolved. and i'm in a quandry over what to do. i'm not sure if i should intiate contact or let her come to me. i can't decide so for now i'm doing nothing, and that's fine. i'm not in a hurry to figure it all out. i'm just letting it come, one painful memory at a time.

received the first nice, non-demanding stuff back email from her yesterday. and i was having a stressful day. and i kept thinking about it and smiling.
good lord. i'm ridiculous sometimes. as if a pleasant email means her intentions or feelings have changed. grow up. (that was for me.)

it's surely connected with my period. this desire to know what is up in her life or to resolve something in mine. today i woke up thinking that i should write her a letter. just saying basically all the shit i write in this blog, only toned down and edited a bit. just to say goodbye i can't have you in my life. but if you ever decide to wise up and become a nice person who can communicate with humans, please give me a call because despite all of the shit you threw my way, you rocked my world like no one else and i can't seem to forget how to love you.
bad idea, i know.
so i just read her blog. whatever. it's one day of moping, not too bad considering....

goals for this year:

get a job, get a kickass new apartment or house, hopefully with kickass roomies, and buy a super kickass sex toy so you can ignore the sorry state of your love life and get your own damn rocks off.

that is all.

i just need to say goodbye. let it go. let her go.

what i keep coming back to, every time i think about having her in my life again, is that she never apologized, and never explained. i'm not someone who holds a grudge very well. i want to forgive, but i just can't find a reason to in this case. i never heard her acknowledge that we were both at fault here. she made me feel like it was all me. so now i want to let go and move on and i'm finding it hard because i am still so mad about what she did.

though i try not to dwell on things that have happened, and to outward appearances iit looks like i'm over all of this, there are times when the anger and sadness just bubbles up inside me unbidden. i don't want it to. and i try and push it away. but i've been thinking a lot about the possibility of friends. and i believe my first instinct was correct. i don't want to be friends with someone who does not have the decency to break up with me in person. i don't want to be friends with someont who will not or cannot communicate her feelings to me. and i certainly don't want to be friends with anyone who already cut me out of her life so ruthlessly.
but that doesn't mean i don't long for those days, before everything got this way.

what else i got?
i've got two years worth of bottled up emotions and steaming rage to throw at your lying, cowardly face.
i've got oodles of talent to take me further than you ever thought i could go.
and i've got a nice strong fist to shove up your ass because you fucking drive me crazy.

my needs right now are simple: stability, a home, a place to grow, and heal and the time and space to do it in. someone to love would be nice, but for now i'm filling that role, and that suits me just fine. oh and a garden.

Even her cries of passion follow a certain order,
one after the other:
tame dove, then wild dove,
then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock, peacock,
the wild dove, tame dove, dove dove
thrush, thrush, thrush.

A precise woman: on the bedroom carpet
her shoes always point away from the bed.
(My own shoes point toward it.)

you know, i often wish that people would surprise me. i wish that m would send me a letter or email or even call and tell me how she is feeling, and why she did this. i spend a lot of time imagining these scenarios. it's not that i want them to do all the work. i try to break out of the mold and surprise people too. it's just that i want to know. i want closure. but i should know better. a made me listen to this american life today, the show called "get over it" and the host ira glass describes getting over a breakup like this, "no one knows when it will happen, it's like the second coming of christ." i guess that's true. i don't know. i've made all the positive choices i can for myself in this situation, i feel happy and healthier than i have in a long time, but i am still not over it. i'm tired of the wanting and the wondering. i'm tired of thinking about her. i can stop it sometimes, but there are other when images come to me unbidden.

tonight b was talking about hotel rooms. and i remembered the time i drove all the way down to be with her while she was working in md. it was awesome. i just remember making love in that room and going to sleep knowing that she loved me. and then waking up and seeing this beautiful light in the room on her back. i took a picture that she had framed. i don't know. i just want to box up all of these memories, file them under "a good two years" and move on. only then will i be able to fully dedicate myself to another person or even begin to think about having her back in my life. it really bothers me that she wants to move into friends mode as quickly as she did. it makes me feel like what we had didn't matter to her at all, that she can just get over it and be friends. for me it's not so easy. i need to process, analyze and agonize before i can even decide if that's what i want. and i'm not sure it is. i love hard and i fall just as hard. i just know i need/want to get over this. soon.

so people are still finding my blog through her archives. the ones where she talks about me as the one, or her "best girlfriend." and it hurts less than it used to. when she first broke up with me i could mark the time during my day by what i knew she was doing. if it was noon, she was probably just waking up, and so on. well i don't do that anymore. but every once in a while i wonder what she is thinking. probably the weirdest part of this whole process is how incredibly silent she has been. she emailed me her breakup and then that was it. nothing, no discussion. decision made. but i've already talked about that. so now i wonder if she's had second thoughts. if, during the course of her day, she ever finds herself wishing i was around. or if situations arise where she would like to call me up and talk about it. because i do. not constantly anymore. but once in a while. my anger is fading and is being replaced by good memories mostly. i still don't think i would like to be in touch with her. i mean, i would need an apology and some serious discussion before i would let her back in my life. but that presupposes that she wants to be there, which she clearly doesn't. i don't know. mostly i just wonder if she regrets her decision, or how she went about it. i wonder if she wishes she had treated me better. and i really hope so.

so what do i do about the fact that there is still a hole in my life where she used to be? i can make all of these pronouncements, about my life, about how i feel, and have them be true, but the fact remains that i loved her as a friend, and as someone important in my life. i guess i'm just supposed to move on. yep, that's exactly it. i'm not supposed to dwell, i'm just supposed to cover that space up with a bandaid and hope that maybe someday it will be filled by her or someone else. it's too bad really. because now i'm at the stage where i'm remembering how wonderful it was to have someone to talk to every day. and i wonder if she misses that too. being plugged into someone you love, connected.

it's like i've stopped caring in the last couple of days. i no longer look at myself and think, here is the girl who was dumped. or here is her ex. i am just seeing myself.
i went up to jen's cabin the other night, i needed a vacation from my vacation. and a little sex. i drank entirely too many whiskey and cokes, not enough to get sick, but a lot. and had some amazing sex. which is funny considering. and we talked, and i finally said explicitly that i don't want to be dating anyone right now, i just want to have fun and fool around. and i know she likes me and would like more, but won't ever ask for it because of what i said. she also said that this felt like the last time. which is odd too because i was thinking of cutting myself off. she's become this knee-jerk reaction and i can't say no. but it was a lot of fun and i had to leave early in the morning which sucked. i just remember feeling like the elephant had left the bedroom. it was probably all the alcohol, but i didn't feel like i had to compare her to m any longer. and that just opened me up to let things with her be the way they are. she's not someone i would ever date, but i believe that she deserves more than my partial attention when i'm with her. so i gave it to her. and it rocked.

hmmm. need to not look at blog. i know how it makes me feel. have i said this before. goodness. i do really enjoy constant torture. it's like i'm just starting to feel really good about things and my life and all that. and so i have to make myself experience all that pain all over again. i wonder if it's because a lot of my favorite couples seem to be breaking up. that makes me long again for that perfect person to spoon. that's when i miss her or that connection the most- at night. it is my favorite part about loving someone, falling asleep in their arms, smelling their scent and just knowing that everything is right in the world because i have this amazing person on my side, loving me, and i have them to love.

i just never thought i would be in this position with her. it's more like i'm amazed, i feel like i've landed on this other planet, without her, and i have to learn how to get around and communicate with the locals.
crazy.

it's true that loving someone can make them beautiful. i've been going through old pictures trying to put my portfolio together and of course i keep finding these old pictures of her. and now all i can see in her face is a hardness and a meanness that wasn't there before.

i feel like i've been clawing my way up a shear cliff for several months now. and i've finally reached a ledge. just realizing what about this whole situation sucked made a huge difference. and in a big way. like i felt the light bulb click on. and i realized that she has problems too. this wasn't all me. i didn't get a chance to communicate with her, she wouldn't let me, gave me no clue what was in her head. and i became desperate to hold onto her and find out. and she saw that as depenedent. and that was it. she wussed out, chickened out, and waited until i was up here to tell me something that should have been done in person. i mean. that is seriously. fucked. up. if you are supposed to love someone and trust them, what kind of trust does that show? no wonder i was a wreck. i had no real warning. no inkling. no wonder i was breaking pots and kicking things and punching walls. and now i feel better. lighter. not totally healed, but like i know where i am going now. and that feels great. i can hear about her and her new girlfriend without totally losing it. in fact i feel kind of bad for her, she doesn't know what she's in for. and i realized that i just don't want a friend like that. someone who cannot express their feelings. i'm not a super whiz at communication, but i don't shut down completely and keep people out. her tendencies toward that certainly reinforced my own. and i look back on our time together and think that it was great. if we hadn't descended into weirdness and had worked on our issues, which i don't think were insurmountable, things would have been great. but we didn't and here we are. i feel great about where i am. i get a little sad when i think about what could have or should have been, but it isn't weighing me down. plus i'm getting tons of sex. and that doesn't hurt.

stacy asked me last night when i knew that my relationship to m was over. i said, when she broke up with me. i had no idea until then. and i've been blaming myself ever since for not seeing the signs. yesterday josh said, yeah we had no idea either. you got a raw deal. she really chickened out on telling you. and it was like one of those moments that you are waiting for in the whole breakup recovery process. just waiting for someone to acknowledge that yeah, this person should not have broken up with you in an email and should have told you what was in their head beforehand. and he said that he thinks that she can only communicate with her camera and that that is her biggest weakness. i'm not so sure but it did make me realize that she simply cannot talk about her feelings. i knew this from day one. and i was so in love i just ignored it or overlooked it. and look where we ended up. i even remember telling her at some point not to let all of her issues pile up and to tell me as they happened. oh god. i have such sympathy for this new girl. because right now it's all champagne and roses but in a few months when they want to talk about something real she won't be able to. and that sucks. so i spent all of yesterday walking around chicago just feeling ripe with possibility. like i can imagine the type of girl i want to date from now on. she will be intelligent, i mean she needs to be able to hold a conversation with me about books or politics. not super brainy, but smart. and easygoing. although a little moodiness is ok too. and she wants to do things in the world, isn't just content to sit at home and collect a paycheck, 9-5. really has a mission. and she'll be cute. and fun and really dorky. and she will yell at me when she's mad and won't t bottle things up. she'll get me and understand my commitment to my work. she will be able to laugh at herself and she'll look at me when we are in a crowd of people and we will be laughing at the same people, without having to say anything. and we'll love hard and intensely but still be able to step away and spend some time doing our own thing. and she's coming soon, i can feel it.

i do not need my friends telling me that this was not meant to be. i need them to listen. i need them to hug me and not say anything. i don't want to hear about her new relationship. i don't want to hear about how we were not right. i do not believe it. and i don't want to hear it.