i miss her.
and i'm mad at her for leading me on. for giving me hope where there really isn't any. i should have listened the first time she told me that she didn't have room in her new life for me. i should have distanced myself then and left on good terms. but now we are both in this bind. it's like a said tonight, that not hearing from her is like she's sending me a message. i'm just too heartsick to hear it. fuck.

so i feel a lot like i did when we first got together. i don't know what is going to happen, i can only feel my way through unfamiliar territory. i don't want to be a partial person in her life. i want her to want me in 100%. i don't want to be always skirting the edges, periphery. but i don't want to be inpatient either. this is going to take a little time. and i'm willing to see it through. i went out tonight and i was talking about girls i dated last year, and looking for someone new, or someone i had connected with before. but it was clearly hollow. every person i saw reminded me of her. i bumped into a fat girl and thought, oh it looks like b's sister. i kept thinking the music would be just up her alley. and how she would hug me from behind and press her cheek to my sweaty back and not care if i stunk or was all wet. i just miss her. it's soon, but i feel already like cutting it off. talking just reminds me that my best friend and partner is gone. and only serves to remind me of the hole in my life right now.

i know it's partly pms but it's also more than that. i'm mad, furious actually. i'm mad that i will soon be without the person i love. i'm mad that i let myself get in a position to be hurt (as if i had much of a choice). i'm irrational and sad. i hate that you are so happy to move and i'm jealous of brooklyn because it will get to see you everyday. i'm anxious about what will become of us and unsure of how to proceed. i don't want to fade away but i don't want to cut you off either. i'm desperate to figure all of this out and desperate not to. i don't want to acknowledge what's coming. i'm so upset that both of us are scared of what might happen if we admit that this is as close to perfect as it's ever been so instead we're just going to give it up. i'm not sure what to say about all this stuff so it roils around in my head and comes out as tears and dumb decisions. i guess when we were so busy convincing ourselves that this was the wrong thing at the wrong time it quietly and sneakily became the best thing. i can't remember the last time falling in love with someone was so effortless and natural. and maintaining it is just as easy. i am dreading the day that this becomes past tense.
and the only question i can pose is: what do we do now?

i know i love her. that's not the problem. the circumstances are. the fact that she's leaving. and leaving me. for once i'm in that position. is it some sort of karmic payback. all the girls and boys that i've left before rearing up to bite me in the ass. just when i've found someone i think might be it. i'm too jaded and cynical adn let's face it still pretty hurt by m's breakup to believe in true love or meant to be. but i believe in hard work. i believe in knowing what i see in someone's actions. i believe in making an effort to be honest about my feelings. so i tell her when i'm mad and she can take it because she's a grownup. so why am i so cranky? is it because she's going to be successful and i'm stuck in a job that seems to be going nowhere? or have i made my peace with that? is it because i'm finally stable and in one place and now here comes my old friend change trying to fuck it up again. is it because i absolutely know i can't do a long distance relationship again. and why should i have to? why should i settle for less? i want her here. i want to wake up next to her and see her face. i want to eat breakfast at 3 in the morning with her and watch dumb movies while she rubs my head in her lap. i don't want to be on the phone or wondering why she didn't call. i don't want to travel out there all the time and feel like the center of my life is somewhere else. i want her to come to me. i want for once, soemone to come to me. someone to make sacrifices to be with me. i want to be worth it to someone.

oy with the girls. i've been tormented lately by relationships going wrong. it all goes back to her. i was telling l today how i drove away from her house knowing, absolutely, like i've never known anything in my life, that she was the woman i was supposed to marry. and she felt the same way about me. we both fell hard, believed hard. and to be yanked out of that so violently and in such a disgusting way just calls into question everything i ever felt aobut her. i wonder if she lied to me about how she felt, becuase she felt an obligation to keep the myth going. i think every couple does this. creates a mythology of how they met and fell in love and why it's the most perfect thing in the world. and it is. because this is a story we never get tired of hearing., this is the music we hear. as we bounch down the street oblivious to everything but LOVE! we sacrifice all on its altar. so how do you recover from the disease of love? how do you mkae your body fit to walk and talk and eat again? by ignoring love, by pretending it does not exist. and disdaining its very presence. but it's like malaria, a disease of the bloog and never fully eradicated. i wake in fevered dreams panting for her touch. and stare at crooks of elbows that look like hers and stop in the street when i smell her scent. i boil with rage at her picture, but wake in sweet panic after i dream her tongue on mine. it never goes away. i want her, if only to explain. i want to be done with it. i want to move on and prove my worthiness and lovability with a new person. i don't want to constantly look over my shoulder, or even to use her as my vengeful stepping stone. i just want to live apart from her. but just because you cut off that limb of love and cauterize that scar doesn't mean you don't drag it around behind you for the rest of your life.

wow these posts are as regular as my period. just got back from josh's house and had a long teary conversation with his girlfriend, who i normally think is a bitch. and she told me what others have said before, that they find her cold and emotionless. but that her new girlfriend is nice. which is par for the course. i was nice too, and then i met her. i guess i'm not surprised, but the conversation had the momentary effect of lifting the power she still has over me. it didn't last very long, just until this morning. but still it was nice to know that there is some sort of light at the end of this long, interesting tunnel. i am in some sort of angry phase right now, and i'm not sure where that puts me in the stages of grief, but fuck it, everything is pissing me off right now. i'm so filled with rage i don't know how i got this way. and i'm having chest pains again. yes i'm wallowing, but what the hell. maybe i need to saturate myself with her before i can get over her. i've spent the last year studiously ignoring or avoiding anything that had to do with her, and my heart still stops when i hear her mentioned in conversations, or when she calls josh while i'm there. i'm just bitter and sad about it all. and i'm feeling like i would like to move on but i can't. not sure why really. just that there is a massive wall in the middle of this road, and i'm sitting at the bottom of it, staring up trying to figure out a way over the top.

looking at her website, her resume. i think that the really important things aren't listed. like we should each have an emotional resume, the things we went through and learned, what we did and how we loved.
like:

may 2000 - april 2003
girlfriend
loved as hard as i could, should have backed off a bit. lost myself in her eyes on a daily basis. was responsible for grand vision that brought us together. position terminated when she broke my heart. still mourning the loss.

now that would be useful information.

it's like a black, nasty, syrupy feeling in my stomach. when i think of her or see her picture. it's a wave of sludge and i have to wait for it to pass. i don't hate her, i just can't get past the hurt. and i want to so badly. i just don't want to think about her anymore. how many times and ways can i say it?

i guess i still want to be that person to her, the one. there are days when i feel connected to her somehow, and then there are days when i think it's probably all just a crock of shit. she's moved on. i wonder if my current relationship is here to show me what she felt like in our relationship, always pulling back, never really loving me the way i loved her. i don't know. but i feel like i have a better insight into her character now. and i can honestly say that i hate her. i've been trying to deny it, and i would like to get over it. but it's a stumbling block i cannot get get around or over or through. i told someone the other day about my tattoo, someone i haven't seen in a while. and i explained it like this: that i must have been incredibly lucky and happy and in love to have been so destroyed by the end of it all. and that's what i try to remember. this is not something that i think about everyday anymore. i feel so happy most of the time that when this funk comes over me i realize i've forgotten how to talk myself out of it. i am a happier, better person. i am more mature, more caring, and certainly more cynical. but i'm the better for all of it. mostly. i want this black mark to be erased. i want to be able to open myself up again and love someone totally. but i guess it won't be happening anytime soon.

i was just going to bed a minute ago. and i realized it had been ten months. almost a year. and right before i realized that i wondered when i was going to not be afraid to fall asleep again. i wondered when it was going to be ok to talk about her or think about her. because i don't, not in any real way. i still get choked up. i still compare people in my life to her. and i guess on some level i still miss her. i've gained enough distance to realize what was wrong, but i guess i still and will always believe that it could have been fixed. i'm happier now, my life has less tension, less drama, and certainly less strife. but it also has a lot less love.

it's a tattoo, but it's also a talisman. for what i'm not sure. maybe to remind me of how much she hurt me, but also to remind me how wonderful things had to be for me to fall that far. to remind me to love deeply. that my heart is a muscle and will always heal. i'm not sure. but it's there and i feel better for it.

i am making a concerted effort (when i remember) to just try and let go of any resentment or anger or hurt that i still feel in regards to her. i think it's time for me to just move on. of course this isn't the easiest thing to do. i still google her once in a while, i looked at an archive from her blog and i swear the conversations she and her new girl are having are just as cute and dorky as the ones we had. and i wonder why she feels the need to put them up there. and i'm trying to figure out what bothers me about it. i don't want to get back together with her. i know that much. i guess it's just that by finding someone so quickly that makes her so happy, that seems to negate what we had. which isn't true. but it makes me feel that it is. so i feel jealous i guess that once again she gets what she wants and i am left out in the cold. i hate this part of the whole process when you really wish that the other person was missing you as much as you are them (at least the good parts.) so like i said, i'm trying to let all this go. i really am.

it was a pretty shitty birthday. my dad didn't even call me. and my family bought me things at the last minute. i'm not a big present hog, i really don't need anything. but i like a few well-chosen gifts that show that you know me. and these were not that. oh well. dinner out with the family was depressing and i couldn't tell you why. but i drove over to my friend's house afterward and i just burst into tears in the car. i think this is just one holiday season i will be glad to see the back of. i HATE being mopey. but it is hard to shake this time of the year. i don't want to be in love, i just want to feel like i'm doing something about all of this. and there's nothing i really can do. i don't want to call her. i don't want to talk to her or about her. i just want the memories to fade. i want to blow the world away with my amazing ideas. and if i don't work on this she will always be the elephant in the room. the one i never want to talk about or deal with. i don't know where she fits in my life. i am starting to question if what we had was ever really good for either of us. even though i know it was. but i'm not a person that enjoys being angry. i don't feed off of it. i like to deal with my issues. but right now there's a big heavy stone around my heart. and i can't just shake it off.

so this was the first month i didn't look at her journal when i got all pms-y and sad. and it passed without a huge amount of sadness. so i'm feeling better. but i blew up at my mom the other day. completely misplaced anger. and a friend showed up in town and i was eager to show how over her i was, but i ended up telling him that i really just wanted an apology from her. and you know, the truth is that i'm very righteous in my anger. it has a shape, a real palpable feeling in my chest. and i don't want that. i went out last night and got drunk so i could forget about my life for a moment. and i woke up next to a really fabulous girl that i just can't seem to connect with no matter how many drinks i have or times i fuck her. and it just hit me like a 10-ton hangover. i have to let go. sounds like a simple revelation, but it felt pretty huge at 5am. i have to accept the fact that i may never make this right with her. i have to let go of the last ties to her that i have, and that's my anger. because then i will always be wanting, searching for her in someone else. and that's not fair to anyone. i can't say this is going to be easy. but if i live my life looking backwards i'm never going to get anywhere.

someone asked me the other day if this new person was making me happy. and i thought for a moment and said, i think it's me that's making myself happy.

exactly

i was cleaning off my computer today adn found a bunch of ims from you know who. including one that was after we broke up in jan. of last year. and it was interesting to read. because in it it sounds like she is really asking me if i'm happy. and i keep evading the question. i mean i said i was, but i think we both know i wasn't. and in some ways this decision has really freed me to be happy. but i can't help but be nostalgic for the time when we were happy together. and a tiny part of me wants her back in my life. i even thought about just iming her and asking what was going on in her life. i'm trying to forgive her for how she treated me but i also need to forgive myself for the way i treated her and how i treated myself. so i guess that was my rant for the day.

i just don't want to care anymore. i don't want to have dreams about her or with her in it. i don't want to be in a funk when i see her picture. i don't want to mourn what was. i want to move on. i want this to be over with. and i keep thinking it is. until something little sends me reeling, into my own head, dreaming of the littlest bit of physical contact with her. i just want this all to be over.

the thing with this new girl is that she's great, i really enjoy spending time with her. i like that she's smart, and funny and a big dork. but there's no thunderclap, no poetry, no wooing, no grand sense that we are meant to be together. i just can't stop comparing how i felt when i first met m. i wish i knew if i would feel that way again. or if that was all an illusion. maybe we invented this great passion because we both needed it. i don't know. i just hope it's not. i hope i will feel that way again. and everything is still so unresolved for me because she never told me what she was actually feeling. and all that SHIT. and i wonder if that is because of where i am at. or where she is. or just that i'm not ready.

i went out to dinner with a mutual friend of ours this evening. and OF COURSE talk turned to her. i told myself on the way over that i wasn't going to talk about it, but i hadn't seen him since we had broken up and he was curious. so there we were. and he said some similar things to our other friend, that she seemed to have a very narrow area that she was comfortable in and that she could act like a human in and outside of that she couldn't function and was very rigid. i guess i am still surprised that everyone else was sensing these things. why couldn't i?
or maybe i couldn't because i never had enough distance until i was burned by it. it wasn't a stressful dinner by any means, but all of these observations are interesting to me. he also said that he seemed so confused by the way she did it too and disappointed. and this is a person she has helped a lot. so anyways.