I thought about you today. Just a small blip in my mind, nothing more than a moment or two and then you were gone. It's sad to realize that someone was everything you ever wanted, but somehow not at all. There was beauty in that moment that we shared, though. I can tell you that with great certainty now.

I'll take the time to care again someday. I wonder sometimes if you broke me, or rather if I broke myself. I wonder if I'm ever going to really believe again. I hope so. I really do.

I wake up and find I'm not angry anymore. Glad that's gone. Maybe I just needed to get it all out of my system. Again, moving forward, moving along. I'm glad we're still friends. Honest, real friends.

No matter how happy or content I go to bed, I always wake up lonely again. I wonder what that means. I think it just takes me some time to remember that I'm on a new mental path.

I need to be ok on my own. Being so dependent on other people is not healthy. Does everyone have this need, this craving to belong? I've sacrificed so much of myself in the past to be accepted. I can be anyone, I can be whoever you need me to be so I can fit in with you. I'll pretend I know whatever you say, I will adapt, I will fake it until I make it. Who the hell is the real me? I don't want to have a romantic interest for awhile. That's too easy and it's not an answer. I'd like to find the real me outside of a relationship, with my desires and my hopes. I'm so used to placing what I want second to everyone else that I've forgotten what I want, or maybe I just used it as an excuse to never decide in the first place. I think, really, that's closer to the truth. I'm afraid of deciding what I want because then I'll be responsible if it doesn't turn out for the best.

But now that I think about it... I set things with Jake into motion. It was a conscious decision. And they were pretty awesome while they sort of were as a "thing." And when they ended, it wasn't some protracted thing. Because I didn't feel trapped by someone else's decision -- there was nothing to lament. This was my doing, even if I knew it wasn't going to work from the start. So I could just suck it up and say "ok, well, it was good, but now it's over." Maybe taking responsibility is more liberating than I'd always feared. I've got to stop living in fear.

Honesty and purpose. Honesty and purpose.
I still don't trust myself yet.

Doin' alright today in a lot of ways. Wondering if another shoe has yet to drop or if I just managed to get through this like a normal human being for once.

I’m sipping coffee in a Starbucks in Washington Square. It’s 7:30 and my computer tells me that not only is it 35 degrees outside, but it’s 60 degrees and pouring where you are. It’s also 3 hours earlier, but my computer doesn’t need to tell me that. I’ve managed to work out the math by now. You were right – being in a long-distance relationship does teach you these things eventually.

I’m sitting here drinking my Gingerbread Latte and I’m in love with you. It’s not anything of a shock to me today. I spend most of my day in love with you. I wake up and I’m in love with you, I sit on the T and I’m in love with you, I make dinner and I’m in love with you. This was a fact that I’d accepted some time ago. Probably before I went to see you in California.

You would cringe so hard if I told you that, though. You’re probably in love with me as well, but you’d cringe at that too. When I was in California we were fools in love but neither of us wanted to admit it – you because you were afraid and me because I was afraid of you. No, that’s not right. I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of saying too much and jumping every gun that was ever made. It’s something I seem to have gotten really, really good at. I get it from my mom. Thanks, mom.

I put a smile on when I talk to you and I repeat my positive phrases to myself. I’ve been trying not to show weakness. How unappealing, that. You’re accepting of me and my craziness but no one wants someone who’s crazy. That other kind of crazy. So you’ve been missing me and I’m allowed to say that back, but when I start to say that I’ve been feeling down we need to take a step back. So we take a step back. We’re stepping back.

I suppose it means something that this is hard. I imagine that it’s hard for you too, this space, this artificial space. But I guess it means that our assumptions were correct, we’d grown dependent, our worst nightmares. As though that weren’t obvious. When we’re joking about me moving there while you’re drunk, when we’re flirting shamelessly late at night, when my day brightens when I see you online, we pretend that we’re these people immune. We’ve got our brains and they will see that our emotions stay in check. Hell, maybe you’re just better at it than I am. But I guess I always knew.

I wish you had let me in before you pushed me out. Then maybe I could understand better and I wouldn’t be making these guesses. But then it would just be harder, and I’m sure you knew that. I knew from the start the reason why, but that didn’t matter until now.

I always take steps back in my life. Gaining perspective is one of the fundamental elements of how I operate. So this isn’t the worst thing that could have happened and in a way I’m happy that we’re not getting mired in these feelings. But it’s hard. Nothing good ever came easy, but it’s hard.

I’ll be waiting on the other side of this silence to see who you’ve decided to be.

It's been this way for awhile now, but just for the sake of posterity:

I'm completely over Andrea.

In retrospect:

It's like the whole world turned, looked at me with a great deal of love in its eyes, and said "just grow the fuck up, already." And just as I was ready to take offense, I took a good look at myself, stood up, dusted myself off and walked away, ready to do just that.

I'm doing a lot better these days. I feel like I've been living in a cave of self-absorption and I'm finally coming back out into the sun. Let's go have some fun, ok, everyone? Let's go do something stupid and live in the moment. I'm quite done with worrying all the time.

When you walk into a room, my heart skips a beat.

So we're friends? Ok. I think I might just be ok with that. I'm going to be the best friend I can be.

I don't know how much longer I can bear it, this delicate dance, each pretending we care less than the other. And for your part, you've seemed convincing -- I wonder if you haven't managed to convince yourself. I feel like my eyes are calling out for an answer each time I see you. Maybe their answer has already come, it's just not the one I am seeking. And yet I can't promise to stop looking, stealing glances, hoping that maybe I'll soon find again that loving truth that once flickered in your eyes.

I will prove this to you.
I will prove this to you.

It's over. No hope for a future, she tells me. And who can blame her, I've done nothing but hurt her. There's no one to blame, she says, but she's just too nice to point out my cowardice as the root of this fucked up situation. Congratulations, Brian, you've spared the feelings of the one you didn't care for and crushed the one you did.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sleep for as long as I can. Wake me when I'm not a huge fucking idiot that fucks everything up by trying to solve everyone's problems but his own.

I want to be your Mr. Darcy.

Call me crazy, but I think I'm in love.

Have you ever had your heart broken? Or have you ever broken someone else's?

I can't help but wonder which is worse.

This journal's going to be mainly friends only. If you want to read, leave me a comment.