Life after. . . .

It's been a long journey from where I've been. Northing ever changes really, you just learn to deal with it and move on.

LoNG TiMe cOMinG

I haven't been around in so long! I feel like my world's been moving so fast and I haven't had a chance to catch my breath and just . . . breathe. So many things have changed. For the better or worse I don't know, but it's good to have change. It's like I've shedded my old skin and now I'm brand new. Don't get me wrong, there are still the remnants of the old me, it just seems like a lot of things have shifted. I think for a long time I lost my voice and my ability to just be. Maybe I just lost my ability to express myself. One good thing, my addiction with John has long since passed. It really amazes me. I never really thought that I would get to this point in my life. I never really expected to not have him in it, to one day wake up and not have him pass through my mind for months at a time. But it's happened and really the only time I think of him now is when someone else brings him up. It does feel like a long time coming. . . though I don't know what I'm coming to.

i'M hERe

Love hurts. Especially when you took a chance and it didn't turn out the way you'd envisioned it. Even more so when it was the one thing you had to lose. After you've gone through this disaster, you ask yourself why? Why, when in the end all you really ever end up gaining is a whole lot of sleepless nights and broken memories. Was it worth it? After a few days of crying your eyes out and talking your friends to death, you begin to go on. And as days turn into months you start to build a routine and the pain that was once there doesn't sting as much. Oh there are still time when your mind wanders into that place where thing the lost love and the what ifs. What if you saw him again? What if he he picked up the phone and called you? Are you strong enough?
You sort of become numb to everything around you and you don't trust yourself to make the right decisions concerning the opposite sex so you build this wall around you. No more patience for the bullshit, that's the excuse you use. This love shit isn't for you. So you let years pass by and you don't let anyone in. You have no complaints, you have fabulous friends, a great job and your freedom and you like it like that. But as much it feels to good to live in that sterile existence, it just doesn't feel complete. Then one day you're daydreaming about what your prince charming would look like and how he would be like, you realize how much you miss it. Having someone there, sharing your thoughts. Being infatuated, being in love and then you realize love hurts , but if you had to go through all the hurts and the crying again it would be worth it just to be loved and have loved. And intimacy, excitement and someone to cuddle with that you respected and desired, yes it would be worth it. You could live to be a hundred and know it.
Love hurts, but it's the risks, its the experiences that make life worth living, if you're afraid to love because you're afraid of getting hurt you lose your chance for happiness.

bLaME

Why can't John & I be together? I've written this entry a dozen times in my head. It always seemed so much more eloquent and deep. But really staring at the screen and trying to figure it all out has left me . . . empty. Do I really want to even think about why it didn't work out if I have given up on it? I've wanted closure from this. A chance to say good bye and move on with my life, but as always he haunts me. Who's to blame for the destruction of our relationship? Who's to really say? It was my fault, for feeling too much, for caring so deeply and allowing him to affect me in such a way that I felt dependent on him for my happiness. It's my fault for continuing on with it when I knew it was over. I've known it for a long time. And I'm to blame for always letting him back in when rationally I knew it was a bad idea. I wasn't the most expressive person and I know, he couldn't have read my mind of all the jumbled thoughts I had. But at least I can say that I tried to make it work, I really did. I don't blame him for being the person that he is. I just wish he had tried a little harder to make it work. I don't think he loved me. And that's what hurts the most. Because if he had loved me, he would have cleared some space in his life to let me in. What more is there to say?

L-O-V-E

So, I haven't been on a date in months, partly because I don't have the time and I haven't wanted to and partly because I haven't found anyone I've met recently interesting enough to grace my presence with. It's a little frustrating sometimes and it can get kind of lonely. But like I said, I don't really have the time to think about it so much because I've been so busy lately working. But I don't know, I wonder if there is a love out there for me. And I don't mean all the bullshit that I've been through with John or Alex. I'm talking about an all consuming love full of passion and excitement. The kind of love that makes your toes curl, the kind of love you read about or you see two people have that you cannot even describe, because it's so explosive. That's the kind of love I want, and I don't think I'm willing to settle for anything less than that. I've seen it happen.

It's so hard sometimes to put into words, the emotions that I feel. Most of the time it feels like it's three or four different things that are jumbled up all together. I think I handle myself okay, most times, but when people ask me how I feel, they might as well ask me in another language because I can't for the life of me articulate all the things bubbling beneath the surface of my skin. I just have a hard time doing it.

John called me the other day. Said he was thinking about me and just decided to pick up the phone and call me. I think he has a sense of when I'm feeling happy and doing okay and when I'm not thinking about him. That's when he decides to call me. He wants to see if he can fuck me up. Drag me in an emotional tailspin and get me to become a bubbling fool. But you know what, I'm tired of dealing with his shit. I'm sure he' s sitting around in his apartment in Chicago not giving a shit what's really going on in my life. I don't know if he sees me as a crutch or he thinks that he can disrupt my life anytime he wants to. I know it's been mainly my fault for allowing him back into my life for too many times, anytime he has wanted to come back in. But I can't do that anymore, if for nothing else but for my sanity. I don't want to deal with it anymore, I'm tired, I'm just so tired of the games. I'm tired of crying at night, losing sleep over the bastard and I'm tired of not being in control of my life.

He wanted to know why I hadn't called him. He wanted to know if I still loved him. Well, I hadn't called him because I knew he wouldn't return my calls and after a while I stopped calling because I knew that I couldn't put myself through whatever the hell this was. As for the other question, I still don't have an answer to. I don't know. There are times when I feel it. The love I know I felt for him. But then I think about it and I don't feel anything. I don't know if it's there, maybe his uncertainty and callousless took it out of me. I'll never know. But it has definitely convinced me that LOVE, Real consuming LoVe does not feel like this and it's not like this. So who am I kidding? I could never be with JOhn, not in a million years. So maybe I do have the answer.

eMOtiOnAL

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I've been feeling so out of whack lately. One minute I'll be fine and on top of the world, the next minute I'm bawling my eyes out for no particular reason. I'm on an emotional rollercoastal and I don't know how to get off. I'm just probably really tired and isolated.

This morning I was on my way to work and I couldn't help feeling so damn down. I wanted to cry, but there were no more tears left. I feel like I have no control over my life, my destiny. All I really want to do is go back and erase everything that has happened over the past two years. I don't think I can take it anymore. I try to be strong but all I really feel is desolate, vunlnerable. What's wrong with me?

III

So I saw Nicolas tonight, he was holding some woman's hand who I assumed to be his girlfriend. He looked at me and said hi to me as if nothing had ever transpired between us. As if he didn't realize I knew what he looked like when he was on the verge as if I never felt him touched me. I thought to myself: this is what it's all reduced to pretending to like each other in public. And I realized that staying away from him was the best decision I ever made and I will never allow a man to take my power from me ever again.