January 2004 feels like more than a year ago, and only an instant ago. In a hundred ways, I feel like a completely different person. In hundreds of others, I am shocked at the passage of time.

How DO you measure, a year in life?

For the record, I hate Rent, but I can’t refuse a scary relevant lyric. I started writing again. I graduated. I was a good friend. I leaned on my friends. I made new friends. I saw more sunrises than I ever imagined. I crushed. I read a lot of books.

I got back in touch with old friends. I visited Hampshire, the place I ran away from at full speed and found that it no longer looked so bad. I ran a café while my boss was out of town. I became a giant right-winger. I kissed the boy I’d had a crush on for a year and a half. (That last one, for the record, was probably the happiest moment of my college career. Is that wrong?)

I suppose the biggest difference is becoming single after so many years as someone’s other half. I spent a good portion of 2004 trying to figure out just who I was again, having spent the past three years trying so hard to be something I wasn’t, and railing at myself for not being good enough, or pretty enough, or smart enough, or whatever enough. Insert the adjective of your choice. By June, I felt inadequate in just about every way.

So maybe the rebound fling wasn’t the best idea. It still isn’t, but I want it to be.

It’s amazing how hard we’ll grasp at something or someone even when our heart’s telling us that it’s time to let go. Some of that is motivated by fear — the terror of being alone, of starting from scratch, of the ignominy of standing on square one and not being able to move away from it again.

Ryan was the love of my life. And then he wasn’t. He was somebody else. Ryan was the most important person in my life, and then he was just there, because I couldn’t get out. I stayed with him, while I tried to pretend that I was completely over the loss of the old me. The girl who walked out of his apartment in February was a completely different girl than the one who cut Kaplan classes with him. Outside, we were identical, inside we were both wholly different.

It took a lot out of me to give my relationship with Ryan the cold hard scrutiny it long deserved. No one wants to admit that the path they took might’ve been the wrong one, especially when you’ve invested so much time and energy on making something work, because you’re so terrified of what your life will be like if it doesn’t work. He was my excuse; it didn’t matter that college was awful, or I was lonely. Ryan and I would get married after graduation and so it made sense for me to drive to Troy every weekend. It was making an investment in the future, I think I told myself.

I guess I don’t regret that we stayed together for so long, even if we passed our expiration date long before; everything we went through taught me something about myself and about how I need to stick up for who I am and be proud of that in spite of, and maybe because of, the ups and downs of being me.

Still, four years is a long time. He saw me through some formative years. I don’t miss him right now, but I’m sure I would. And I have to be honest that my Rebound Fling has been a huge distraction, so I haven’t had the time or emotional energy to miss him.

There is so much good in my life right now. I have my oldest friends who never fail to amaze me with what wonderful friends they are. I have new friends, people I’ve just gotten to know, but who I click with so well that want to make up on all the time we missed not knowing each other. I went on dates and rediscovered my ability to flirt. I wrote a damn good paper on Tocqueville and got A’s on papers from the professors I respect the most. I don’t exactly know what I’ll be doing in six months, but I have some vague plans and ideas and I don’t think I need to make anything permanent yet.

And I’m going into the city for a c ouple days. To see if maybe, just maybe this Second Chance that I’m giving to Evan is worth it.

Happy New Year.