.

.

I’m trying to think of something funny, or witty, or offhand to write about, because even I get sick of myself and my own angst. One of my favorite entries from a super-angsty time is “Thirteen Stories About One Thing” (title shamelessly stolen from the movie of the same name – which I’ve seen and remember nothing of). So I figured, it was time for an updated version.

ONE

Me: Maybe I’ll buy a 49ers shirt for [the Redskins/49ers game].
Brent: That’s a terrible idea
Me: It’ll be like when Elaine wore the Orioles hat to the Yankees game.
Brent: Yes, and how did it end for her?
Me: I believe there was heckling.
Brent: I believe she lost her job over that
Me: Well I don’t have a job to lose now do I?
Brent: It’s still a terrible idea.
Me: I want to move to a city that with really loyal fans and wear opposing t-shirts. And don’t say Chicago.
Brent: Well if you want to get sucker punched and have beer bottles thrown at you, you could move to Philly.
Me: Philly sounds like a possibility, yes.

TWO

“I want you to come back home. You belong here. You can do anything here, it’s freaking NYC. The advantage is that you have everyone who loves you here; your family and friends.

-Jill-IAN

THREE

Me: I think he was wearing jeans and um…jeans
Ellie: But the important question is: did he iron his jeans
-a long ago reference that I’d long forgotten. This comment made me laugh all day.

FOUR

Regardless of what you end up doing, you did an incredibly awesome thing moving down to DC and leaving the comfort of the job you had before.Hang in there.  You are still awesome and I’m always proud of what you are doing- whether it’s trying to build a life in DC or in NJ.

-Joe (who always knows the perfect thing to say)

FIVE

Brent: i had a dream that i had written a paper for school but i had forgotten to write a works cited page.  i hate everything.
Me: that’s terrible. ms roeser would have kicked your ass. i had a dream that i found a room in a new apartment, except the furniture was staying there, and it was puzzle/trick furniture, that you had to figure out how to open, and i couldn’t figure out how to open the drawers
Brent: The worst. I need to go to dream rehab. You should come with me.
Me: We would alienate everyone there.
Brent: How would this be any different from normal life?
Me: Touche

SIX

On the very first version of Message-Board-of-Note, many years ago, someone wrote: “Love doesn’t stink. It’s fleeting and imperfect and infuriating and very human. It’s an emotional investment, with all the dividends, interest, and risk the analogy implies, and it should be treated as nothing less.”

I saved it in a word file and its survived several computer crashes. The writer is a friend now, so I emailed him because like-like is just as infuriating and very human.

SEVEN

Bitch, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.
-Keith (my ex-roommate)

EIGHT

We love you very, very, very much and we want nothing but happiness and kindness for you

-From Ellie & David

NINE

Pacey, to Joey: You fall in love and it doesn’t work out, and you think it’ll never happen again. But believe me, it does. In the strangest of places it does.

Jill-IAN, in response: Oh my god, shoot me in the head

TEN

The thing about this sort of thing is it spawns a lot of what is technically healthy emotions. I sobbed through a therapy appointment yesterday. Absolutely sobbed through the raw, gut wrenching feelings.

It. Hurts.

And I remarked “I haven’t had to cry over a boy in years.”

And it has been years. I haven’t “like-liked” a boy in years. And the bliss has been great. Those first few steps of falling where you like-like someone, and you’re not sure where it’s going, but when you’re in his presence the only thing you want to do is kiss him. And when he kisses you back it’s addictive and you never want to stop.

And since you haven’t done this is years, you’re relationship challenged. And he has his own things to deal with too. But when you accidentally get into the We Have to Talk conversation, you seem in agreement to take it one day at a time. When you tell him the Cliffnotes of your relationship history – all those boys who wouldn’t hold your hand in public, he tells you that he would hold your hand in public.

That kind of makes you swoon. As if the pajama pants he brought you in the hospital, Mets hat that showed up on your pillow, and Libertarianism wasn’t enough. You think, for all your bad relationship history, if a guy like this, who knows you’re crazy, could like-like you, well, you must be doing SOMETHING right.

And four days later he comes in and makes the executive decision to take away all the hope and happiness he’d given you.

You’re a head case and already self conscious that that will keep a guy from ever wanting you. He knows you are intensely flawed, because he’s the one that showed up at your hospital bedside and knows you know your way through the ERs around DC.

And for all the other nonsense in your life that totally sucks he gave you a place for a bright spot. He made you smile. More importantly, he made you smile in that way that you smile over a boy that you like, and you haven’t smiled that way in years.

And then one night it all stops. You start to tell him about how Texas is about to win the World Series and he says “This isn’t working for me!” and you’re so blindsided/frozen that at first you don’t get what he’s saying. About 36 hours ago, he’d kissed you awake to tell you “have a good day” and now his words are all about how he will never want you.

So now, you try to play a good game (though you look like hell. No. Seriously. Look in the mirror. You look like hell.) You still smile at him sweetly. You are still polite and civil, like a good tenant. You don’t slam drawers or cabinets.

You alternate between anger and tears. Because on the one hand, how dare he, and on the other, it doesn’t matter, he Doesn’t Wan’t You, and you’ve certainly been down this road before.

He’s the first person in years and years who can make you weak in the knees just by smiling at you. Your effect on him is apparently more minimal.

You realize then that he almost never kissed you first. And then you feel like an idiot, and you cry.

.

.

Note to my mother who sometimes reads this blog: Please do not read this entry.

The roommate and I originally know each other via the Message Board of Note and thus ‘know’ a lot of the same people. To be fair, I know them a lot better than he does, given that I have close friends through the board. Given that my amazing friend just sent me a plane ticket.

The roommate didn’t know about me and OLB (I thought EVERYONE freaking knew about that since OLB quite publicly acted like a jerk and behind the scenes I whispered “Psst. Not only is he being obnoxious, but he also did this.” And then it occurs to me, that I guess I never told this story. (For the record, the women he obnoixously posted about were never me.)

For one, I cannot believe that was three years ago. And actually, most of it, FOUR years ago, since it was 2007 when that drive to Connecticut occurred, and it was Thanksigiving weekend of 2007 that I got dressed for a gathering somewhere, subconsciously knowing something was going to happen, even though I had no reason to think so.

I met OLB on a random drive to Connecticut, for a random gathering of libertarians, who had somehow all wound up on a random spin-off message board. We’d briefly met at a previous gathering, but I thought nothing of him. I guess those hours together in the car were important, because at Thanksgiving weekend that year there was another gathering in the city, and it was one of those nights where you know you look pretty(I had this lacy red tank top on, peaking out from my black sweater. Clearly, some part of me knew something was up even though I really, seriously Had No Idea) and you wonder if the boy next to you is actually sitting closer to you than he needs to be, or whether you’re just imagining it.

(I wasn’t imagining it)

He was smart and emotionally unavailable, so clearly I was hooked. Plus, I thought because he was older he’d be less inclined to play games. Ha. Ha. Ha.

OLB pulled me into his bed, but not his life. I was like his dirty little secret – the crazy girl he was secretly sleeping with. He took me out to dinner, but never out with his friends. The mornings after, he took me for breakfast, and for walks, and then he pushed me on the subway and basically said ‘Get out of my life’

One night a guy from Message Board of Note, from out of town, was visiting. The local contingency got together and drinking was involved. We were a few blocks from OLB’s apartment and a long subway ride away from mine, so I asked him if I could stay over and he said sure.

At the end of the night, it was me, OLB, and this other acquaintance of ours who totally knew what was up. He had known what was up at Thanksgiving – he’s not an idiot. We were all standing on a street corner on the Lower East Side, saying goodnight.

OLB pushed me away and pretended to be walking in a different direction. I was so blindsided/confused that I froze. The acquaintance saw what was up and offered to see me home safely. I was drunk (and now upset) and wound up going home with OLB anyway, where I yelled at him, called him out on what happened that night, and then later, ultimately cowered.

I’m stupid, but I’m not naive. I knew what was up. I had learned a lot of lessons from HWSNBN years earlier. (#1: Do not be with someone who won’t hold your hand in public. Literally and metaphorically) I already knew what it was like to be with someone who’s emotionally unavailable. Who will sleep with you but never tell you you’re pretty. Who will take note of the fact that you’re a headcase, point out your flaws, and later remind you that if you just hadn’t been so god damned melancholy, maybe things could have worked out. Who will constantly cancel on you at the last minute, because sticking to your plans would mean admitting to his friends that he’s seeing you.

I had a crush on HWSNBN long before he kissed me. We were sitting in my living room, and he said “You’re beautiful.” And then he kissed me and in those moments, my world was perfect. Later he told me “I don’t know what guy couldn’t fall into eyes like yours”

A total line, but he said it, I fell, and he still pushed me away. I wasn’t pretty enough or sane enough or together enough or smart enough or whatever enough.

And for all the tears over this, I let it happen and let myself continue to accept increasingly mixed signals, because hell, it was better than nothing. With HWSNBN it was because I’d crushed on him for so long and then he actually kissed me and we’d tease each other politically with “you feed my radicalism.”/”no YOU feed my radicalism”, and at 4 am we’d smoke Camel Lights on my front steps and it felt like Something. With OLB, well…I don’t have any idea. He kissed me, he brought me home, and he made me coffee. And a year later, at the same sort of meet-up, even though we hadn’t talked in months, he walked in and said “You look really nice.” And I proceeded to get black out drunk and go home with him, and engage in what David has since described as “Date-raping yourself”

Somewhere between all of that we made the trip to Chicago for the Message-Board-of-Note meetup. He made the 12 hour drive with me, shared a hotel room with me, and never acknowledged my presence in front of the others. So I coped by getting epically drunk (but behaving quite well. Ellie was driving and was thus stone cold sober and tells me I was fine. As do other people. OLB insisted I was a mess and instead of caring that I was a mess (at this point, I had admitted to him I had a total booze problem) he was just like ‘you’re an idiot and you embarrassed me). We were barely out of Chicago the next day when he blurted out “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

I cried. He listed my flaws. I cried a fair amount of the 12 hours home.

The Thanksgiving relapse happened a few months later and ended with him screaming at me and shoving me on a street corner. And then spending the next few months on Message Board of Note, talking about his relationship drama. In public, he got away with it. In private, fellow MBON people flocked to my side, and as time went on and more stuff developed, more people were like “WTF?!?”

Don’t get me wrong, when this was all going on I was an actively alcoholic head case and no guy would/should have wanted me anyway. But OLB was such a jackass that people were still on my side. I like to think I took the high road – I never made it public, I never called him out on it. But David (x3), Timothy, Ben, Ellie, Ross, Alex, Ali, and hell, even Dru swooped in and said “Yeah. He’s being a jerk. You’re not crazy for thinking he’s being a jerk.”

And years later I am well over HWSNBN and OLB, thank god. I never thought I would be over HWSNBN because he devastated me more than anyone ever had. (“I am a cynic, you are a romantic, but you’re smart enough to be a cynic,” he told me. “And you are really romanticising this.” His dismissal of my alleged romanticism, and thus me was incredibly painful. Ages later, I wrote this. I was able to hold me head high, say ‘screw it’ to the boy I’d moved to New York for, and manage for those first 6 months when I lived in Jersey City and could basically see his building from the balcony.

I smoked the occasional Camel Light, but other than that, I was okay.

And I realize this babblefest has not even addressed The Ex, which is either worthy of a different entry altogether, or not worthy of one at all. Our relationship “changed me” because we were together 4+ years and they were formative years. Mostly though, we were too young. It’s our random friendship that was more damaging. That happened and in some ways I fell for him all over again. As far as I know, he’s in the middle of med school at Georgetown. Which means for a year, I lived no more than a mile from him. On my last day in Glover Park I was packing up some final things and was in a bad mood, and was all sweaty and gross, and thought, ‘watch me run into The Ex right now.’

I didn’t run into him. I haven’t seen him since a week after I broke up with him in 2004. But in the summer of 2006 we had a standing date to speak on the phone on Sunday nights, and texted all the time…and it was fucking ridiculous. And then he got a girlfriend. He tumbled into a relationship with this girl after a long conversation with me where he freaked out about his feelings and I advised. I was in Chicago, a newly minted UChicago student, and hundreds of miles away from everything that had made me happy. One night in October he called me and said tentatively “Oh…so…I have a girlfriend now.” I swallowed my tears (several times) and I smiled through them and told him how happy I was for him.

I loved him. I did love him. I did love him enough to want him to be happy. I do hope he’s happy.

In some way, he must have known it hurt me, because of the tentative tone of his voice on the phone, after several months of us being so close. I called a friend and burst into tears. She’d witnessed all my stupid texting and swooning and she knew I was being stupid. “He has to know that this hurts you,” she said.

It did, but it didn’t matter.

(“There’s one thing I have to say, so I’ll be brave. I know what I wanted. I gave what I gave. I’m not sorry I met you. I’m not sorry it’s over I’m not sorry there’s nothing to say.”)

The Ex is an Ex for a reason. For a lot of reasons. And it was fucked up when we were ‘friends.’ There is a little piece of my heart that will always, always love him (even though the feeling isn’t mutual. He totally hates me) and I’m completely okay with that now.

I have loved once (The Ex), THOUGHT I loved once again (HWSNBN), and once knew there was no way in hell I loved, but I was doing it anyway (OLB).

In between, I’ve had my share of perfectly nice dates with perfectly nice guys, none of whom pinged my interest.

The way to win my heart is to be emotionally unavailable. I’ll take the bait every time, and no, I never learn.

More than five years ago I finished college and I quoted Rent (Early! A fact I fixated on for a long time. Look at me! I can finish college early! I’m smart! No I’m not compensating for insecurity AT ALL) Then, 2004 was amazing to me. My year in review sums that up quite well. Breaking up with the Ex (who I’d been with for more than 4 years) hooking up/dating HWSNBN, that awful summer, finding “inner fucking peace”…it was pretty amazing, back then. So when the year ended, it seemed logical to ask “How DO you measure, a year in the life?”

(For the record, I did not like Rent, at all. I remember when it was super popular, and I didn’t see it until later in its run, but HATED)

This year, objectively, the changes have not been as obvious. I am in the same job I was a year ago. I live in the same place (…still back at my parents house). I haven’t fallen in love or even had so much as a date. Much of the time, I’m bored. Suburbia drains the life out of me.

But then other times, like last Thursday night, I feel that there is no other place I could be, and no other way I could have gotten here than exactly this way.

Brent, Jon, Joe, and I went out to celebrate my one-year. This was originally supposed to include Lisa, but she’s recovering from surgery. We took a (very bad) picture of the four of us, but I look at it, us all looking awkward and stuff, and these are my boys. A year ago, I wasn’t on speaking terms with one of them. My relationship with one of them was fairly cold and way more off than on at best. And yet, they rallied. “Why didn’t you call us?” Jon (the one with whom my relationship was fairly cold) asked. “We would have helped you.”

Jon has had the occasional coffee with me, and because I always kind of feared Jon thought I was a total flake, his encouragement means a lot. Brent was once the person I labeled my best friend. And he was. Until three years ago when I fucked it up, royally. I hurt him worse than I have ever hurt someone in my life.

But there he was last night, telling me it was good to see me getting things together, with a cryptic note that I was better than I was three years ago. He is still, in so many ways, my best friend. We are not as close as we once were. In our nearly 20 year friendship we have hugged maybe 2 dozen times. But we still finish each other’s thoughts with just a glance.

And then there’s Joe. Joe, who took me out to lunch on weekends. Joe, who has helped me write and rewrite cover letters. Joe, who one week, when I was stuck and fretting, and didn’t want to ask my parents for yet another favor, drove me to work, about an hour (round trip) out of his way. It’s funny, because late into high school, Joe and Brent became close and I was jealous. And then, like many groups of high school friends do, we had a falling out of sorts, and Joe and I barely spoke for years. But he is the one I hugged the hardest Thursday night.

They are my favorite people on the planet, and the people that know me better than anyone. This is not to discount the other awesome things and people, which in themselves deserve their own entry. But really, there are a thousand scary-relevant song lyrics reserved just for this.  (I already did that here) In my car, I unabashadly sing along with songs that talk about old friends, and home, and hope, and love.

There is an immense amount of love in my life. Even if I were to only count the three of them.

Every year I’ve given thanks for “The 365 changes to start over on the right foot.” I usually referenced the same around New Year’s. I started doing this in 2004, when the dumbest thing I was doing was the occasional drunk dial to HWSNBN.

In 2007 and 2008 I did a number of things that I wish I could forget, culminating with the stupidest of them in March of 2009. If it weren’t for the change to alleged chance to start over everyday, I don’t know how many times I would have made it out of bed.

I have indulged in a great deal of self-sabotage. I kept setting myself back. That is why, for the past year plus my only plan was to not have a plan. Given my obsessing over the Libertarian Fellowship, I may have finally felt it’s safe to start planning again. Without getting too far ahead of myself, even if I don’t get the Libertarian Fellowship, there are other things I plan to go for. Of course, that is easy for me to say right now – I will be devastated if I don’t get it.

But anyway.

I am grateful for all the obvious things – my parents who didn’t kick my sorry, stupid self to the curb and my friends for not judging and being supportive even when I was not someone who deserved it.

I walked through my neighborhood tonight, at dusk, with wind, in late summer, and it’s way too perfect.

I planned on staying In tonight, but after I showered, I realized I had forgotten my seltzer (I am addicted. A jewish thing)

I went out in my frayed jeans, falling apart-flip flops, and best of all, my inside-out tank top.

The guy at the bodega asked “Where have you been girlie? I missed you!” because I always stop there to buy seltzer, and I’ve not been around for awhile.

November 13 will be over in 10 minutes and then I am determined to start Day One, Year One, because I am into calendars, countdowns, and the like. And I will. But I’m still allowing myself the cry over the stupid over dramatic SVU pregnancy plot and how freaking appropriate is that? I can’t watch this show until this plotline is over. I am silly.

So as I have said before. Life is funny. The-Ex has disappeared out of my life as quickly as he had embedded and then reembedded in every part. I don’t really miss him or anything, and I’m quite sure in as short as a year from now he’ll be even less tied up in memory recall. And I don’t think it could have happened any other way. And even if it could have, it doesn’t matter because this is the way it happened, and we do not speak, and we will not, and it is not out of hate, but just indifference, and I’m still not sure how to take that.

I want to post this before its midnight and I don’t know what else to say, and so hehe, “and so it goes.”

MAKE THIS MONTH END.

Basically, I’ve written this month off as a total fucking waste, and that’s okay and stuff. But damn, just END already, October. Please?

Last October, 2 important things happened.
1) I realized a PhD program was not for me. Yeah, it took months for that thought to actualize, but I knew it as early as October..considering classes started on Sept 25, I unfortunately figured that one out too quick.

2) Ryan called me around 7 AM on a Sunday morning and we had a 5 hour conversation abotu relationships. I learned a good deal about myself and confirmed my romantic past and future, and it was incredibly bittersweet. Because I was speaking to my ex-boyfriend, who I actually don’t speak to right now, and we were telling each other these honest honest things about our love lives and how we would be, and etc. and part of me knew that it was the last time we would speak like that, and I was right. And I don’t even think about it that much, honestly, but when I do, like early morning walks down Third Avenue to work the utter sadness it brings me is pathetic.

When I was 16, I took a leap of faith. I took it because it was “right.” This is the first time I have put right in quotations. Most of you don’t know the story, but I got involved with Ryan under very unfavorable circumstances, knowing it would be very difficuult, and knowing it meant having to deal with shit that you don’t usually volunteer to deal with. I still cannot, even in the most filtered of entries, tell the details, which sounds more cryptic and dramatic than it is, but part of me cannot break the silence, nor can I wish silent condemnation on myself for my choice.

The leap of faith I took has had its share of consequences on my life, I had never ‘questioned’ it as a correct step.

For the first time in my life I am dangerously worrying, what my life would be like it I had (probably rightly) chosen to throw away potential with Ryan. If, on that weekend I learned his bit of news I had been able to say ‘Well…nevermind then”

It took me eight years to admit I may have responded in the wrong way.

And so I also want to let go of those eight years, because I wish I knew where I’d be without them, even though that is impossible on several levels.

As in, “i loved you Ryan, I really did. But I should have walked away from you when I was 16 and had the opportunity. And I’ve never said that before. Not even when we first broke up. Not even last fall when you got the new girlfriend. But I loved you and for the first time I wish I never had. And I hate that, but it might be the most honest thing I ever felt.”

Can’t you just feel the angst?

I’ve been listening to the song “Hey There Delilah” incesssently, because my roommate plays it on his guitar all the time, and being a musician, I’m sure its sort of an anthem for himself, but like any love song it makes me a little sad, because I have no one with which to associate the love song.

Which made me want to listen to Bon Jovi’s “This Ain’t A Love Song.” Go figure. That plays, and then “These Days” comes on after that, and it’s freshman year of college and I knew then what I know now, on some level, and this song is so palpitably putting me back on the road in Amherst and Hadley I just don’t know how to put it into words. Arg, my memory and music. The entire album “Maybe You Should Drive” is definitely Amherst/Hampshire for me. What’s creepy is I remember driving North on 91 when i was actually, you know, moving up there, and the song “Jane” playing and I listened to that CD over and over again that year. Which of course I’m now playing, and “Love, Intermittendly” which is another Ryan memory, because what the hell in my music collection isn’t?

This doesn’t even begin to cover the range of angst I’ve experienced this month, but I”m gonna bite down on the inside of my cheeks and shut the hell up about all of it, because it’s not worth it, or helpful right now to try and be articulate about.

Okay well. This month is almost over. I’m not on the road to a PhD and I don’t have a boyfriend and won’t anytime soon.

I also have a really good apartment and a really good job and I really need to focus on both instead of being a slob, not doing laundry, and treating each day as a day to get through instead of a day to day build on each other.

Tomorrow is a brand new month and while it’s technically a meaningless milestone, tomorrow won’t be October and I will try to start again from Square One in New York because I have to, because I want to, because I need to.

Dear You,

You know, I think I’ve watched more TV in the past 18 months than I have in the past 18 years. Well that’s an exaggeration.

But seriously, I just watched a re-run of House and how can I not be re-drawn in by the quote of “I think true love’s out there. It’s just very far away in another universe. We may have to develop travel at the speed of light to reach it” (or something like that) and that has ALMOST NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT. I also liked “People who are afraid of commitment are afraid of it because they know how big a deal it is”

Clearly, I need help. It doesn’t help that I’m reading the fourth installment of the Jessica Darling books. If you’re a female with a sometimes TMI livejournal between I highly recommend them. (Sloppy Firsts/Second Helpings/Charmed Thirds/Fourth Comings, by Megan McCafferty. They’re like crack. And I want someone else to read them so I can find out if its not just me who dislikes the male love interest

Gawd. (I am rolling my eyes at myself)

I’m FINE, on 97.5% of all levels. My thesis is getting done (my questions about whether its a valid piece of academia is probably part of the 2.5%) I like my classes. I have friends here, and at home.

But ug, the way a freaking SONG can trigger melancholy, even without a specific memory is damn powerful. So effective, that I even have to laugh at myself, what with my conception of free will and all. And I must send a check tomorrow, for a cause I deem wonderful, but also horribly sad.

I mean, I just watched Miracle and cried. If you don’t know me well enough to know WHY it is I won’t bother explaining. So I’m watching Eternal Sunshine at 1 AM and that’s all healthy, clearly.

I love the premise of Eternal Sunshine. Just the IDEA of trying with someone, even if you know deep down that it isn’t going to work, even if you know you’re going to get hurt, there is just this inherent romanticism in TRYING with someone. I love Kate Winslet in this movie; she’s so raw and beautiful. And I don’t understand why this is considered a comedy; this movie is depressing as hell.

It was around the fourth drink that Jill-IAN turned to me and said, in her uber Brooklyn accent “You know, 2007 better be better than 2006.”

I clucked my tongue and sympathized with her – she’s had a rough year, losing her job and worse, getting brutally dumped back in May.

Drew chimes in that 2006 hasn’t been that bad, it’s just the whole getting played by the girl he had feelings for totally sucked

And so I add that my love life is DOA, but 2006 has been a pretty damn good year. Maybe even the best of years.

Jill considers this for a moment. “You know,” she says. “I love you and I love Drew. Getting to know you has been one of the best things that could’ve happen to me.”

We embrace, because we’re a little drunk — hence the gushing — but the gesture is heartfelt nonetheless.

“I agree,” I tell her. “You saved me; you’re part of why I was able to make this such a good year.”

“Awww, Neumsy,” she says in the voice she reserves for moments like this. Then she switches back to Brooklyn-tough. “What about you Drew? We’ve like, improved your life significantly, haven’t we?”
“Of course,” he answers sardonically.

I raise my Sam Adams – only $3 here, our favorite dive bar way the hell out in Brooklyn – “To our love lives sucking less in 2007.”

Amen.

it’s quiet now and what it brings
Is everything comes calling back
A brilliant night, I’m still awake
I’d looked ahead, I’m sure I saw you there
You don’t need me to tell you now, that nothing can compare

(“It’s so quiet here…sometimes I get so homesick that I hum the Mr. Softee song.”
-Alex Cabot, Law & Order SVU)

You might have laughed if I told you
You might have hidden your frown
You might have succeeded in changing me
I might have been turned around
It’s easier to leave than to be left behind
Leaving was never my pride
Leaving New York, never easy
I saw the light fading out

(Dear New York,

I miss you very, very, very much. I dislike Chicago because it is not you. I miss the cacophony of Midtown when I stepped out of the subway station at 55th & 7th every morning. I miss the sunsets over the Tri-borough Bridge, viewed from the N-train. I miss Astoria – Hyde Park has nothing on it. I miss moments with all my friends and co-workers and acquintences. I miss my apartment, and my walk to work, and my life there. I miss who you made me.

Now life is sweet and what it brings
I’ve tried to take
A lonlieness, it wears me out
It lies in wait
I might’ve lived my live if a dream, but I swear
This is real

I miss being happier than I ever imagined possible. I miss the disbelief that my life was possibly that good. I miss the ridiculous excitement that overtook me whenever I re-remembered that this was real.

Memory fuses and shatters like glass
Mercurial future, forget the past
But it’s you, it’s what I feel

I miss familiarity, and comfort, and love. I just miss you.

Love,
Rachel )  

Leaving New York, never easy (it’s pulling me apart)
I saw the lights fading out
You find it in your heart, change…
I told you, forever
I love you forever

I told you, forever
You never, you never
You told me forever 

Leaving New York never easy (it’s pulling me apart)
I saw the light fading out (change)
-R.E.M

Seven years ago, wearing Mudd Jeans, a purple shirt…I don’t remember what shoes, but I sprayed my neck with LEAP! Perfume.

I am sixteen years old. The boy at my side has a girlfriend; we’ve already had that conversation. (He likes me. I like him. But he has a girlfriend, and he loves her, and…and yeah, of course I get it. But that doesn’t stop me from a mutual making plans and hanging out and we’re not flirting I swear ) A few hours, a few drinks (my first. Our first.) later, and we are laughing over some inanity because we are young and not accustomed with the effects of booze, and I know before I know, and then he kisses me.

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