Grieves

I've been so busy trying to get my computer to start that I forgot whatever I was even thinking of writing about. Whatever.

I've had a lot of mixed feelings lately about the friendship I keep with my ex girlfriend. I've had mixed feelings of her the last 3 years, actually. I'm probably properly branded as a sentimentalist. Some might say it's romanticism. Maybe I don't completely not believe in love just yet.

But mainly, I just think I'm an idiot most of the time.

About a week ago, when Trey was over, we stepped outside so I could get an old pair of shoes to throw on with no socks so he and I could get Slurpee's as the market around the corner. I grabbed for my tattered black shoes and said, "Man, I've had these for like three years now. And I still wear them."

Trey didn't pause, and responded, "Maybe that's your problem. You need some new things."

That's why I like Trey. He is forceful and tries to get his way with every other person in the world, but with me he can still get his point across by only softly pushing me in the right direction. I understand what I need to do, and I understand who I am. The gap between the two is growing like mold, wider than in any other part of my life.

In brief nondescript detail, I got my first legitimate girlfriend at 18 and fell in love and all that jazz for the first time. I left for college in Virginia and her and I could never really keep it the same. It's not that long distance relationships don't work; they can. It required an amount of love that both her and I were more than willing to give one another, but I could never really translate it from my end.

We spent the summer together before I left in the fall, and a week for Thanksgiving and spring break. And also a month for winter break. In a year-long relationship, we were probably together, live, in person, about 4 months.

She broke up with me recently after she turned 19. In an unrelated nature, she moved to Texas with her mom and I never really heard from her again. The 2009 summer was a long one. The following winter was long. Every day I rotted away like sand in an hourglass. But by the following spring, I started to get over the depression. It took a long time.

I turned 20 in March that spring, and had a summer of revelations that really changed me in how I acted towards people. All the hate and jealousy I seemed to always focus on almost vanished overnight. All I wanted to do was listen and observe. It was the birth of my new set of ideals. It was an important time. (All the while, between summer '09 through the fall of '10 I didn't hear from my ex.)

By random occurrence, just as our relationship started on a harmless field trip bus ride to Pasadena to see a live showing of Sweeney Todd, she sent me a text message that read simply my full name with an exclamation point at the end. That was in November of 2010. We've been back in contact since. She lives in Texas; I live in California.

This is why I feel like such a dumb ass. I recognize how counterproductive she can be to my life. We can literally write back and forth all day and have a half hour phone conversation that she has to pay for with her stupid fucking service plan. She tells me she loves me and I tell her I love her too. We really are two peas in a pod sometimes.

I also know she's one of the only people I've met who's smarter than me. Who can manipulate my emotions. Who can get me begging for mercy. I generally keep my relationships with other people in the same context, though usually I'm playing the role she is, and the other person is me.

I have issues with vices and addictions, and she is one of my many. She came back to visit recently. She drank wine with my mom and caught my first rap show. We had a lot of sex. She even calls it love. And maybe it is. I have read books and watched movies and heard from strangers and taken advice from my parents, but this is my life I live. And as stupid as she makes me feel sometimes, she also makes me feel likethe greatest asset to the world.

She's hard to love because it hurts to love her. Even from some distance. I'll probably keep this itch I've had for her. But being a practical human being, I'm not holding back from meeting the next best thing that comes along in my life, though I won't settle for anything less than what I've already had.

ER