i am almost in tears at work. and i have absolutely no reason to be. I have everything a girl could ever want in boyfriend. He's got the best eyes, tall and skinny (well, that how I like'em! ), brilliant, funny, caring, gentle, adventurous, and financially stable to the point where, down the line, I proly wouldnt have to work for real anymore. He wants a family. We are never out on the street without holding hands. ("gimme a mitt", he says :) ) And his family has accepted me. I've spent the last 2 Christmases there, basking in the warmth of the season and a love I never quite felt at home. and eating delicious desserts on Thanksgiving amid extended and curious family. If I had to find a gripe, it's that he gets grumpy when he's tired or hungry. And who doesnt? It cant even be a real gripe!!! And maybe I get annoyed with the fact that when we hang out with my friends, he always wants to go home. So, let him go, right? No big deal!! And most importantly,(back to the good things) he wants ME. Not just cute little hipster me, but after-swim exhausted and PMS'ey cranky me, restless me, hands-tied me, unsuccessful me. He takes my sadness and makes me forget it. We've been together for 2 1/2 years now. So why am I unable to eat this morning? Why when, I see HIM again, do all the passionate feelings that I've not felt with anyone since rush back like the ocean closing in the oppressors. Not with Jeramy or James. and not even now. And I don't mean lust. I mean like the garden of eden welling up; a glorious mystical spring after a long harsh winter. Narnia perhaps, or Oz. My sadness is not forgotten around him; it is erased. Winter would not chill me in his arms. How could a person feel this way after only dating someone for 6 months (of which only 3 he was actually in town), and at that, 8 years ago? It's not right...right? I feel as if HE was the person I was always supposed to be with, but that that fate has been ripped away from this Universe entirely and placed somewhere else. And I am confused because this feeling is so one-sided. I think. I mean, I would never ask. But I can only assume the lop-sidedness of things due to our ages when this all went down. I was only 19 and he was 25, having already broken off an engagement. I have to chalk it up to young and impressionable. It was first love: never to be duplicated again, but replaced in the end by the "Real one". I dont really know his side of things. Only mine. He told me to find him on MySpace. So I did this morning. And the picture of his girlfriend pops right back to stare at me. She's huge on the right and first in his top 10. I couldn't take it. I closed the window. I suppose he must be clueless how I feel, or else he wouldn't have sent me there. (And maybe, then, im doing a great job at hiding my feelings, huh? ) I said I'd write, but I don't know if I can go back right now. Or tomorrow, or the next day. I've been busying myself with filing and scheduling BT's appts. I have an agenda to write for tonight's One Hour Swim fundraiser meeting...and them the meeting itself is at 6:30.

But here's the kicker. Perhaps here is what's bothering me more than feeling like Im some sort of silent psycho. (Which bothers me a GREAT deal and fills me with dissapointment with my character.) I could possibly live forever with my sadness. In fact, know that I could because I have done so quite well over the past 8 years. It's one thing to date and forget and break up and move on. Beginnings are such glorious and sparkling things: their own gardens of eden if you will. Full of promise. (Ah, hah! maybe that's why i havent settled down yet!) But,I know that at some point, my BF is going to propose to me. We've talked of the future and kids and where we would want to live. It's inevidable. I imagine that I have another year or two figure my shit out. I'm hoping. I know that I love Dave a great deal. I know that it will be hard to find someone better--that when the sex breaks down (never!!! :) ), I'd have the perfect lifepartner to hold my hand at age 80. I know that I would be a fool to say no. But how do I determine if Im making the right decision based on all this bullshit that I've just spilled? Is it fair to him? Is it fair to me? Will I regret saying yes? Will I regret saying no? It's not like me and M. are going to ever work out. But every time I hear certain bands, or even go to a show, stand under an archway in a garden, see a drive-in movie theater or a greyhound bus, think of St. Louis, chucks, X-files, or David Lynch, autumn, sweaters and coffee...or a million other random and small things, at those moments, my heart strays and I feel guilty. Does it go to M, or to an ideal? I've been telling myself it's an ideal, but it pretty clearly wasn't last night. I need some time to think. Hopefully more than a year. I thought I'd been fine last night. But I wasn't. I was so happy. and nervous. He has a quote on his MySpace page --something about making yourself look stupid for the things you want. But it doesnt seem to apply to me. I made out with some guy I didnt care about when M was on tour. I was SO stupid and 19. I told him the next day because I didnt dare live with the secret, and it was him I loved. Truly and completely. The beginning of the end. We went on a couple dates when he came back, but he took a day off of work to write and think, and then he called me to end it. I drove over to his house and waited for hours outside, and when I finally knocked, he was there and I begged and pleaded on my knees. But I think he knew I was only 19 and supposed to be leaving Ohio after graduation. And later that year when I wrote a long and psycho email about how I supposed he didnt care about me, he informed me that I didnt know anything about his heart and the reasons he did what he did. Id like to think it was because i was 19 and and leaving ohio after college. But I'll never know for sure. As you can see, I stabbed my own back. Anyway, my stupid moves on a limb didnt work out. That was my point here. And I'm writing in my journal all the things that I dont dare say to the BF or M. They don't come here. I need to figure all this out. How long will it take? Why is 8 years not enough time?