…Of course I wish it wasn’t. Maybe I would have been fine with life being so small. So overwrought. It’s terrible to be alone with no one to help you.

I looked at pictures from when it first began, and we seemed happy. So much thinner. I just don’t understand. Is it that I’ve been where he is, and I want to give him the joyous reunion I always wanted?

Hello, I know there’s someone out there who can understand
And who’s feeling the same way as me
I’m twenty-four and I’ve got everything to live for
But I know now that it wasn’t meant to be
‘Cause all has been lost and all has been won
And there’s nothing left for us to save
But now I know that I don’t want to be alone today
So if you find that you’ve been feeling just the same

Call me now it’s alright
It’s just the end of the world
You need a friend in the world
‘Cause you can’t hide
So call and I’ll get right back
If your intentions are pure
I’m seeking a friend for the end of the world

I’ve got a photograph I’ll send it off today
And you will see that I am perfectly sane
Not for a lifetime or forever and a day
‘Cause we know now that just won’t be the case
There will be no commitment and no confessions
And no little secrets to keep
No little children or houses with roses just the
End of the world and me
‘Cause all has been gone and all has been done
And there’s nothing left for us to say
But we could be together as they blow it all away
And we can share in every moment as it breaks

Call me now it’s alright
It’s just the end of the world
You need a friend in the world
‘Cause you can’t hide
So call and I’ll get right back
If your intentions are pure
I’m seeking a friend for the end of the world

So, someone I felt so ambivalent about leaving, someone I felt so guilty for not loving more, someone I seriously considered marrying because I figured no one else would ever love me more, that someone betrayed me. He divulged a secret I had never told anyone. To his mother. Who dropped it into conversation on her her biweekly phone call to me (“to make sure” I’m “okay”).

Bastard.

I don’t understand why it has to be this way for me. I try very hard to make positive changes in my life, yet the same problems and unfairnesses-of-the-universe that have haunted me since I was a tiny child continue to haunt me. Damn it all.

I don’t wanna lose you,
I don’t wanna use you
just to have sombody by my side
And I don’t wanna hate you
I don’t wanna take you
But I don’t wanna be the one to cry
That don’t really matter to anyone, anymore
But like a fool I keep losing my place
And I keep seeing you walk through that door

But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much
And its sad when you know it’s your heart you can’t trust
There’s a reason why people don’t stay where they are
Baby sometimes love just ain’t enough

Now I could never change you
I don’t wanna blame you
Baby you don’t have to take the fall
Yes I may have hurt you
But I did not desert you
Maybe I just want to have it all
It makes a sound like thunder
It makes me feel like rain
And like a fool who will never see the truth
I keep thinking something’s gonna change

But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much
And its sad when you know it’s your heart you can’t trust
There’s a reason why people don’t stay where they are
Baby sometimes love just ain’t enough

And there’s no way home
when it’s late at night and you’re all alone
Are there things that you wanted to say
Do you feel me beside you in your bed
there beside you where I used to lay

And there’s a danger in loving somebody too much
And it’s sad when you know it’s your heart they can’t touch
There’s a reason why people don’t stay who they are
Cause baby sometimes love just ain’t enough
Baby sometimes love just ain’t enough

But he’s just one of the many links.

It’s been many years, many different people.

Just one question.

“G-d damn it, why couldn’t you just love me?”

It’s a simple human want. And yet the most elusive thing. Love without strings attached. To be loved for who you are, rather than who they want you to be.

I can’t go through with this.

It’s just as bad as other times, in certain ways worse.

Nate was a definite maybe. He and I were alike. We looked alike, lacked social skills from homeschooling, were at a similar level of intelligence. We both dressed with style, spending too much money on clothes and hobbies like cameras.

We were born 2 days apart. We went out for our 21st birthdays together, but I couldn’t drink. I wasn’t as recovered from my childhood as I had thought.

I dragged my feet when I was moving, hoping he would give me a reason to stay. But he did nothing.

Where is he now? He’s getting married today. Only took him a couple months to start dating someone after I moved.

I threw my whole life away to come to Boston. For what?

I hear the maintenance guy downstairs listening to “Dark Side of the Moon” and my heart aches. I have more possibilities than I could have dreamed, and yet my heart still wants Patrick.

December. December? December. Already.

I am not at all the person I was last December. I was a college senior, happy with my classes for the first time in a long time. Drawing self-esteem from a secret lie which involved someone else (how I wish I could forget that whole episode). Working a couple jobs which I liked, and where they liked me. I had waist-length hair. I was a vegetarian and didn’t touch alcohol. I had a great apartment and a car in perfect condition. I knew where I was.

Not one of those things is true anymore.

Not that this year has been all about loss. After all, I gained a diploma and class ring, got some stamps in my passport, got a grown-up job (sort of) and a new life in crappy old Boston.

I’m already looking back on this and wondering how and why it happened. I’m sure the bewilderment will only grow with time.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned this year was that when I would say “it makes no difference”–I was wrong. It makes a difference where you are, what you do, who you’re with. It always makes a difference.

He’s too old for me. I never even used to like him. I used to wish Deric was single.

At the picnic in July on Lake Erie, he very nearly held me in his arms as we set up. And then he sat a little way down the table from me, and listened so closely as we discovered things in common like nuclear plants and wacky Russian experiences. And I started to wonder then…

He always respected my language ability, thinking it was superior to his. He would ask if I could understand what he and others were trying to say. When we had the first Russian TMS he came up to me first after the meeting.

I started noticing that he was a little wilder than he might seem. Risque polka music, guitars all around his house, and one day I couldn’t figure out why his jacket was buttoned the way it was… until I realized he was showing off a belt buckle. Rich is a rockstar, I said to myself.

But also a sweetheart, who hangs in his living room that Renoir of the dancing couple, and who loves Top Gun, and who has faithfully soldiered it out for 7 years now.

At Quince’s house, I wondered if I was receiving more than the usual attention from him. During a WT when I wasn’t feeling well, I felt like he was reading the misery on my face as disdain for mistakes, since he kept apologizing.

And then, as I looked helplessly for a seat in the stadium in Poland, as I prayed silently to God about how alone I felt, I looked up, and there he was a few stairs above me. I hugged him, too long and too close and with no return. But then we became a pair. We found seats together, we let others around us assume we were a couple. We shared an umbrella and a Bible. I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to put my head on his shoulder. It was a lovely day.

And then it ended, awkward and with no way to repeat it.

I wanted him to tell me not to move to Boston, but he didn’t. He seemed sad when I told him I was going to, though. And he has been very sweet about writing to me since then.

He is a very big part of the reason I want to get back to Detroit ASAP.