Making plans to change the world while the world is changing us

There she was. In a teeny-tiny Viking costume. I shouldn’t have clicked on her name but I did. Now I had an almost-naked visual to go along with his handful of stories about her. It didn’t matter how many times he told me she didn’t support his career or believe in his talent or care about his happiness. All I could focus on was how she made a lot of money and how tan she was and how below that picture of her in her teeny-tiny Viking costume was a comment: “TC likes this.” My stomach rose up in protest.

“We don’t talk,” he had told me once. “She texted me a couple weeks ago to come get some of my stuff and I told her to throw it away. Trust me, I have no interest in keeping in touch with my ex’es.” I had heard this same speech before from E. and then found out a year later he was telling his own ex that he loved her the whole time. And now here was my first red flag from TC. I couldn’t let it go.

“Are you home?”

“No, what’s up?”

“Just wanted to ask you something.”

“What?”

“It can wait, call me when you get home.”

“No, I hate that. What is it?”

I was trembling. I knew he would be so angry. Didn’t I trust him? Why would I snoop into his past? Why would I be digging on Facebook? How did I even know who she was anyway? But it didn’t matter. If I didn’t ask now it would bubble up inside of me, constantly marinating, churning, stewing until one night after a few drinks I’d scream out, “I know you’re still in touch with her! I saw her Facebook picture!”

I tried to explain as rationally as I could. “I clicked on your ex’s profile. I shouldn’t have, but I did and I saw this slutty picture of her that you liked. And it really bothered me.” He began his typically rational speech. They are not in touch. They had an amicable breakup a year and a half ago, and every once in awhile he gets a text from her saying hello. He saw the picture on Facebook of a cute girl in a tiny outfit and he clicked like. That was all. She texted him afterward to say she saw his comment and hoped everything was going well. “We had a good relationship. We broke up over my career, and we both knew it was the best idea. We’re different people now and I don’t really like the person she’s turned into. I don’t like how she treats me or who she’s become, and I’m not attracted her anymore; emotionally, physically, or sexually. At all. But I hope she’s happy.” I had nothing else to say.

When do I start to really believe in this? When do I start to feel secure in this, in us? When he says I’m different, how long until I actually hear it?

He called back half an hour later. I anticipated anger. You know, Lauren, this REALLY pisses me off! But instead I got a quiet voice.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” And I meant it.

I want you so bad I'll go back on the things I believe

E. turned me into someone who has preemptively ruined everything that could be important to me in the future. I was a rebound. He had her the whole time, tucked away deep in his heart while I was chiseling away at the edges.

He creeps into every relationship I've had, as if I'm dating him over and over again. I let men take on his qualities and kill them for it when I start to get attached.

I can let him ruin me again.

Or I can let this be the time I say goodbye to him for good.

He's Not the One

It was a classic New York moment. I was standing outside a bar in the East Village, on the phone with The Aussie giving him directions when I saw J.C. coming at me from down the street. I could barely focus on my speech as he caught my gaze and removed his headphones.

J.C. is a perfect example of someone I thought I could change, someone I thought I could convince that I was worth being different for. Over the span of a year and a half we met, went on a couple dates, morphed those dates into a purely physical relationship, stopped talking, started talking again, hooked up again, stopped talking, started talking again, and then ended it for good. "I don't want to do the casual dating thing," I told him, when I couldn't take it anymore. "I just can't be anybody's boyfriend right now," he answered honestly. There was no hostility between us. We were just two people with palpable chemistry who wanted different things.

When I saw him on the street it was the first time I’d laid eyes on him in over a year. He was elated to see me. He told me he was on his way to a party in Chelsea but he motioned to the bar I was about to go into. “Let’s go in!” he exclaimed, always the easy going optimist. “I have a couple minutes, I want to catch up with you.” He took me inside and bought me a beer and pulled me away from my group of friends.

After the requisite job, friends, apartment details, I asked about his parents. “How’s your dad doing?” He looked surprised. “Not bad, he’s still drawing.” “Good. I remember those drawings hanging outside of their apartment.” Again, the pause of surprise. “Really? You remember that?” He put a hand on my shoulder. “I have to go to the bathroom but when I come back, can I steal you away from your friends again?”

When he came back our conversation turned. “So, is this the significant other?” he asked, motioning to my friend, B. I told him B. was just a friend but the real significant other was on his way. “I hope that’s not awkward.” “No,” he insisted, maybe a little too emphatically. “No, that’s not awkward. Totally fine. No worries.” His eyes lowered. “You know, we’re still not friends on Facebook. After you de-friended me, you never re-friended me.” My cheeks flushed. “Oh, it’s just Facebook.” He put his hand on my shoulder again. “Well, you were a significant moment in my life. I’m really glad I ran into you.”

He left shortly after and then The Aussie came and it was a perfectly lovely evening. But that line stuck with me. “A significant moment in my life.” It’s hard to work through a breakup, or a relationship that was once incredible but turned sour, but for me it is the most difficult to accept something that had all the potential in the world and never had the chance to even get off the ground.

Easy, Love

I can remember the beginning very vividly. We had been friends for around six months when I was certain the attraction extended beyond the platonic. One night I got a text: Just drove by your street and it made me think of you. He kissed me at a party and we snuggled under a blanket. A week later he asked me, “What are we?” “I don’t know.” “I want us to be together.” “I want that, too.” I was seventeen. It was so damn easy.

I had never wanted to be around anyone the way I wanted to be around him. I would leave for school an hour early so I could crawl into his bed with him for fifteen minutes before my day started. I’d skip dance class to sit at Charlie’s Burgers with him, my feet resting in his lap as he sat across the booth from me. We’d leave social gatherings early to park by the lake and talk about school and our families and television and nothing and everything all at the same time. I was the loudest swim fan at his meets, and he sent the biggest bouquet after my shows.

I was only seventeen, but I really loved E. I know I did. It’s the only romantic love I’ve ever known, and call me crazy, but I keep waiting for that second man to walk in and prove to me that love really is easy. It doesn’t involve games, or drama, or angst-filled Gchat messages that place blame and guilt. It’ll be as easy as my feet in his lap at a burger joint. I’m sure of it.

"Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here." --M.W.

One of my parents’ favorite stories to tell about me is from when I was five years old. We were at Disney World and while I wasn’t tall enough to ride anything but the Dumbo ride and the teacups, I was big enough to go into the Haunted House. Timid at first, I waited in line holding my mother’s hand, and admiring the size of what was sure to be a castle. Tall, pointed spires, flags waving… castle, right?

When we finally arrived at the giant black door, the guard greeted us with a simple, but ghoulish, hello. I froze, screamed in terror, and burst into tears. The actor playing the guard apparently knelt down to try and comfort me and convince me he wasn’t that scary after all, but I was scarred. No amount of prodding after that moment could convince me to go into that haunted house. My mother was forced to wait on the bench outside the ride with me until my brother and father were through. It was the moment I became afraid of everything.

A few months later I had to drop out of gymnastics because I was afraid to flip over the uneven bars. One night the babysitter had to run upstairs to check on me because I let out a shriek of terror in the middle of the night: I had used a flashlight to guide my way to the bathroom, and when the globular, human-head-shaped shadow of the banister projected onto the wall, I thought I was a goner. I was terrified of waves in the ocean, and famous in my pediatrician’s office for earth-shattering screams when approached with the finger prick blood test. I couldn’t catch even a glimpse of a scary movie without being traumatized for weeks with nightmares. I fainted at the slightest hint of my own blood and once passed out cold in summer camp because I thought I had cut my finger on a piano, but in fact had not.

My fears were crippling. In the bigger picture, I have always been afraid of the unknown and in a way, I still am. I find myself crippled with the fear of getting hurt in a different way. My heart has been broken before. It’s a pain I know well. But somehow I’m afraid that the next time someone breaks it, it’ll be a pain like nothing I could’ve ever anticipated. It’s as if I’m staring down the castle door all over again.

A Sweater

It was chilly. I pulled down the sleeves of my sweater and gripped onto the ends. Hugging myself for extra warmth, I brushed my cheek on the cashmere. With that small action, I was transported.

It was the Monday after Thanksgiving break my junior year of college, and I couldn't sit still. When would this infernal class end? Didn't my professor realize that that morning, filled with nervous excitement, I had picked out an especially cute outfit? That mi amor and I had spent four whole days apart? That I could burst with missing him? After what seemed like eons, it was time. In his hat and this sweater, a new purchase from a department store sale at home, I rushed over to the coffee shop. There he was in a similar hat (after all, he had given me his for a reason and we both agreed it looked better on me anyway) and cashmere sweater. I edged past the line, and he left his post behind the counter. Happiness restored. In the softness of the wool and the tenderness of our new love, the world fell away.

And in the conference room this morning, my eyes welled up at the memory.

RSVP

In one year everything in my life changed. In 2004 I was an optimistic dancer/singer/actress with an all-star swimmer boyfriend who went home every once in awhile to Rochester, NY and slept in the same room I spent my entire nineteen years in. By 2005 I was a hurt, embittered English major with plans to be a writer who ached when she saw swimmers and went “home” to a cold empty house an hour north of the city in a hard bed no one had ever slept in. I was changed. And I left a little piece of me in Rochester, dancing and singing and acting with the swimmer.

Every year since then I have had to face a decision. This year is no different. An invitation to a “reunion.” I stare at the RSVP list and I see E.’s face smiling back at me, pressed up against his new girlfriend. I don’t feel jealous. I don’t compare myself to her (okay, I’m more attractive… I’m still human). But when I think about going back to the city I grew up in that is no longer my own, seeing people I used to dance and sing and act with who still ask if I’m performing, and making plastic-smiled pleasantries with E., who just 2 months ago told me I’d “never” hear from him again, I get sick. My insides begin to churn and I have to make a choice.

Nineteen years turned me into someone and one single year turned me into another person completely. E. doesn’t know this new girl, and neither does anyone else who watched me on stage in high school. Sometimes even I don’t know this new girl. She is like a mythical character, part optimistic shining star part hardened, blackened city girl. And when City Girl walks into the bar and greets all of those familiar faces, she feels a little lost and out of place.

“Are you attending?” Yes.
Or no.

I'm Not Sorry I Met You, I'm Not Sorry It's Over, I'm Not Sorry There's Nothing To Say

E. called me. On Halloween. I just haven’t been able to find a way to write about it until now. He calls every 12 or 18 months. We broke up five and a half years ago, but he never let the wound close. And even now he hangs around to make sure that just as the scar begins to fade, he’ll make another jab to make sure it lasts. To make sure he lasts. To make sure he’s not forgotten.

E. hurt me in ways I can’t describe. I fell so far in love with him and then he lied to me and hurt me and never really seemed to care. But he could never let me go. He’d promise to meet me so we could talk and then stand me up. He’d call and provoke me, hang up, let me leave a hysterical message, and then play it on speakerphone for his friends. He’d buy a ticket to a show I was in and then not attend. And he’s been calling ever since to tell me that he misses me and that he wishes we could talk more. I don’t know why I answer. But I always do.

I heard this song on Tuesday and it hit me like a cannonball to the gut. It describes this situation so much better than I can.

On Being First

I am big on The Letting Go. I delete phone numbers and de-friend on Facebook faster than you can say “We should just be friends.” I am quick to cut ties because in my experience, it is the fastest way to get over a guy. But sometimes they just don’t let you go, no matter how quick and forceful the blow that severed the tie.

I knew The Boy would be at B.’s party Saturday. We’d randomly spoken a couple times after he stopped calling me last winter and although I want to claim that I have no feelings toward him either way, there is a tiny bit of me that wants him to want me. To see what he missed out on. The last time I saw him I was dating J. and I thought that was “in your face” enough. Then he sent me a message on my birthday. “Let me know if maybe you want to grab a drink soon.” Huh? I replied ambiguously. I guess we could be friends?

Saturday night he showed up at the party and I said hello but made no valiant effort at talking to him. If anything, I put my energies into avoiding him. But later on at the bar he found me. We talked football. (When did I become the girl guys can only talk to about football?) He announced he was going to get another drink. He looked down at my empty glass, then back at me, at my glass. And never offered to get me one.

I danced with my friends, I had another drink, and then I went home. I noticed he was grinding with some girl in a tiny skirt when I left and I found myself disgusted. In the cab I noticed a text from an hour before. The Boy: Save me a dance for later? I ignored it. I felt strange and disconnected. What the hell was going on here? A dance for later? Was that metaphoric? Was I supposed to be the girl in the tiny skirt? I deleted it and sank back in the cab. Another text. The Boy: Did you leave? I will be slightly disappointed if you left without saying goodbye. Or saving me that dance.

That night I got home and cried. It wasn’t because The Boy was lame and ambiguous and confusing and attracted to me but not really. It wasn’t because I haven’t heard from the LDC in three days, and before then only about football. It wasn’t because I’ve been single for a really long time. It was because I felt second best. I felt good but not good enough. And even though The Boy was only important in my life for a short amount of time and remains some distant pin prick in my night sky of old flames, he managed to make me feel second best for the second time.

I Know You

“I know you.”

That line has always struck a chord with me. E. said it in the beginning after we’d just confessed that we loved each other. It was a warm, comfortable sentiment that hugged me close and made me feel like no matter what kind of psychopath I would inevitably turn into, he knew who I was at heart. No PMS or bad hair day could shake his knowledge of my life, my personality, my habits.

He uttered it four years later and it felt very different. Four years after the “I love you” and three years after the “I don’t love you anymore.” I had changed, I had grown up. I wasn’t co-habiting a tiny dorm room in rural Western New York. I was breezing into high-rise apartment buildings and rubbing elbows with models and Wall Street bankers in chic and urban Manhattan. Gone were the days of hoodies and excitement in the form of the Webster Fireman’s Carnival. Gone were the days when he knew me.

But we stood in the bar, sipping beers at the annual Christmas get together in my little home town, me trying too hard to look the part of Sophisticated New Yorker and him seemingly the same boisterous, pompous goof he had been in high school, and he made me feel like he could still see me. He made a joke about how much I eat. “You don’t knooow me!” I joked back. He grinned and his eyes narrowed and he said quietly and only to me, “I know you.”

E. used to say, “I like because, I love although.” It was eventually what broke us up. He knew me, but those little things he loved “although” must have been too much.

The initial weeks and months (and years...) of flirting and talking are fun, but I am a girl who lives for the moment when a guy knows me. When I become predictable. In addition to his inadvertent “we” comment last week, The LDC made another small step for him, giant leap for me statement. He called last night at 11. I was asleep.

“What time is it?”
“It’s… oh, it’s 11 there. I’m sorry, were you asleep?”
“Mmhmm… it’s okay.”
“You’ve been such a night owl lately, I forgot how early you usually go to bed.”

Whether he means to or not, he is getting to know me.

Girl in the Iron Mask

As I walked toward the picnic table, lit up from underneath by patio lights at the Beer Garden, I saw him chatting with B. The roommate. J.’s roommate. The sweetest, most genuine guy in the world, R. is like a big teddy bear. He insists on a hug when he sees you and another when he says goodbye. So when I approached the table and put a hand on his shoulder, he turned with a huge smile and called out, “Give me a real hug!” I was genuinely happy to see him. “How are you?” he asked, and not in that sympathetic, ‘I know you must be hurting’ way. But I felt compelled to answer his unintentional, unspoken question anyway. “I’m great!”

R. stayed to have a beer with B. and I and then came back to B.’s house with us after and hung out until 3 in the morning. We had a blast and only one inappropriate comment slipped out of my mouth. As we played Rock Band, I made a comment about how “smokin’ hot” the animated guitar player was. “Wow,” R. laughed, “You have really low standards.” I grinned and replied, “Aw, you already knew that.” I suddenly felt like Carrie Bradshaw in the Post-It note episode…

Carrie: And just so you know, Alan...
Andrew: Andrew.
Carrie: Uh huh. Most women aren't angry, irrational psychos. We just want an ending to a relationship that is thoughtful and decent and honors what we had together. So my point, Billy, is this. There is a good way to break-up with someone and it doesn't include a post-it!

I made a mental note to keep it together, laugh it off, change the subject. Don’t want to be the crazy girl. No one mentioned J. again until R. walked me home. I kept trying to leap over the awkward silences but he seemed to be inserting them on purpose. Finally he said it. “I’m sorry all that shit went down.” Don’t be the crazy girl, don’t be the crazy girl.

“Me, too.”
“I was really confused by it. He came home one night and… I was like, ‘What?’”
“Yeah, well… you can’t make someone want to be in a relationship.”
He laughed. “Yeah, what’s that song? I Can’t Make You Love Me?”
I laughed. We both laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

But when I got upstairs, I listened to it anyway.

Such Great Heights

I’d been noticing the signs for weeks – red flags that I turned a blind eye to, in the hope that it was bigger than us. He was really stressed about swimming, I was putting too much pressure on him to visit me at school, classes were getting really tough at the end of freshman year, and he had that academic scholarship to keep. But we were in looooove so there was no way we were breaking up. Right? Right.

It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever been through. E. became a fixture in my life. When I spoke to my parents on the phone in my first year of college they’d ask how I was doing and then, “How’s E.?” His pictures were on my walls, his clothes in my dresser, his scent on my pillows. And then all of a sudden he decided he didn’t love me anymore. It should’ve been painful for a few months, and it was, but the sting lingered. Lingers, I guess.

Part of me sees the end of J. before I can even get past the beginning. I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the, “Maybe we should just be friends” speech even though I’m getting the, “I really like you” speeches instead. There is very little to lead me to believe that it’ll end anytime soon. And yet there is a tiny, nagging sting deep in the pit of my stomach that reminds me of how the higher the climb, the harder the fall.

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

(Photo courtesy of the billyllama)

I've never found myself at the center of a love triangle. I have never had two men fight for my attention. So Saturday night, in the midst of pleasant conversation and the faint glowing pin pricks of light in the dark Queens night sky, I was surprised to see a text from C. He was sitting across the group from me.

"Are you with that guy?" I looked to my left. J. had seen the screen on my phone light up and C.'s name. I texted discreetly back with the truth. "Nope. We dated last year. Things are a little ambiguous now, but he's not quite boyfriend material."

J. isn't boyfriend material because he doesn't want to be. I am a believer in sparks and I have a hard time denying chemistry when it kicks me in the gut and then refuses to subside. I have always had that chemistry with J. but circumstances and technicalities kept getting in the way. And then there is my blatant fear of getting hurt again. Oh yeah. That.

Another text. "What are you and C. texting about?" In the warm April air, conversation buzzed around me but I couldn't even hear it. What the hell was going on here? "We're not?"

For the rest of the night, J. looked like someone had kicked his puppy. He tried to hold my hand and glared at me with wounded eyes when I refused. He tried to kiss my forehead when no one was looking and cowered away when I jerked at his touch. All the while, inside my head, I kept thinking, 'You are not my boyfriend. Stop acting like it. I will not be your hook up.'

The next day he asked if I'd meet him for a drink. After four games of pool and a round of beers, we headed out and I couldn't believe he hadn't brought up the previous night. So I did. "Do you want to talk about last night?"
"What about?"
"About how you keep trying to be touchy feely with me when we are not dating? You really confuse the shit out of me. One minute you want to be friends, then the next you want to just hook up, then you want to be nothing."
"Lauren, I like you. I have always liked you." Stopped me in my tracks. Huh? You like me?

He confessed that he had no idea how I felt about it, so I said I liked him, too. But that nothing had changed. I am in it for a relationship and I can not do the casual dating thing anymore.

"You're looking for something real," he concluded.
"Yes!"
And with three words he lifted me straight into the stratosphere of hope. "So am I."

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Everyone has their own opinion on whether or not guys and girls can be friends. My opinion on that has never wavered: they can not. One is always in love with the other. The length of the friendship is determined by how well the lover can keep his love for the lovee under wraps. And if it isn’t love, by God, it’s lust.

J. was in love with me from the minute we met. He told me I was “different” and that he knew we could be really “special” together. He’s an actor. And I know actors. He fell out of love the very minute I fell in it. He wasn’t smooth about ending it and while I harbored a grudge for about six months, when we saw each other again I remembered why I had been drawn to him in the first place. We made peace and I felt content.

Cut to last week.
J.: Plans tonight?
L.: Having dinner at 8:30.
J.: Pool after?

This was my chance to test the theory. I had never actually experienced this before: dating a guy, hating him, getting over it, and being friends. But I did go to pool and I had a great time. Granted, his roommate came, too, but I had fun. Only one lingering “Remember when?” glance across the pool table (why do ex’es do that?!) and a hug goodbye. I got a text later.

J.: Really good to see you.
L: Good to see you, too. I like this friend thing.
J.: Me, too.

Liar.

Monday night.
J.: Plans tonight?
L.: Watching a documentary on Everest.
J.: Bring it over and watch it on the HD big screen. I’ll make dinner.

Friends! So glorious. And it was… until half way through the movie. A hand on my thigh. When I didn’t react to it, after a minute he took it back. He leaned close enough so we were semi-cuddling and I should’ve known then what was coming. The kiss.

I had to leave after I gave my “we can be friends or we can be nothing” speech, and I did so with a heavy heart. I didn’t want my theory to be proven correct. And another “friendship” bites the dust.

An Apple a Day

I like to consider myself a writer but occasionally, I find myself echoing my favorite lyricists because their words are emblazoned in my mind. And today, no one says it better than Fiona Apple:

"I don't understand about diamonds and why men buy them.

What's so impressive about a diamond except the mining?

But it's dangerous work trying to get to you, too.

And I think if I didn't have to

Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill myself doing it

Maybe I wouldn't think so much of you..."

We won't admit we like the games but we can admit we like the chase. There is something incredibly off putting about a guy who puts in too much effort in the first place. This weekend I ran into The Kiwi at a random bar on a random street where he randomly happened to pop in to use the bathroom and I randomly happened by a birthday party for a single random drink. The Kiwi asked me out last year (he bartended near my old retail job) and he took me out for Indian food -- a meal during which he confessed that he was married. But don't worry! Only for the green card.

"I hope that doesn't change things between us."

The Kiwi was more than a little excited to run into me last weekend and I've received at least eight texts in the last few days asking how I've been, what I'm doing, and if he can see me this week. It isn't even the fact that he's "married": he's just too into me. Meanwhile, I'm still smitten with The Boy whom I haven't heard from since a sweet kiss goodbye last weekend and an, "I'll see you Thursday" to follow. Truth be told, I'm sure if I didn't have to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill myself doing it...

Textimony, Part Two

two days later...

Him: Aww. You didn't have to erase me from facebook. Erase me from your life. Before when I called you all I wanted to do was talk. How are you how am I. I wasn't ...
H: asking you for anything. Just you in my life though not much just a hello. Now I don't even have facebook and you won't answer. It's ok but why do you want me to ...
H: disappear? I guess that's what you want. For me to disappear. You want to know nothing about me? About what is going on in my life?
H: And you were the one who said that you check my facebook and myspace everyday. I don't. I just don't want to lose contact. Especially if something important ...
H: happens to me that I wish to share with you. You even put that feature where I can't find you! Ha. It's really ok I understand I just didn't want to lose you all ...
H: together! Ok sorry. I will leave you alonesies. Really. Adios. Good luck!!

Technology, a blessing and a curse.

Textimony

Me: Do you have work tomorrow?
Him: No. I've called you.
H: What's going on?
M: I want to talk to you about it, but if you don't want to it's understandable.
H: Well talk about what first off?
H: Please tell me?
M: Nevermind, just let it be as it is.
H: You can't do that. That's mean. Please? I've tried to call. Just tell me. It's important.
H: I don't even know what's going on.
M: It's been two years since you destroyed me in front of the cafe, and that's just too long.
H: Destroyed is a horrible word. It hurt me so much too you don't even know.
H: What's going on?
M: There's no one new. I'm just done.
H: Ok. I'm sorry. Good luck. I deserve it. I know I do.
H: I deserve to have lost such a wonderful thing in my life. I love you and always always will. I think about you everyday. This is sad.
H: I'm at a loss for words. Or just at a loss. Hope you enjoyed your trip to NYC.
H: I wish the best for you really.

The Ex Factor

The Divine Mrs. V

I am always confused by how I'm supposed to feel about the past... nostalgia? To quote Diana Vreeland:

"I loathe nostalgia."

Who wants to look back on the past fondly? Not I. I got a text message the other day from The X: "Just drove by the dance studio and thought of you. I'll be in NY in a few weeks. Will you be around?" The sight of his phone number on my cell phone makes my stomach turn a little and a statement like that makes the bile rise in my throat. Of course I'll be around. I live here. Do I want to see you? No. Not even a little. Okay... maybe a little.

Maybe it isn't the past that gets me. It's the feelings that the people in my past dredge up. There is a need to impress, a desire to achieve a reaction. I'm doing better than you thought I'd be doing, right? I'm better off without you. Is that what life is? Of course we hope we're happy but what we really want is to prove to all the nay-sayers that we could make it. Look at me now!

Sometimes I think I'm not trying to prove it to The X. I'm trying to prove it to myself. Sure, I was happy with you, but now I'm happier. You didn't break me. I'm better now than I've ever been... better than I was with you.

"Hey -- I'll be in Dublin from the 10 to the 17 [LOOK AT ME! GOING ON VACATION! LIAISING WITH ATTRACTIVE EUROPEAN MEN!] but after that I'll be here." Part of me prays hard. The same part of a woman that prays she won't find cheesecake on the menu because she knows she'll cave in and order it.

"Great! I'll give you a call when I'm in town. Have fun on the green isle!" And because I was angry at him for visiting, for breaking my heart a hundred years ago, and for getting the name of my beloved home wrong, I shouted out loud in my empty little stark apartment.

"The EMERALD isle, you idiot! EMERALD."

Maybe I'll pretend I'm out of town that day anyway. Because I might not be Diana Vreeland, but I loathe nostalgia, too.