This entry brought to you by Brother Thelonious (75) from the North Coast Brewery.

I have a feeling, a near certainty actually, that this entry isn't going to be published. It's not going to be good enough. It's not going to be worthy of the thoughts and feelings driving its creation. So, I figure, maybe I'll just use this as a practice entry. I'll save it in my drafts folder and then some night I'll be drunk or lonely and I'll rewrite it as something worthy of being published.

Or maybe not.

So SassyGirl is back in town for a visit. I wish I could describe here how fucking wonderful it was to see her Tuesday evening, and Wednesday evening. How much I look forward to seeing her tomorrow night at Rich O's. I wish there were some words that I could use to adequately describe how happy I've been to see her. Words that I could use without fear of people reading the wrong feelings into my words. I doubt that such words exist, and if they do, they continue to elude me.

It is just a visit though. I can't let myself get too satisfied with my life. Such as it is. In a few days or maybe a week, everything will go back to the way it's been for months. Me vs. the world.

You know, I used to never have any friends. All I ever had was acquaintances. They came into my life, and they left my life, and I noticed that they'd gone, but I didn't care. Not really.

All of that changed with LaptopGirl. Sure, I may not have been much to her, but she was my friend. And she came into my life, and she left my life, and I definitely noticed. I may have written about it from time to time, how much I fucking noticed. I don't see her anymore. I've seen a girl who looks like her, and sounds like her, a couple of times. But it's not her. It's not my friend. I don't even think that person ever really existed, except in my head. And my heart.

Anyway.

I met SassyGirl about a month after I met LaptopGirl. In this blog, I used to call her RealTrainGirl. That seems like a million years ago. SassyGirl is so much more fitting. Anyway, that time, the relationship was pegged from the start to remain a platonic one. That time, I never had any of those pesky romantic feelings get in the way.

And you know what?

It was wonderful.

Then SassyGirl left, and once again, I fucking noticed. I was sad. But it was okay. She'd said goodbye. We said goodbye to each other. And besides, it was never going to be forever. We'd see each other again.

Like six months later. Like Tuesday evening.

So that was cool. And it will continue to be cool, like I said, for a few more days or maybe a week. Then we'll say our goodbyes again. And it will be okay, because we'll know that it won't be forever.

Now, this next part is going to be a little tough for me to write. Tough because it's a tough subject for me, and tough because I can just about guarantee that it's going to be misinterpreted.

But I've got to write this. If I don't, if I don't then I'm going to explode some night.

The thing is, everybody leaves.

I think that at least a part of me has known this for a long time. Nothing lives up to the expectations originally hinted at or hoped for. Nothing lasts. Nothing.

Ahem.

HatGirl is leaving.

In either fifteen months or in ten months, she is leaving. The deadline varies but its meaning to me and my life - such as it is - is as steady as a rock.

When HatGirl leaves, it's going to destroy me. It's going to destroy me and every bit of the progress I've made since LaptopGirl left. And I think that there's not a thing I can do about it. I could start to pull away right now, but that would not lessen the blow. I could strive to make every day that I have left count, but that would only delay the inevitable.

It's my fault, of course. It's pretty much always my fault.

It's not love, I once wrote, but it's something.

Something that I should have seen coming. Something that I should have nipped in the bud, as they say.

And now, now I find myself unable and/or unwilling to write anything more about this. What else could I say?

HatGirl is leaving. Those three words. Those three fucking words.

They sear my soul.