I think that what I fear most, right now, is that she will come back into my life and she and I will become...

I don't even know if there's a word for it.

Unable or unwilling to discuss those things that lurk between us, joining us together yet still keeping us so separate. Unable or unwilling to be friends. Unable or unwilling to be enemies. Unable or unwilling to be anything at all beyond a silent sigh or a stolen glance or a flash of anger or a skipped heartbeat or a twinge of regret or a little bubble of hate or love that rises to the surface and then pops with an almost audible sound because it cannot exist in this artificial world.

And endless, countless moments of wondering.

Am I alone in this place, or does she inhabit it with me? If I search long enough, will I find her here?

My heart has become an old sponge, readily absorbing anything that gets too close, but unable to hold on.

I feel myself soak it all in, then I watch in dismay as it seeps away from me once again and spreads out in a widening stain of color across this gray plain.

I think I've been wrung out too many times.

10. I'll wait for you.

I never saw her again.

9. As soon as I'm ready, you'll be the first to know.

I was maybe the second to know, after her new boyfriend.

8. I miss you.

She missed my money.

7. You can trust me this time.

No, I couldn't.

6. You're imagining things.

No, I wasn't.

5. It was tough, but I'm doing fine now.

She killed herself.

4. But we're friends!

Whatever we were, it wasn't friends.

3. I think that we can make this work.

She was already plotting her escape.

2. I won't leave without giving you a chance to say goodbye, not again.

She did it again.

1. I do.

No, she didn't.

...if somebody would have tried to tell me two years ago, if somebody had tried to tell me then what was about to happen to me, what had actually already started to happen to me - I'd never had believed that either.

If fact, some people did try to tell me, and I dismissed them as romantic-minded pansies. In fact, I tried to tell myself, and I dismissed myself as an aging fart rapidly approaching another midlife crisis.

All of the disbelief in the world didn't change a single fucking thing back then. I see no reason to expect it to be any different in the future. Disbelief of the obvious and denial of the truth may slow the inevitable, but they will never stop it.

That's why it's called inevitable. They made up a word just for situations like this.

I'll know when I meet her. I just will. It may take some time to admit it to myself, but eventually I will accept it because there will be no other alternative.

And then, then once I've finally fucking accepted and embraced the truth, that same old question will be there waiting.

Am I too late?

I really like this upside-down sleep schedule I've been on lately during the work week

There's just something about being able to go to sleep when I'm tired - like when I first get home from work - that makes me feel like I have a little bit of power over my life.

Then, I can wake up at midnight or whenever, and watch my tivoed TV shows and read a little and maybe even write a little bit myself and I can do all of those things while I'm fairly alert and awake.

Or, if the mood strikes me, I can sleep all fucking night. It's my life, and my choice.

Of course nothing is perfect. I still have to flip my schedule back around in time for the weekends. That hasn't proved to be too tough so far though. All I need is the willpower to get off the damn couch no later than 8:00 on Thursday night.

Man, this was an exciting entry.

I'd like to think that there'll be no doubt, when I meet her.

I'd like to think that, but recent and not so recent events in my life have convinced me that this will most likely not be the case. There will be doubt, and there will be fear, and there will be insecurity and indecision and hesitance.

What there will be, most of all I think, is disbelief.

For when I meet her, whoever she might be, and I find myself thinking about her and longing for her and wanting her and not that other girl that, let's be honest, isn't much more than a memory to me now - How could I just blindly accept what was happening to me?

Is it really possible to blow your only chance at love and then discover that it wasn't really your only chance at all? That it was just another in a series, another rung in a ladder?

That it was all really just leading up to something new and better and maybe this time interconnecting and interlocking and interacting?

Requited love. Wouldn't that be something?

I guess I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm still waiting.