Untitled.

September 24, 2005--1.40 p.m.

I realized something last night. It never stops. Love. Once you love someone, you don't fall out of love. It's always there and it's a part of you. So instead of trying to desperately fall out of love and stop caring, it's far simpler just to let that love go. Release it rather than fight against it. And remember how good it felt when it was a part of you and not just something that existed in a buried cavern inside yourself. Those people that I have loved... That love isn't gone. It's just faded, and I remember it as I'd remember a trip to the circus when I was five years old. A memory, dull, washed out, yet still alive.

I wrote that over six years ago in my journal. In retrospect, I am not sure who I was writing about. I suppose the most likely explanation would be that I was writing about Mike. Best Friend Mike, who has appeared in my ramblings since 2005. In fact, he appeared in my very first blog entry, Writing Without a Purpose. I wrote about him after our breakup-of-sorts. Apparently, I even wrote about this very journal passage back in 2006.

Mike has been my only love. I don't mean this in a love-is-unicorns-shitting-rainbows sort of way. There are no fairy tale endings. In real life, the prince rarely saves the damsel in distress and teen love grows into 40-something resentment. Life is strange and unpredictable and love follows life's path. Mark Twain put it best when he said, "Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense."

Nothing about my relationship with Mike ever made sense. Since our breakup six-plus years ago, I've gotten married, been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, been medicated, underwent therapy, realized the truth about addiction, kicked out my husband and filed for divorce. For the first time in my life, I am happy. I am content with my life and take solace in the day-to-day monotony as well as the little adventures that happen to everyone.

Mike and I spent this past Saturday together. It was the first time we've seen each other (or even really talked) in three years. It's the first time we've connected since I got married. The talk, the humor, the level of connection was not the same as it used to be.

It was stronger.

He is happy, too, no longer emotionally sapped from a brutal 14-year-marriage and terrible, wicked divorce from the first girl with whom he ever had sex. Like me, he is content with his life. He spends his evenings making art or pondering science and has his own little adventures. In 2005, we spent about a year together, unhappy as individuals and afraid to let ourselves be vulnerable, preferring to be numb, feeling better about it because each of us, in our misery, had company.

We are both happy now and therefore more at ease with ourselves and each other. The took a leap back into the friendship we'd had, but without the negative energy and the need to fight and the need to over analyze ever word we said to each other. We let ourselves be ourselves and enjoyed our time together.

He has tough work hours, though we have promised to see more of each other. We spoke on the phone last night for hours, like we used to, not realizing we'd talked for so long until both realizing it was past time to go to bed.

For the first time ever in our relationship (and perhaps in my life), I have let go of my fatalism. I am not concerned that things won't end well. I'm not looking to define our relationship with any specific labels or agenda. I am simply looking forward to seeing where this ride will take us.

My wish for everyone is a wonderful ride, wherever it leads.