here we go loop dee loo, here we go...

Wow. For the first time since I got really sick in February, I had a double shot of caffeine in my mocha in the afternoon, when I needed a brisk pick me up and got instead instant jitters and inability to maintain proper focus. Even now the parts of my eye that are not watching every letter form into words are lapsing into kalediscopic patterns and feeling very tired.

It should be noted that my coffee, was, in fact free.

At the Sbux, I immediately noticed that a man I had previously dated (not sure if we were serious enough to be called "ex-es") who--you who know me will be familar with the moniker Scotty and if you have read my journal for some time will remember that it was he who was outstandingly good at driving me crazy (primarily by not calling, constantly talking about other girls and how cool they were, and not being willing to go beyond dating every other week or so...).

It is interesting to me in that coincidences are interesting, that he has now shacked up with a girl he used to work with (ahhh, lonely Cassandra with her premonitious ways) that I often found snide, jealous (for what seemed like no good reason, for she was a "friend" at the time) and generally hateful towards me. They are going to get married in September, which I seem to have casually forgotten and will probably not be invited to.

The funny thing about Scotty and I is that we have so little in common that we often lapse into lamenting thoughts about our failed attempt at a relationship, and it arose today in our conversation that he felt sorrow for the way he was with me, when realizing he had forgotten that I had a birthday recently and wondered if he had gotten me a gift back then.

I said, in all honesty, that it was okay, that it was a period of growth and learning, and I had come out alright, so had he, so why fret?

I then told him of my news, that I was graduating this semester, and again, we had a moment of shared memory, for while I was dating him was when I had decided to go back to school and this seemed not so long ago, but alas, it has been nearly four years since. Perhaps because we dated so briefly that it seems not so far away, that it doesn't seem so long ago, we stopped dating before we wore each other out, before we tired of the other, and it saddens me to think that he is not tired of his current girlfriend, the love of his life, the woman he is due to marry, the girl I knew liked him all along.

Sometimes I wonder if I go through relationships as if it is a towel soaked through with water, wringing out all the joy, happiness, fullness, and leaving it in the sun to dry to a brittle thing that you would never want to come home to or touch or let touch you. Then I find the next sopping wet mess and fix it until it is a dried up skeleton of what once was.

But then I got home and Eric soon arrived and we talked and laughed and held each other's hands and there was a sense of duty, love, and admiration for the other that I have learned to give, that I have learned to receive and I know I'm home.