friendly reminder.

When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No... don't blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But it is!

José González - In Our Nature

love, Leah

every day is a brand new goodbye.

When I'd always ask if he was okay, even though he said he was, there was usually a good chance that he was being a jerk, and I'd have stopped asking if he was okay if he would have just knocked it off.

I've been a good person and haven't gone out of my way to be shitty to him or talk shit about him. I have no qualms with the call to end our relationship. It's what he wanted and what I needed to do after the way we had both been treating each other.

He's been communicating with me on a semi-regular basis, mostly due to his homesickness. I'm under no assumption that our communication will continue when he gets back home where he will feel more comfortable and safe. I'm not going to sugarcoat the fact that I am a temporary crutch.

I've tried cheering him up, letting him know that he'll soon be back in a familiar city. I've reminded him that while he thinks he's utterly alone, he still has friends he isn't acknowledging. They still care. I still care.

I spent most of the time in our relationship caught in his catch-22's. He was unhappy when I was with him because I was with him too much. He was unhappy when I wasn't with him because he was alone. He was unhappy when I didn't talk about my problems. He was unhappy when he heard my problems. I recognise that I'm not the root of his unhappiness, but it upset me to know that I was a cause. Especially because I spent so much effort, even when our relationship ceased, to cheer him up. Even at the desertion of my own happiness.

I have to make choice on his behalf, because I know he won't be entirely honest with himself or with me. Would he be happier without me if I wasn't a constant facet of his life? I don't know if I'd use the word happy, but it would certainly be easier for him. He is already looking for another girl to fill the empty slot that was me, and I'm nothing but an annoyance and distraction. I'm so distracting that he thinks he needs me in his life to some extent. He'll never admit it, but I could potentially ruin what may be beautiful friendships and relationships with much more attractive, nice ladies. I'm indirectly a life ruiner.

And in the front of my mind, reverberating off of my skull, I keep asking myself, "Why not just say fuck it? Thank goddamn he's someone else's problem now." His emotional roller coasters were so much to support and deal with when I had my own problems, including but not limited to family deaths, monetary problems, work problems, health, friendship issues. How was it fair for him to act depressed and mope around almost all the time? Why did I even bother putting his happiness before mine, when he rarely returned the same courtesy?

Every relationship has physically altered me in some way. I have a fading scar on my left hand, from where I foolishly tested his knife's sharpness. A faint reminder of him, though with some microderm lotion it'll be gone.

I've always done goodbyes, this should be easier. I'm going a good thing. Right?

Goatsnake - 1+Dog Days

love, Leah

arcadeguy.

She was sixteen, and we were young and stupid and madly in a form of love that you'd never understand (/sarcasm /self-mockery). We were playing at an arcade in the mall one afternoon, and I played this game where you have to make a ball climb up a hill without letting the ball fall off the hill. I let the ball fall off the hill, but it still gave a pity prize of this little plastic ring. I put the ring on her pinky. She laughed and kissed me on the cheek. We broke up about six months later.

Five years later, I am twenty-three, and I see her for the first time since we broke up at a concert. She is with her boyfriend, a guy who is much taller and has evenly distributed facial hair and large gauges in his earlobes. She says his name is Gary and that my name is Spencer and that I look good and that she is doing good and hopes that I am doing good, too. I say she looks good and that it's nice to meet you Gary and I am doing good, too. Good, she says. We're going to go over there now, she says, holding out her hand for me to shake it. Weird, I think, and then I shake it. And then I feel the thin ring of plastic around her pinky against my pinky. And then she makes eye contact with me. Her eyes say she isn't doing as good. My eyes ask her about her mom. About those perennials in the backyard that never grew. Her eyes blink slowly, and then she and Gary go over there.

love, Leah

get well soon.

70°F - 81°F in Birmingham today.

The beautiful weather feels like a real farewell to so many different things in my life, the city included. I'm going to miss a lot of things, but missing things is what I do best. I'm constantly moving on.

Unwed Sailor - The White Ox

love, Leah