We missed the signs.

I'm stuck. I'm fighting to free myself from his hold. I'm trying to
break this trance. But I'm wondering. He doesn't deserve my thoughts,
has not earned my words, and could never afford my tears. And I'm
hurting and I'm missing. Screw the lonely nights, the empty mornings.
I don't need him but I want him. I can't have him but I won't stop
trying.

Enter: Online dating endeavor, which serves the purpose of diversion,
experiment, and muse. My profile and picture have been posted for one
hour. I have already been contacted by two undesirables. No different
than real life. Perhaps I'm being harsh. But I am not paying to
settle.

Somehow doubt comes with the darkness.

Sometimes I imagine a lonely, misunderstood life.

Mostly I am unreasonable.

Usually I realize he was just a boy and I was just a girl looking in
the wrong places for the wrong kinds of feelings, willing to accept
whatever sat in a pile before me. This was only compounded by the fact
that his courage and sense of adventure made him ten thousand times
more attractive in a misguided, misanthropic, romantic, painful sort
of way. I know all of this, I understand all of this, but when will I
accept it? When exactly will I realize he was nothing I built him up
to be? I suppose the most reassuring, albeit slightly frightening,
part of this all is that I managed to invent the image of him entirely
in my head, independent of his actions and intentions. Amazing.

I just don't know why these realizations had to hit so very suddenly.
It was as if I avoided acceptance of the obvious until the absolute
final second. In a way, quick, intense suffering is likely better than
the slow, lingering kind but I'd prefer just blue skies, holding
hands, and pretty butterflies. Maybe I should have never broken up
with the Norwegian hippie. Did I ever talk about him? No, I don't
think so. But he was almost too free of conflict to hold my interest.
There was no passion there. I can live without love, but I can't
compromise passion.

October was a long time ago. That's when we were first introduced.
Where did my life go? Did I really just spend all of that time playing
make believe. I think I did.