I love knowing those little things that Best Friend does that means she misses me. Thanks for being my best friend, Best Friend. Thanks for putting up with all my crazy.

Trying to remember what you look like and that special smile that was all mine
and coming up empty

but remembering that little scar on your chin that I used to rub absentmindedly while I looked into your eyes
and remembering the feeling of your dimples as I held your face and your smile and you in my hands

To the Four Year Old

Sweetest boy,

You will never know how special you are to me. Thank you for your funny comments, baby snuggles, and lots of fun.

I wish I was with you today. My heart is sad that I can't see you on this day for the first time in your life.

But I think of you, today and every day. You are the family member I never expected to have and the one whom I treasure the most.

I love you, little guy. I hope you don't mind that I'll always call you "baby boy."

Love and dinosaur kisses,
Biggest Sister

I will always be there for you, however I can. 

Me Again.

Didn't expect me so soon, did you? I still have things to say, but they would have ruined the flow of that last piece, so here I am again! Hope you aren't sick of me yet.

Hi! Again again.

Thank you.

I'm here. Mostly on my own. But totally not alone.

Thank you for your prayers, all of you. He is so good.

My personal prayer has been helping me in unimaginable ways and I feel the presence of those who pray for me. I am so so grateful.

He knows what He's doing. I am trying really hard to trust that. Because He has not steered me wrong yet, and He never will.

But thank you, dear friends of mine. It helps.

Me.

Time for an update.

Hi! Again. Guess what. Two weeks later. Things are better.

They are not perfect, they are not brilliant, but they are better.

My two closest friends here are wonderful. One of them, whom we'll call Oregon, is amazing. She is truly understanding and helpful. She is also incredibly outgoing, which helps a lot. There is no time for sitting around when Oregon is around, and that's what I need right now.

Classes are good. They are time consuming and they take my mind off of the ex-boyfriend. Which I really need right now.

Today, I went to my favorite city with my new friends. They had their boyfriends with them. I was just me.

And it was hard. Slightly melancholic. But on my way home (alone) I reflected on what Best Friend told me last week:

"The only difference between being in a relationship and being single is the presence of that person in your life."

That has totally changed my perspective on things. Yes, I miss him. So much. But I am still me without him. Me who is funny, loves television, reads too much, takes hard classes, loves her friends. Me who is pretty okay.

And even though it was just me today, and even though that was difficult, I could still do it. I did do it. And I enjoyed myself, all by myself.

Me. Me, who is getting through this.

I've always said that I believe it's important that a person learns how to do things on his/her own. And now it's (finally) time for me to live my own philosophy.

Hi.

So I'm here. In my home state. At a new school.

Miserable.

I wish I was joking.

This, so far, has been a lot harder than I expected it to be. I'm having a really hard time getting used to being on my own. Because no one is here. Not my parents, not my friends.

I'm alone.

And that aloneness is exacerbated by this shitty breakup I'm going through. Because *he* is always in the back of my mind. My singleness, my loss of him, my (however brief) other half being gone... it's always there. Taunting me. Questioning how I can go through something this big without him and subtly pointing out that even when I get back, he won't be around and I'll have to adjust all over again.

I've made friends! Good friends at that. I went shopping and exploring with one this morning, and the other is right across the table from me right now. But my anxiety is somewhat ignoring that aspect and focusing on the difficulties.

Because this, for me, is twofold. I'm far away from the environment that I love and that was helping me recover from my breakup (because it's shitty. It was *big*). So not only am I adjusting to a new environment, but this new environment doesn't have any of my coping mechanisms.

Feels like I'm falling.

I'm so sorry that I can't be more positive about this. And therefore I implore of you, please pray for me. There are so many others who need prayers more than I do, but I would be so grateful if you could include me in your thoughts and prayers.

And in return I promise not to let those prayers go to waste. I will pray myself. And I'm going to make a counseling session to try to begin dealing with this crippling anxiety that I'm feeling.

I didn't expect it to be this hard or to hit this soon. I promise you, I'm trying to deal with it.

I'm just not doing a very good job.

Waxing Philosophical

I think, that in every relationship, at least in every serious relationship, one falls in love with the future of that relationship as well as the person. You start to imagine where that relationship is headed, what it looks like, and you love it, nearly as much as you love your significant other.

Because it's your (plural) future. The two of yours. Just you.

With Spider, I saw an incredibly passionate and intense relationship. One in which we would have plucked up the courage to travel the world together. The only way I can really think to describe it now (hindsight and all that) is to say that we would have thrown ourselves into the abyss, clutching hands.

With Mule, I saw something very different. I saw two people building a life together, growing through time and experience. We would have been best friends through it all. There would have been fights (we were waaaaaaaay too good at fighting) but I *knew* we could have fought our way through whatever happened. We are not two people ready to spend their lives together. But I saw us reaching that point.

And now as I sit here, my phone left at home to fight the temptation of texting him, I mourn the loss of what could have been.

"I'm so sorry this had to happen," he told me last week, while I numbly nodded my agreement.

I never saw us ending this way. Along with that future, that timeline that has ceased to exist, I thought the way we would end, if we did end, would be because of inherent differences in the way we wanted to live our lives.

But no. We ended because we couldn't handle the distance.*

It's not right. it's not fair. But here I am. Dealing with the loss of one of my very best friends. And trying not to think of what could have been. 

I miss that future already.


*This is not to say that I think we shouldn't have broken up. I think it was the right call. But that is a story for another day.