It's been ages since we've really talked, you and I. We exchange text messages and words and even quick phone calls to catch up but we haven't really talked in a long time. We haven't really listened to each other. So I wonder whether you'll understand why I have to leave you. I can't continue to live in the past and hold on to you, even if it is in just a very small corner of my heart. I can't continue to think about the life that we might have led, because it keeps me from living the life I'm in right now. It keeps me from moving on.

Moving on. I don't like that phrase, because it implies that I'm going to relocate my heart and body and mind to another place and I hate moving. I'm not good at packing up stuff, throwing out old furniture and files and clothes that no longer belong, and reorganizing everything into neat little boxes, ready to be unpacked again at the new location. I hate the stuff that's involved with moving: the forwarding address stamped on envelopes that make me wonder if I'm receiving all my mail from my old address; the waking up in the middle of the night wondering where I am and for a split second forgetting where the new bathroom is located; and the drifting about in a daze, trying to find the best coffee shop in the new neighborhood.

Nothing is forever, though, is it? I should know that by now. I should have known that when you turned and looked at me 2 years ago as if you would never look at me again; I should have known that you were getting ready to leave. I should have known that then. But, if I didnt then, I should know now that it's high time that I left you too.

Ok, I'll admit it. Dating - I suck at it. Every bit of it: the rituals; the nuances that are supposed to be transmitted through a tone of voice, a touch of hand, a tilt of head; the planning and preparing - even if it's just preparing what to wear - and actual conversation; all of it... bring me back to second grade in Ms. Hanson's class where I wasn't sure whether I should color the sky blue or orange or something completely different, like purple.

Partly because I suck at dating and partly because of other ingrained issues, I dated very little last year. I blamed it on the weather, my job, my ex, etc. I only recently have realized that the past is past. But, some part of me still isn't willing to let go of something that I am not sure I ever wanted in the first place. Something - the comfort and familiarity and certain ideals that an ex boyfriend represent - has caused me to stay stuck.

I am tired of being stuck though. I'm ready to get out of Stuck and move into something else - even if it's Resolution, or Closure, or the New. But, sometimes late at night I still find myself wondering, if only I hadn't, or if only he weren't, or if only... going forward, I have to remember that if only means it isn't and it probably won't ever be.

I continue to struggle with my negativity. It's what I like to view as my critical mind, or the thing that allows me to differentiate between those people who are asses and those who are just idiots, but I guess that's me going all negative again. Anyway I had another epiphany, of which I seem to be having lots lately, about this thing called Life. It came to me again, through a series of events, that the main work I've got to get done here is to learn to enjoy and experience things.

Instead of obsessing over the outcome or feeling badly that things are not what I perceive as perfect, I need to start seeing what is happening right now at this time as all I need. Perfect is as perfect does. Or, no, that's not what I meant. But, well something like that.

I guess the main thing is, I feel ready to shed the skin and outer layer of cynicism. I feel ready to cast off my hard shell and to look at the world again with fresh eyes. With a positive and wide-eyed wonder that I lost. I feel ready to embrace myself and to be finally, after all, this time, totally happy with what I have... without feeling like, if only.

Happy is as happy does.

It's going to happen very soon. It's kind of scary.

Someday I will no longer be certifiably young. Maybe it's happened already. In slow imperceptible ways, I'm not moving as quickly as I used to; I'm taking longer to recognize songs on the radio; I'm no longer like, OMG I have to buy that latest jacket at H&M. Now it's like, OMG, who would buy that jacket? It is freakin' scary to think that I'm passing through a stage of life into another one.

I remember (not as if it were yesterday because it was actually pretty long ago) that I was just 12 years old and doing a sleep-over at my friend's house. It was one of those huge sleepover parties with a ton of 12 yr old girls just talking about crap, watching tv, and honestly, I don't remenber but I do think we slept. Boytalk, makeup, and clothes. Scary urban legends... only back then we didn't call them that. I remember eating pizza for breakfast. My mom said that whenever she picked me up from these girls' events, I would put on attitude. I remember feeling like I had to go through two worlds: the young and spoiled world of these friends; and the still-struggling, old-fashioned world of my family.

I feel like that now. I feel like I'm straddling two worlds. Well actually I may be passing this world for the next one soon. I'm officially entering into middle-age. Isn't late 30s considered no longer young? I'm freakin' scared. And maybe because I'm so scared, I sometimes find myself holding on, really really tightly, to the old world that I used to know...