a/n: Not really a web log but something of a journal type entry.

June 20th, 2002
Taylor Books,
Charleston, West Virginia

I’m in Charleston, at our bookstore, desperately trying to feel close to you. I wanted to order your coffee. Ethiopia, like you drank last time we were here. It wasn’t listed, so I settled for a cappuccino. The table we sat at, in the wicker chairs is taken by some lady whose hurriedly pounding at the keys on her laptop. I wanted to sit where you had, near the fish tank, secluded in the corner away from everyone. I choose the table next to it; it’s not the same, but its close. From where I sit, I can look out the windows and see the ice cream shop we parked by.

It’s been one month, two days and three hours since you went away.

It’s exactly as I remembered it, only busier. I’m surrounded by people, where last time I was consumed with only you and your presence. I half expect you to walk in, or maybe walk by the windows. But you’re not going to. Do you even think of me? What is it you think about when my name races across your mind? Or does it anymore.

It took two hours to get here. And when I opened the door, my hand on the golden latch, I felt scared and weak. My heart started pounding and I got an ache in my gut as if my world had just tilted. I don’t want to admit it but honestly part of me wishes, hopes, expects you to be inside smiling, your blue eyes sparkling, soft brown hair falling carelessly over your forehead.

It feels good here, where no one knows me and my memories and demons can run free, raging. How often did you come here? What made you bring me here? I should have asked. I should have asked a lot of things. Now I’ll never have the answers, maybe I don’t deserve them. Is that why I’m here? Did I honestly believe the answers would come to me once I sat in the green wicker chair at the table with the yellow, green and red tablecloth? No, I came here to bid you one last farewell. I’m going to try to put you out of my mind and not dwell on this anymore. I think it’s a near impossibility but I’ll try.

So here’s my goodbye to you. You taught me perseverance and confidence. Did you know that? I felt like a better person when next to you. I loved you, was deeply, madly in love with you. Part of me still is. I was completely devoted to only you and what we could have had. No one else knows.

They play horrible music here but the atmosphere and old English look of the place is charming. I want some place like this closer to home.

It’s four o’clock, I should leave, but I’m not ready to. I’ll suffocate if I go back now, without this finished. Am I only giving you time to show up?

Back to my goodbye. You interrupted my plans to bleed into nothingness only to yank away the bandage you gave me. Why did you do that? What happened to us that drove a wedge between and levered you away from all we had. I know you don’t like anything permanent, but was I really pushing for that?

This place is good for me. I feel better, healed somehow. Like I’m breaking through the skin of water I was drowning under for too long now.

You handled our break up wrong, but maybe that’s why it’s called a break up. If it were good and right, it never would have happened. I tried and I don’t feel like you did, not as much as you could have.

I’ve let you go, found my peace. I’m not living in your precious memories anymore. I’m making my own memories, setting my own pace.

I’m leaving, finding my way home though I’m not sure where it is. I’ll find home and I’ll be happy.

The cappuccino’s gone. The crowd has dwindled down to a handful of people. I’d better head out. Who knows, maybe I’ll come back one day and thank the place that helped me break free of you and your memories, to find my solace and peace again. Hopefully.