I know it's been a long time since I've written. It's hard to drum up the energy to do much of anything these days. Things haven't been going well for me. My last idiot girlfriend just broke up with me after a prolonged, painful period of I don't know what. I'm a fucking lost soul right now. I'm not connecting with anyone anymore. And here I am trying to re-connect with you. Probably a futile effort. You must think I'm desperate.

There's tons of stuff I've meant to say to you since we broke up. But I've been too much of a wimp to be honest with you in any of the letters I've sent in the past five years. And now of course none of this matters. What's done is done, too much water under the bridge, etc. etc. Part of me just wants to tell you "my pain is all your fault! You ruined my life! I can't love anyone anymore!" Because in a way it's true. You'll never understand how much you fucked me up when you left me.

But I know how you loved me. You really loved me and left me only because I hurt you. You loved me like no one else had ever or has ever loved me. You were the only one who came close to understanding who I was. Why couldn't I realize how much I loved and needed you? I had no clue how much you meant to me. So my pain is all my fault. I brought in on myself, just like I always do.

You were beautiful and I cheated on you. You were smart and I constantly put you down. I was an asshole and I wasn't even very creative about it.

I'm sure you've completely put me out of your mind by now. Part of me hopes that you have, because I'm sure your memories of me are only bad. And it would be good punishment for me if you'd put me out of your head and I still couldn't get you out of mine.

I wonder if you're still writing now. I always thought you'd be a famous author someday, although I haven't seen your books in any bookstores (I keep looking). The stuff you wrote never ceased to amaze me. I remember watching you sit on our bed, your head bent over your notebook and your pretty long hair falling over your face while you scribbled away. I could sit drinking and watching you for hours and you wouldn't even look up once. You were so involved in your writing and I envied that. Sometimes I just wanted to rip your notebooks up to get your attention. Luckily I wasn't dumb enough to follow through on that impulse. You wrote about your sadness, and your words always broke my heart. You knew how to say all these things that were barely forming in my mind.

Can you believe I'm even saying this now? But I always respected your writing, although I never let you know. Your talent made me feel mediocre. Being an asshole gave me the upper hand. But that's a fucked up way of thinking, and it obviously hasn't gotten me far.

If you met me now, you wouldn't want anything to do with me. I'm still working for the bookstore. I know that's really lame. I've lost any ambition I ever had with writing. I tore up my novel a couple months ago. I keep imagining a new career for myself, a job where maybe I could make some money for a change. I'm thinking about going back to school to learn computer programming or something like that. But you know I've always been good at daydreaming. The follow-through is the problem.

One daydream I like to have is that someday we'll meet again in a bar somewhere. That we'll meet and that we'll be changed and that we'll re-fall deeply in love. Then we'll live together happily-ever-after, etc. Since we broke up, I've been with two beautiful women who have left me in the cruelest ways. You'll probably feel better to hear that. Right now I really don't have the faintest clue how to proceed with my love-life or the rest-of-my-life. I'm at an impasse and I don't have much hope for my future. I was hoping you could give me some of your wise words. I really need them right now.

You know, fucked up as it seems, remembering our time together still makes me happy. But we did have some good times, didn't we? Do you remember when we used to go for those long walks in the woods behind your parents house? Do you remember the time you picked that tiny white flower and put it in my collar? I still have that flower. I found it the other day in the Brother's Karamazov book you gave me. You won't be suprised, but I still haven't finished that book.

Well, maybe you'll decide to write back to me this time. That's something I could look forward to.

[submitted 3/5/02]