12.11.06 7:04 am

i broke it off with him.

set him free to set me free.

this past year i woke up from the numbness. felt alive. fell in love. deeply and totally. with reckless abandon.

and of course i let myself fall in love with the wrong man, at the wrong time. of course.

that is how i do things, don't you know.

i learned along the way to read all the danger signs, and then do my best to promptly ignore them. ignore me.

and when the signs grew louder, brighter, the shell started to fissure too wide for my misguided hope to repair.

so i took the plunge and ended it. which, really by this time, was all but a formality for him. he had ended it without words time and again.

so i'm free.

so what does a free midlife crisis almost 39yo woman do with all this undistracted time to herself?

she tries to lose herself in many ways.

she works overtime without getting much work done. she battles contacting him every minute of every day. she rents movies she can't bring herself to watch. she dives into the internet hoping to salve the pain. she ventures stealthily into the social world with a smile on her face and an eye on the clock to determine when she can make her escape back home. she stays home alone every night, hugging her body to herself to stop the shaking, crying to herself deep-throated sobs. sobs with abandon enough to wake the neighbors above her, promptly triggering them to make love above her head.

and with every sob she tries her best to expel him from her heart. are these enough tears? how about now? how many tears does it take to purge a man so embedded in your heart and soul?

i hope to be able to find the answer.

i hope that the answer will come very soon.