You don't get to choose, you just fall
I got a new cell phone the other day. It's the kind that you can connect to your computer and transfer sounds and music and stuff onto it to use for ringtones or other event notices. I knew of a few sounds I had from a long time ago that would work for some of the events, so I dug out the old computer and started poking around in my archives. I found the few that I was looking for and then I noticed something else. Something I'd forgotten about. She had recorded it a little less than a month before we had our big fight. I didn't remember exactly what the contents of the sound file was, but once it started playing I didn't let it get much past "You are my sunshine" before I just couldn't listen anymore.
Today at work I had plugged my iPod into the computer and loaded up my usual playlist. About an hour into the random selection of songs, one in particular came on. Now there's nothing particularly special about this song to me, it's just something I used to listen to a lot during that summer a few years ago. The air had a hint of summer to it today, getting up to just about 60 and it combined with the song to drag out some of those memories from so long ago...well, not long long ago, but it felt like half a lifetime rather than just 5 years. I don't have the words to really describe how it felt in that instance, but I missed that feeling. I missed her.
I don't even know how long it's been. I'm sure I have a log or something of it somewhere from the last time she made some attempt to talk to me. I'm pretty sure it was on my birthday...maybe her's...or maybe it was an October 30th, the day we met, but I had left IRC or AIM or something on and then gone off and forgotten about it. A few hours later I came back and saw that she had been there. She asked a few times if I was there and then made some remark about the day and then left. I really kicked myself for having missed her and for the next few nights I stuck around online full time, ignoring everything else that I would have normally done, but she never showed up again. E-mails went unanswered, if they were even received at all, and her blogs were pretty much abandoned.
I waited for her on those nights that we had always made a point to look for each other online. My birthday, her birthday, October 30th. She never showed again. After 2004 I just plain gave up. I don't know if she gave up as well the year before or if her mind had just moved onto other things. I'd like to think that every now and then she'll see or do something and it will remind her of me, and she'll stop and smile thinking of those 2 years we spent as the best of friends, the only barrier between us being those 1,690 miles. Don't go thinking I'm deluding myself here. Somewhere in the back of my head was that little voice yelling at me that nothing was ever going to happen between us. She was gorgeous after all and most likely wasn't going to wait for some dipshit half a continent away.
And of course, I was right. She dated around, flirted, had sex and everything else you'd expect. Even now I think how strange it was for me to be her ear and listen to all of this and never get jealous of any of it until that day in August of '01. I don't remember what it was that changed us me from great close deep friends into something not quite more. It's very easy, for me at least, to put all the blame on myself. She was living her life while I was hung up on some retarded fairytale desire. It too is all too easy to recall that anger I felt when she told me she had fallen for him. He, who she had once refered to as her "creepy internet stalker." For a month we must have gone back and forth about how weird he was concerning her. But then again, he was there, and I was 1,700 miles in the other direction.
Last time we spoke, she relayed to me that things were not well between them. She suspected him of cheating on her, and she had cheated on him. By that time all the hope had since drained out of me. I didn't even entertain the thought of there being any kind of development between us starting again there. I think she's still with him now, which honestly does make me sad and even feel a little sick to think about. It's pointless and dumb to think of though, and I don't know why I do it. I'm such an idiot. I seem to be a glutton for self abuse (not the fun kind, mind you) when I get on these thought trains. You know, the kind where you go back and read old e-mails or chat logs and either wind up laughing or crying or both.
I really feel like I'm rambling on and on here without any point other than to say that she's been on my mind these last few days and I really do miss her. It's kind of weird to think this way, but I really doubt she and I will ever talk again, not out of anger or dislike, but just because that's the way the world is sometimes. So it goes.
Today at work I had plugged my iPod into the computer and loaded up my usual playlist. About an hour into the random selection of songs, one in particular came on. Now there's nothing particularly special about this song to me, it's just something I used to listen to a lot during that summer a few years ago. The air had a hint of summer to it today, getting up to just about 60 and it combined with the song to drag out some of those memories from so long ago...well, not long long ago, but it felt like half a lifetime rather than just 5 years. I don't have the words to really describe how it felt in that instance, but I missed that feeling. I missed her.
I don't even know how long it's been. I'm sure I have a log or something of it somewhere from the last time she made some attempt to talk to me. I'm pretty sure it was on my birthday...maybe her's...or maybe it was an October 30th, the day we met, but I had left IRC or AIM or something on and then gone off and forgotten about it. A few hours later I came back and saw that she had been there. She asked a few times if I was there and then made some remark about the day and then left. I really kicked myself for having missed her and for the next few nights I stuck around online full time, ignoring everything else that I would have normally done, but she never showed up again. E-mails went unanswered, if they were even received at all, and her blogs were pretty much abandoned.
I waited for her on those nights that we had always made a point to look for each other online. My birthday, her birthday, October 30th. She never showed again. After 2004 I just plain gave up. I don't know if she gave up as well the year before or if her mind had just moved onto other things. I'd like to think that every now and then she'll see or do something and it will remind her of me, and she'll stop and smile thinking of those 2 years we spent as the best of friends, the only barrier between us being those 1,690 miles. Don't go thinking I'm deluding myself here. Somewhere in the back of my head was that little voice yelling at me that nothing was ever going to happen between us. She was gorgeous after all and most likely wasn't going to wait for some dipshit half a continent away.
And of course, I was right. She dated around, flirted, had sex and everything else you'd expect. Even now I think how strange it was for me to be her ear and listen to all of this and never get jealous of any of it until that day in August of '01. I don't remember what it was that changed us me from great close deep friends into something not quite more. It's very easy, for me at least, to put all the blame on myself. She was living her life while I was hung up on some retarded fairytale desire. It too is all too easy to recall that anger I felt when she told me she had fallen for him. He, who she had once refered to as her "creepy internet stalker." For a month we must have gone back and forth about how weird he was concerning her. But then again, he was there, and I was 1,700 miles in the other direction.
Last time we spoke, she relayed to me that things were not well between them. She suspected him of cheating on her, and she had cheated on him. By that time all the hope had since drained out of me. I didn't even entertain the thought of there being any kind of development between us starting again there. I think she's still with him now, which honestly does make me sad and even feel a little sick to think about. It's pointless and dumb to think of though, and I don't know why I do it. I'm such an idiot. I seem to be a glutton for self abuse (not the fun kind, mind you) when I get on these thought trains. You know, the kind where you go back and read old e-mails or chat logs and either wind up laughing or crying or both.
I really feel like I'm rambling on and on here without any point other than to say that she's been on my mind these last few days and I really do miss her. It's kind of weird to think this way, but I really doubt she and I will ever talk again, not out of anger or dislike, but just because that's the way the world is sometimes. So it goes.