and the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings

*Mama, why am I so alone? I can't go outside; I'm scared I might not make it home.*

Sara Sez...

*If we walk through each other as we leave the room, you don't have to tell me that it's over. Whoever you were then, I never really knew, and you got no need to know me now.* -World Party
this weekend when i was home, i signed onto AIM for probably the first time in forever. i still had my jackson browne quote in my AIM 'file. i really like 'the pretender'. that's an awesome song.
i signed on a couple times and each time he was away. which is good. i mean, he doesn't have me on his buddy list anymore, anyway... i'm just snoopy.
when he went to school, he met a girl named sarah. (weird, huh?) and they started dating, and then they broke up 'cuz he wasn't a christian (hadn't believed in god in his entire life, as a matter of fact...), then they got back together 'cuz one day he woke up and miraculously believed in god.
he thought i didn't know they would end up back together. but i knew. i knew before he told me that they were back together. and i was hurt and angry, but what could i do?
and then sarah left for the summer, and he stayed at school 'cuz he had a summer design lab for one of his classes. and in like, april he and i had gotten in this big-ass, huge.. like, amazingly traumatizing fight about how many people i've slept with. (and now...i can see his point. :shrugs:) and we didn't talk until may (which is really like, a long time for me to not talk to him...)
and we talked this whole weekend in may about like, when we grow up and are married and whatnot. and how like, sarah wasn't me and nobody was him and blahblah. we're meant to be, blahblah.
and like, i ASKED him that weekend if he was just saying that stuff to me 'cuz she wasn't there. i asked him like, maybe 2 or 3 times, 'cuz i was really freaked out about that. and he kept telling me that he wasn't just saying things. and i don't even know if sarah knew we were talking that weekend.
but towards the end of that weekend or week or whatever, he told me sarah was coming to visit. and i asked what he was going to tell her. and he said, "i don't know. if we have a good time, i don't want to send her home with a heavy heart." and he told me that at first he was thinking of how much they weren't right for each other, but then he started thinking like, the next day.. or two days later or something.. that he really liked her and that she might really be right for him...or something.
and i got mad and told him that when he got his crap together, he could come talk to me. and he thanked me for giving him time 'alone' to figure things out. and now that i think about it it's like.. he based his decision on time he spent with HER. not time he spent alone. and that was so unfair.
and i know you're all reading this and commenting to yourselves about what a dumbass i am.
but i reallyreally loved ben. and we didn't talk after i told him to come find me when he got his stuff together. but then he emailed me out of the blue and sent me some Boy Sets Fire lyrics. just outta the blue.
and we wrote a couple emails back and forth before i finally told him that i couldn't be friends with him. that i needed him to be a part of my past. and he's been that ever since. but this weekend seeing him online brought back so much. and i don't want him back. i just want to have some kind of peace. and most times i do. i mean.. i'm okay with things. it would be harder if we were trying to be friends.
i wonder if he ever thinks about me. i still have his picture in my frame at school. i still have a CRAPload of our emails/IMs saved on my computer. i still have his letters and cards.
i think i miss his voice the most. every phone conversation we ever had started out like this: him: sara
me: hey.
him: 'ey.
and it's funny that i remember that. but i remember a lot. and i still love him. and i probably will keep my promise to love him forever. and i wonder what i would do if i ever saw him walking down the street. i'd probably keep on walking...or cry.
it's such a hard thing.. to decide whether to go on or hold on. 10 Sep 22:16

*Seven minutes before I'm leaving, and now my chest is heaving. I just can't go like I did before. Tomorrow I'll be miles away and dreaming that [he] hears my voice floating through the floor.* -Edwin
i've been listening to that edwin song on repeat for like, half the day. i have my picture of leslie and i in san fran propped up on my desk. i keep thinking of how much she loves "i'll be." i really like edwin. maybe next month i'll have a pic of him up. i'm on a kick-ass songwriter kick right now, but i thought lyle lovett would be a tad inappropriate for this month's entries.
i do really miss les. it's like.. we were *so* close, and now we aren't. i never see her online, can't even remember the last time we talked on the phone. i think about her a lot. like, i'll hear a song she loves or think of something funny she said and laugh and then just feel hurt. i don't think it was anything either one of us *did*, necessarily. we just kind of.. drifted apart. i dunno. maybe we just needed each other to get through some stuff, and now we're strong enough to get through it ourselves.
i can't love ben anymore. i want to. i want to love him forever, because that's what i promised to do. but he loves someone else.. and i won't subject myself to the pain of trying to love someone who doesn't love me.
and he was my first love, and i'll probably always love him. and it's easier now than it used to be. i used to wish everything would just go away. i wanted to crawl under my covers and never come out, because the pain of laying there was easier than the pain of being so completely alone and not understood. it's a little easier now. some days i don't even think about him. or at least not consciously.
and i don't miss who we were at the end. we fought all the time. i mean, we're adults.. and we fought about *stupid* stuff.
i think part of the problem is i resented him for who he was a year or two (almost) ago. when he joined that band, and got his sXe tattoo, and wasn't my ben anymore. and i know he had to grow up and become his own person. i know that. but that was like.. the total opposite. i mean, in a hundred thousand years i would never have guessed that he would join scarlet. and for some reason i was so jealous of the band, that i just like.. started to hate him. and that's so selfish and stupid. but he was *totally* different after he joined the band.
he wrote awesome songs. i mean, when they played.. i had no idea what the words were.. but he read some to me, and they were awesome.
he always thought he was super tough. like, i guess he was the thug (lol) of his four-letter town. but he never really knew anything. like, he grew up privileged. and so did i, but i *know* the other side of the coin. i've watched friends grow up in ghettos, and seen people shot. he never did, but he always thought he knew the definition of tough.. and that's what always used to irk me. and he knew it.
i was really proud of him when he (finally) went to school. really proud. he can mop up the kids at his school, without even studying. he just has so much book smarts.
and that was really the beginning of the (real) end.
i don't really feel like writing about that today. i will soon...because i've been so.. upset or angry about it for so long, that i have to say SOMEthing.. 'cuz i never really said it all to him. 07 Sep 10:19

*I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose, clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose...* -Sarah
Happy birthday...
06 Sep
23:49

*We're really not that different, me and you.* -Collin
New month, new topic.
for those of you who don't like to read about ben and i, or who are tired of hearing about it, i'm afraid a lot of this months' entries are going to be about him. just so you're forewarned.
his birthday is in two days.
first of all, let me just say.. yes, i loved ben. i probably still do, somewhere. and no, we never met. but i love a *lot* of people i've never met. a lot. so, i don't need to read any emails wondering how i could love someone i never met. thankyouverymuch.
also, what i say tomorrow may contradict what i say today, and so on and so on..
and for the other record, it's taken me a LONG time to feel like i can write about ben, so pleasepleaseplease don't say anything condescending or negative or mean.
when he and i first met, he was in lust with this other chick named kelley. (yeah, that one.) and i was supposed to figure out a way to make her know he liked her. and somehow along the way he changed his allegiance. and i was happy. but we were friends for a big minute before i even thought of feeling anything other than friendship. i don't know how i ever did. it isn't like i'd ever really been that attracted to someone before.
but i was to him. he was my everything. i took better care of him and our relationship than i did of myself. and i loved him more purely and honestly and openly than i've ever loved anyone before, or since. and he loved me the same way then.
and he became everything i wanted, and everything i want now. he was intelligent and funny and he had a good heart. and there was so much beautiful in him, and so much in me. and i told him (not too long ago, even) that he was/is everything i want in a man. and he asked me if he's the base line of what i want, or the ceiling. and he's more than any of that. he was perfect.
and i am who i am because of him. i like to think i'm a "self-made man", but i'm not. he loved me, and he made me an unbelievably confident woman. and who i was with him.. well, i wasn't a better person.. but i'm a better person now because of our time "together."
and i treated him very unfairly sometimes throughout the course of our relationship.. but i never lied to him. even when i knew it would kill him, i told him the truth. and it's hard for me to be honest sometimes, because i'm not very proud of my past. growing up, a year ago, two years ago.. whatever.
and in the end, i think my past is what killed us. and that makes me so sad. okay, when i look at my sexual past from an honest and direct (outsiders) point of view... i probably look like a whore. and i don't really have any reason for the things i did. i have excuses.. but no reason. and i wish i could explain to him.. i wish that he would have believed me when i told him that i would give up everygoddamnthing and every person in my entire past for one minute with him.
he asked me once.. if i would rather have 20 minutes of something great, or a lifetime of something not... mediocre.. but not great. no doubt.. something great. 20 minutes is an eternity.
maybe tomorrow i'll talk about our more recent history. 04 Sep 23:00