Last published Jan 30, 2008

It's been nearly 5 months since I've posted here. My absence is mostly due to the fact that I've been so busy with school that it was completely draining me of all my creative energies, of which I have very little to begin with.

I think I'm back now because I need someone to know what's going on, and I don't feel like I have anyone I could just call up and rant to. My friends know bits and pieces of this, but no one person has the whole story.

I was doing really well. Honestly, I was. I didn't think about Karyn all that much, and when I did it was in the context of resurrecting some sort of friendship from the smoldering wreckage of our relationship. To illustrate how far I've fallen, while I was writing that last sentence, I looked to see if she was online. Earlier, I checked her blog, which I hadn't done in months.

So why the change? What happened that put her back in my mind? I want to tell this story fully and truthfully, so here it is. She sent me a text message a couple weeks ago saying that she wanted to see me before she left town, presumably forever. This, obviously, set my mind in motion. That's what I do. I think about things until I have my mind made up about what every subtlety and detail means, then all I have to do is wait to be proven horribly wrong. Anyway, I tried to set up a couple meetings, but she apparently wanted to do it on her terms. I finally saw her when she came to my senior showcase. We talked for a few minutes, and agreed to hang out later that night. We went to Sonic after my showcase was over and talked for an hour or so. She cried a lot. She talked a lot about not realizing what breaking up with me meant until she was actually leaving. She wondered if she had made the right decision. I told her all I could think to tell her, which was effectively "You need to leave and figure out what you want."

She called me the next day, crying. At this point, I don't know what to think. Last I heard, she was perfectly happy with Owen and wanted to marry him and have lots of babies. She still insisted that she was very happy with him and please don't get the wrong idea. How could I not be getting the wrong idea? She was calling her ex-boyfriend, crying, talking about the decisions she made and how they upset her. What exactly am I supposed to be thinking at this point?

That was pretty much the end of our communication. I tried to return a shirt of hers that I had found, and she told me to put it in her box in her office, which I thought was a pretty lame move. "I don't want to see you, but I want what you have for me." I would love to think that she didn't want to see me because she was afraid she would start crying again, but I think it was mostly that she didn't want me to continue thinking that she might want to get the band back together. That was the last time we talked, and I think it's probably going to be for a while. She'll be spending most of her time with Owen now, and I can't imagine she'll have much use for me.

What I cannot for the life of me figure out is why I'm still this affected by her. I was in love with her, yeah, but we broke up like 6 months ago. It wasn't like she was a perfect girlfriend, either. The problem is this: when things were good, they were fantastic. We were crazy about each other. We understood each other, even if we didn't agree. There were weeks and months in that relationship that I would live in forever. If Doc Brown showed up in the Delorean, I would set those dials for March 2007 and get up to 88 mph as fast as possible. But why-oh-why are those good times able to control me like this? When she calls me crying, why doesn't my mind jump to the scene where she's telling me she doesn't love me in the middle of her living room? Why don't I immediately think of her weeping at the thought of never talking to Owen again. Why is it that the first thing I think about is driving around Oahu with the windows down?

So far, the only thing that's been able to break the spell is if I have some sliver of hope of dating someone new. I've been out with a few different girls this semester, all with disastrous results.

I think that this whole mess with Karyn has had a much more pronounced impact on me because of this unrivaled dry-spell I'm currently experiencing. I have to believe that she wouldn't have gotten to me if just one of those fetal relationships had gone somewhere (anywhere). Surely, that's the reason. I can't possibly be that weak when it comes to her, can I?

Even after everything we've put each other through, these are the things I think about. It's what I'll continue to think about until the next girl shows the slightest bit of interest in me. I'll write another "karyn" post when I crawl out of the ruins of my "next-girl" hopes.