Sometimes I sincerely wonder if there’s something wrong with me.  My heart doesn’t function normally.  People are willing to allow you a finite period to nurse a broken heart, to miss and mope.  But I know now not to let on that my heart never healed.  I’m expected to be over it.  I don’t let your name pass my lips anymore.

I got a gift, a necklace, last week.  It was obvious that more thought and more feeling was put into his choice of this gift for me.  He said it was a gift for my “half birthday.”  (Of course, I hadn’t even realized it was my half birthday, until he pointed it out.)  I was honestly touched.  And I remembered the year you were too busy to get me a gift for my birthday.  My whole birthday.

I will wear the necklace.  But the one I really cherish isn’t this beautiful, thoughtful gift.  It’s the necklace you gave me for Christmas that year.  It’s tucked away in its box, certainly tarnished by now.  I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at it in two years.  I still prize it above anything else.

I got a phone call tonight, from another.  He, too, is more thoughtful than you ever were.  More eager to talk to me, even after a long day.  I was flattered, and it meant nothing.  And I know, in a box underneath my bed, is my old cell phone, from all those years ago.  Saved because of your name, on the call log.  That certain arrangement of pixels that I haven’t seen in so long now.  An electronic image, meaningless, that I treasure so much more than the new, living voice I hear today on the other end of the line.

What’s wrong with my heart?

When I was with you, I couldn’t even imagine living a life without you.

Unfortunately, I now know that it is possible.  But now I can’t imagine living a life without missing you.

I always try to give my heart fully.

I feel guilty talking to more than one guy at a time.  Even though I am certainly not in a real relationship with either.  And for all I know, they are seeing other people, too.  It just feels so… insincere.  Like I’m leading people on.  I don’t mean to.

Yesterday I got a necklace.  Today, a stuffed animal.  He is so, so sweet.

But then these text messages, for no real reason, just to say hi… they make me smile, too.

I’m torn.  I’m always pulled in so many directions.

Well, maybe I should learn not to give my entire heart away so quickly, entrusting it all to a single person.  Maybe I should keep some for myself.

Back from Texas.  (Miss it already.)  Gosh, so much to say.  And catch up on.  But first… sleep!

I never tell anyone what’s going on.  I’m afraid giving voice to all this might make it real.