a little torn

i'm having trouble with this blogging thing... i've always been a journaller, a private book of writings that contain records of significant and insignificant details of my life. but there, in any of my dozen or so journals, is the naked truth. designed from the beginning to be the complete and unadulterated truth, i can record my deepest feelings, without regard for who will read them. my journals were designed to be for my eyes only, although i always had a fantasy about sharing them with my future children, and should i be blessed to marry a woman who i knew could appreciate them, for her.
but this blogging thing is somewhere in between. i don't have any delusions of becoming a hotspot on the internet for people to log on to and see what's going on in my life... sort of the Truman Show, but it's still out there for anyone to see. and frankly, for the people who i don't know, and will probably never know who may happen across my writings, that's fine. i don't mind sharing my most naked feelings with strangers. it almost seems romantic to think about. but what about the people in my life who i *do* know, who may not be fit for such information.

this is of particular interest right now in my life, as i've just recently been left by my girlfriend. so my initial instinct is to make this blog a digital version of my journal, to keep my hand from cramping, and allow quick little updates and short versions of entries as they come to me, instead of trying to pack them all into an end-of-the-day type summary.

a good example of this happened to me tonight. she was basically living with me here in my house, at least 60% of the time. the other days and nights spent at her parents home. she's just recently graduated, and started working full time, and so her life in enough of a state of flux that she was sort of a gypsie... floating back and forth between the two locales, depending on outside circumstances. but she still had half of my closet, and an entire nightstand in my bedroom. she had rubbermaid containers filled with clothes, and shoes and other necessities. the moment happened tonight as i changed the roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. i remember specifically that she bought the supplies last time she was at the grocery store. and this is the type of thing that really makes me sad. there are still frozen "lean cuisine" dinners in my freezer that she bought for me. and when i open the freezer door and see them, i have this vision of her in the store, pushing a cart down the isles. she's in the frozen foods section, sees the frozen dinners, and thinks enough about me to buy them. i imagine the conversation with herself in her head: "oh, those would be good for nights when he has rehearsal, and i'm not there." these are the things that kill me now to think about. i actually took one of them out yesterday, held it in my hand, and looked at it and said "karen's ziti... i'm not ready." referring to the Sopranos episode when janice offers to heat up bobby's late wife's last ziti she made before she died.

i just miss her. and it is my tendency for things like the toilet paper, or the frozen dinners, or the other groceries she's bought that are in my cupboards to idealize our time together. and they make me think that we have made a mistake. that these little moments were signs that we've let something truly great slip away. but it's not the truth. it was so damn close... but i know that i will be a better man after this painful process. and while a part of me hopes that my new self that emerges, and her new self that emerges from these ashes find eachother again, and find the piece that was missing has been found, i can't count on it. there are so many things in my life that i need to figure out, and fix, and organize, and *be* that i can't go back to her now. i would never evolve, and neither would she, and we'd find ourselves further and further entrenched in unhappiness, albeit unhappiness infused with great moments and flickers of destiny like the frozen dinners.