It's not like that, and it never was.

This has been one of the toughest obstacles to understanding that I've faced over the years. It comes up time after time after time, and it's always wrong, and I never seem to be able to find the words to explain the way it truly was. The way it truly is.

Expectations, assumptions, hopes, they never mattered, not enough to affect any of this. Those things still don't matter.

It just was. It just happened.

That girl is beautiful. That girl seems smart. That girl seems sweet. That girl doesn't seem like a slut. That girl seems friendly.

Nope, I never had any of those thoughts, not at first anyway. I didn't have time for those thoughts. I had two seconds, and that's all I needed. That was an eternity compared to what I needed.

That girl.

Period.

Everything was a bonus. There was no validation or authentication or demonstration or confirmation. There was no ideal, no pedestal, no fantasy, no anything except...

I had nothing but a simple fact, and nothing that's ever happened has changed that simple fact.

That girl.

Period.

---

Sometimes, I hear stories. I don't like them. I don't like hearing them. I wish people would stop telling them to me. They've never changed a thing except my mood.

Sometimes I write weird stuff and then let it ferment in my drafts folder for years:

---

The comet had no memory, no thoughts, no consciousness at all. It existed, and that was all that it did. It was a frozen ball of rock and ice orbiting with millions of other frozen balls of rock and ice.

Then, one day out of billions of otherwise identical days, something happened. Something different happened. The comet could not feel, but if it could have felt, it would have felt a pull. Just the slightest tug. It would have felt itself veer, ever so slightly, from the orbit it had known for so long.

And it began to fall, inward, toward the Sun.

---

A thousand years passed, but this meant nothing to the comet. It fell by the outer planets, and its trajectory was altered again, but not enough. By the time it passed Jupiter, the largest planet, its fate was sealed. This would be its first, and only, journey inward.

But it could not know this. It was, after all, a frozen ball of rock and ice.

---

As it continued to fall, the comet heated up, it began to spew violent streams of gas. It began to earn the names it had been given by humans. Hair of the Head. And later, Sword of the Sky.

It became beautiful.

---

Even as the fire tore it apart, it gave it life. For the first time in its existence, the comet felt something.

Beautiful pain.

Totally worth it.

I was looking through some old draft entries, and I ran across this gem. Everything you ever wanted to know about the first decade of my life:

1965: I was born. My hobbies included drooling and pooping.

1966: Late in the year I got a sister. Little did I know that it would take me another 20 years to come to grips with that fact.

1967: I learned how to call my grandmother on the phone, so I did that every 10 seconds or so.

1968: My hobbies included being a brat.

1969: Dad had us watch some dudes walking on the moon. I don't think anything else happened that year.

1970: I walked to kindergarten and back every day. My hobbies included running through sliding-glass doors, cutting the shit out of myself, and giving my mother gray hairs.

1971: We moved to a new house. I started first grade.

1972: I discovered that girls were good for other things besides throwing dirt at them. I forget what those other things are.

1973: Late in the year Mom brought home another sister. I hid in a tree because I'd wanted a brother.

1974: Tornadoes!!!!

1975: I turned 10, so I was officially a man.

This has been going on too long.

See, what I do is I write these entries in Outlook Express. Just like I'm writing an email. That way I can get it spell-checked before I copy and paste it into my blogging software. My blogging software doesn't check spelling. Weird, I know.

Anyway, what's been going on too long is that I've been sitting here with my fingers poised over the keyboard, my eyes staring at a blank email-composition window, for oh about a gazillion years now.

Waiting for inspiration, you know.

It's not coming, though. I give up. There must have been some misunderstanding, because I was sure that inspiration and I had an appointment for this morning.

I guess I'm feeling better now than I was Wednesday. I still feel a little subdued, though. Just a combination of a lot of things. Not really feeling very motivated to do anything because it would probably be a waste of time. I dunno, that's just how I feel nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Weird, my keyboard just broke. Luckily I have a million keyboards lying around, so I was able to get working again.

Too bad I forgot what I was going to write about. It was gonna be brilliant, I bet.

I'm feeling jealous today. A little mad, too. These feelings will pass. They always do. Only one thing is constant.

And, before too long if it hasn't happened already, the tables will turn, and I'll be the one being envied.

I don't like these thoughts, but neither do I fight them. I just notice them and maybe use them to understand myself a little better. This stuff is interesting to me, the changes that are happening inside me. The back and forth that occurs as I try to find a new equilibrium in this new reality. I sway a lot these days, but I haven't fallen in a long time. Perhaps that power is no longer hers.

None of this can be forced. I've tried and I've failed to rush this. I just have to let it happen, and hope that eventually I'll be better. But if not, then at least I'll still be me, and not some liar denier pretender. I'd much rather be miserable and true to myself than happy and deceptive.

But still, I don't like these particular thoughts. They end badly, for they lead me to a truth that, even now, I'm not ready to accept.

I dunno. It'll pass, I suppose.

I made a choice once. No really, I did. In November.

It was the first choice I'd made since it all began. I went against every instinct and feeling that I had, and I chose to stop. To give up. To turn my back. To walk away. No matter how you want to phrase it, this thing, this last thing, this ending, it was my choice.

I won't lie; I second-guess that choice every single day. Sometimes I regret it, and sometimes I agree with it. Usually, though, I just wish I'd never found myself in a position where I had to make that choice at all.

It's a sneaky bastard, that's what it is. And fucking persistent.

I lock the doors and I bar the windows, and I think I'm safe. I'm not safe. It gets in. It wends its way through the tiniest cracks in my soul.

Hope for what, exactly?

For a chance? That time expired a long time ago.

For a miracle? Nope. Too little, too late.

Maybe, I think, for a series of miracles. At least a dozen of them, each more improbable than the last, culminating in a singularity of...

...something.

I don't know. I just don't.

To nonsensically need what I don't want. To desperately want what I don't need. To count on the impossible. To deny the inevitable. All are true, and all are false.

People say that it's good that I'm finally getting better, finally getting over this, finally moving on.

Those people can suck my dick.

Those people have no idea what it is to be me and to go through this.

To kill yourself, and hope that there's an afterlife.

Or that there's not.