gone

it's amazing how quickly hope is lost. or found.

it takes so long for reality to set in. months and months, fighting it all the time. then you give it a little credence - "huh, maybe this is the way it really is". and that sits a little while. but it's not inert, it works quietly, insiduously weakening the foundation on which your version of reality is built.

first just a couple of chips or cracks here or there. but they're easy to overlook or explain away (rationalize away) because nothings' perfect, right?

and then with astonishing speed, it's in ashes in a pile around your feet. everything you wanted. everything you hoped for. everything you cared about.

gone.

my long time friend is going to a beach for a week and asked if i wanted to come along. my first thought was that i couldn't be away from her for that long. then that i couldn't afford the time off of work. then i wondered wtf, it's only money; a few extra days' pay isn't gonna delay the inevitable that long. when i hung up with him, i couldn't put my finger on why i wasn't more interested in going.

first, it'd put me within a days' drive of B. she doesn't want that and i'd feel her pull the whole time. second, spending five days drunk on the beach, while it -should- be appealing, isn't right now. i don't deserve anything - no pleasure, no pain, no distraction. my punishment is to just exist. alone.

this morning when the alarm rang, another reason occured to me. i lay there looking at the clock and wondered "wtf am i doing? why am i bothering to go in? why work? why -anything-? i really don't give a shit, either way. work or not work. make a living or live in the street. "

i'm not sure it matters anymore, at least, not to me.

it should, i guess. she'll still be around to talk to, although she'll tell me less and less of her life, as she gets back closer to him. and she'll ask about my life, but how do i tell her that my life has nothing worth talking about, other than her? how do i tell her that my life is long periods of nothing i care about spent waiting for a few minutes to spend with her?

and now those few minutes are all i'll ever have.