I've waited here my whole damn lifeAnd I've forgotten what I wanted

I found my high school journal while I was unpacking, so I started reading through it (as I do whenever I come across it, which is exactly what I do with the box, whenever I come across it -- although I try to limit time with the box because while it's funny to read my thoughts in my journal, being in the box is like being in the past, and no one should live in the past). Anyway, I found this passage:

I'm not saying I'm going to stay with him forever. My dad keeps telling me that "if it's going to happen, it'll happen. You can wait until you're out of college." If what is going to happen!?! I just want to go out with him a few more times before he leaves.

I started laughing out loud. "Hello? Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret. It's 'after college' now. Is this really what life is turning out to be?" I had to laugh, because it was either that, or cry (the ironic "happy" tears). Even at sixteen I really wasn't thinking that I'd be thinking about him again six years later, but for some reason, I really did think I'd be with him forever -- someday. It just made it easier to think in terms of "this Saturday," instead of "next year when he leaves for college." Thinking about him is still where I default whenever I'm not in a relationship, or when I'm trying to convince myself to leave my current relationship. Thinking about him makes me feel sixteen again. Full of hope. Full of girlish desire. Full of the bubbling, happy feeling that I'm brand new, and anything can happen, and that anything will happen.

Six years. Six years was a long time ago. I'm not so brand new anymore. I've been broken, and I've glued myself back together a few times. But I am wiser. And stronger. I'm not as foolish, and not nearly so naive, anymore. I also realize that he's probably the Kitty Shcherbatsky to my Levin¹; the Amelia Sedley to my Dobbin². He's my unattainable person, who probably isn't everything I imagine him to be anymore.

Sometimes I just want to wake up next to someone, and know that someone is there. Going through life with me.

But I also know I want it to be real, for once - or maybe for a second time in my life.
And I can hold out for that. I will hold out for that.

I know it's going to be a while before I stop needing to be in a relationship. I'm a relationship-aholic. I can't live without relationship-ahol. (Sorry, I couldn't resist). I'm starting to embrace the single wagon, though. Slowly. And if, from time to time, I still need to envision a world where I will one day run into him on the street, and we'll be able to pick up where we left off when I was sixteen? What's so wrong with that right now? I think I'll know that I found the guy when I can stop thinking about him once and for all. I was pretty close once, and I have nothing but grattitude towards him for that -- even though It didn't work out as well as I wanted it to. At least I learned from him that despite how sad and broken I have been, someone else who is suited for me is probably out there.

Anyway, I went out to buy new curtains earlier today, and was thankfully inside before the raging beast of a storm:

But, sadly, when I carelessly walked out of my room with some mail in my hands, I broke the spoon to my chicken sugar bowl:

These days, I really can't win 'em all.

¹Anna Karenina
²Vanity Fair

[Currently Spinning: Snow Patrol - Ways & Means]