2000-08-11 - 18:25:28

His postcard came at a strange time for me � because it comes at a time when I am losing hope and faith in everything but myself. I still believe in love, I still believe that the love between my friends and myeself underneath is unbroken and unbreakable � but things are changing rapidly in my life since Larissa�s return from her vacation.

Larissa had a week to really be with herself and think while she was in the Dominican Republic, it was a soul-searching week for her. And she came back and I picked her up from the airport and she cried all the way to the bar. She realizes how much she loves and misses Ryan, and Ryan having this Leslie girl in his life makes her jealous and mad, and makes her realize how Ryan has felt all this time seeing her with someone else. And allthough she loves Jim dearly, living with him has been a learning experience � she has seen what I came to know through living with and loving Jim lo those many moons ago � that Jim ultimately can�t stand alone and needs to have someone in his life to support him � and that requires sacrifice on the part of his girlfriend, whomever that is, because Jim needs her to fill some roles even though deep down he doesn�t want to be with the kind of woman who would do that. It�s a strange paradox for Jim � And Larissa has come to understand me more than any other woman or person in my whole life ever could, because she now knows what I went through with Jim and why I came out at the end of it with a repressed sense of self. I was that way because I gave what Jim asks for in a woman � I gave everything everything for love, and Jim demands that � and he gives everything too � but it becomes an enmeshed kind of love where neither person is growing independently. And so Larissa can�t be with Jim and is turning back to Ryan � and she is at a strange crossroads in her life too, she is stronger and weaker than I have ever seen her before. She is going to California October 1 and she wants me to come with her.

I am sad about her and Jim � I completely understand and support her, as I always will, and I can understand why she�s making the choices for herself that she is and I think if I were in her shoes I would do the same thing. But it makes me sad because it seems like the end of a dream � I honestly believed that the love affair between Larissa and Jim was TRUE LOVE and now that I�m seeing that it isn�t complete, and despite their love they can�t function together, and that Larissa�s feelings for Jim have seemed to lessen somewhat, I wonder if there is any such thing as true love, and if it is possible for two people ever to have a connection that is more than fleeting. I am starting to doubt the nature of love.

Larissa is going to California and she�s going to break Leslie�s heart and she�s going to live on the beach and live near Ryan and be happy and I am happy for her. And we are going to try our damnedest to get Jim into school and not fail him � And me � what am I going to do? With Larissa and Jim leaving in 6 weeks what else can I do but leave now? I do want to leave Atlanta behind, this city is aging rapidly and I feel like I�m wasting my time here, but still, I don�t really have enough money to leave and moving to Boulder, despite what I might project to other people, is still a big scary ordeal. I know it will be the right thing to do, I know I can be happy there, and so I�m going.

I�m looking mostly forward to not knowing anyone. I can be anything I want to be. I can be bitchy if I feel like it and it won�t get back to anyone who knows me or cares. I can be weird looking and smelly if I want and there won�t be anyone around that I have to impress or that will think I�m not being myself. I won�t have anyone to catch up with or make plans with � every day I can do whatever I want. If I get depressed and I want to sleep curled in a ball on a pile of laundry for 2 weeks straight I can do that and there won�t be anyone around to worry about me. If I want to sleep around with a different man every night, or be celibate for a year, there won�t be anyone who will make any judgements of me. I will be able to go to a coffee shop or a bar or a library and I won�t run into anyone I know or anyone I work with and I won�t have to keep up any kind of appearances. I can reinvent myself. If anyone asks me about my past or where I�m from I can just say Atlanta and noone will know the whole sordid story of my past unless I tell them. I am looking forward to this.

And on top of that I know I�ll be lonely too and there will be times when I�m happy and I will wish there was a friend there to wish into a fountain with me or to invite over for wine and giggles and there won�t be anyone to invite. And I know that I will miss Ryan and I will be thinking of him and wishing it were me in California, but it won�t be me and he doesn�t want it to be and I know that. If I want to mope about and cry for no reason about any of this I can do that and if I�m melodramatic there won�t be anyone around to care.

I�m still curious about the meaning of the dream I had in January, in which I was in a church and fell to the floor with stigmata and Ryan was the priest and I tried to kiss him and he/the priest said that I would bleed 15 times . . . Was this a dream giving meaning to my strangeness at the time, with no prophecy for the future? Bleed 15 times�does that mean wait 15 years, or be hurt and pained 15 times, or does it literally mean that after my 15th period in March of 2001 something is going to happen to me, something involving Ryan? These are questions I don�t have the answers to.