2000-08-29 - 23:47:27

Larissa�s been out of town staying with her family while recovering from her knee surgery. I went down and stayed with her a few days, then came back and worked, then went back to see her for the weekend. She�s doing well, but her legs are giving her pain. I feel like such a mom when I�m around her�I don�t want to share with her any of my problems and it just breaks my heart to see her hobble around, She�s usually the most independent person I know.

Meanwhile, Jim and I have been making do around our little abode without her. At first things were strange, and the vibe between us was like it was when we were dating, where I was giving him money and being the responsible one and when he was depressed or lonely I was cheering him up. But there is a reason I�m not with him now, and its because I got really tired of being like that. I came to my breaking point one day and was bawling crying because I felt like the world was on my shoulders, and Jim was so kind he came up and put his arms around me and we ended up having the best talk � I just told him honestly that I couldn�t look out for him anymore, I had a lot to think about in my own life and I needed him to take initiative in his own life and around the house and that all I wanted from him was for us to be friends. And to my wonderment Jim was wonderful and told me honestly that he had been thinking about his life and that he didn�t want to drink all the time anymore or waste his life and that he thought the only thing that was really coming between himself and homelessness was the fact that he had two friends (me and Larissa) who took him in. I couldn�t believe it�I didn�t say all those things to him, he said them to me of his own accord. Since then whenever we�ve hung out we�ve had the best conversations � we�re really on equal footing now and I feel for him as if he were my brother.

Last weekend I went back to Huntsville to see Larissa with Leslie. It was great having a road trip with her and it was good to see Larissa, allthough I find that someone has turned up the speed dial on time when I wasn�t looking and now every day goes so fast I hardly have time to enjoy a moment before it is gone. The weekend wasn�t enough time and I am missing Larissa terribly again and its only been a couple of days since I�ve seen her

Going to Huntsville was also strange because one of the days we ended up taking a drive up Monte Sano mountain, where me and Ryan had rented a cabin in January. Being there brought back all of that memory and after that all I could think about was Ryan. We had a really lovely time there. It was sad to me that later Ryan took Larissa to the same place we had been together because I had come to think of those cabins somehow as our special corner of the world. Being in Huntsville was just like opening up an old wound for me. I keep thinking I�ve put the past behind me but I keep finding little drawers inside of me I didn�t know were there, and when I open them I find all the feelings and memories with Ryan that I never could get rid of because they were too beautiful to throw away, but they weren�t useful in my day to day life.

Larissa asked me this weekend why I was depressed, and it occurred to me for the first time that I am depressed. I am unhappy with my lack of creative output�when I�m not writing I feel like my life is meaningless and I�m never going to make it in this world and that I�m destined for a life of mediocrity and that makes me depressed. I am terribly sad at the thought of living life without Larissa � my best friend and confidant and I know without her I will be very sad and lonely and its just now dawning on me that I�m really going to be really alone. And I�m depressed because I feel gripped with indecision about my future � to go now to a beautiful place like Colorado and make my dreams come true there, or to stay and finish what I�ve been building for myself here and have money to travel with in Europe later. Every day I don�t make a decision I become more frustrated with myself.

And I�m depressed because I really think this whole love thing sucks big time. I�m sad its not working out for Larissa and Jim like they had hoped it would. And being in Huntsville reminded me of the truth of my feelings for Ryan. I guess its not even Ryan I�m in love with because I don�t know who he is now � he has surely grown and changed since the man I knew in January. I tested the waters with Steve � I tried having sex with him to prove to myself that I would fall in love with any man that I had sex with and to prove to myself that I never loved Ryan, only the sex, and that I wasn�t still in love with Ryan because I was moving on with Steve. But I found that I�m still in love with Ryan. Or is this love at all? Surely love is more beautiful than this strange raw lonely aching longing pained teary tender foggy feeling that keeps coming over me. I promise I�m not one of those tragic writer-types who thinks unrequited love is romantic. It depresses me because it makes me feel like such a highschool girl again, I wonder where all my enlightenment and self-cultivation has gone when I find myself mooning over an idea of someone who frankly isn�t ever going to be in love with me. And yet I can�t cut it out of my heart . . .