"if you're lost, you can look and you will find me, time after time."

once i knew these lyrics would always be true. now, it seems impossible.

eight and a half years ago, i fell in love. and i believed that we would make it through and that we would end up together. though we had rough patches and he wasn't ready to commit and i wasn't healthy and we could hardly communicate, he was my all and i wanted him to always be.

but the story wasn't perfect.

a year and some odd months after being officially apart, though estranged and hardly a part of each other's lives, it continues to be hard to move on. pesky facebook updates poured salt into my wounds. a couple of chance encounters left me crying for hours. you'd think that all of the hardships and the obvious incompatibility and R&R would be evidence enough that it wasn't working out and that i should let go but apparently, it isn't that easy.

i know i'll finally move forward when i can let go of that strong hope of him being the one. that unwavering optimism in my first love. the notion that i can have a happily ever after with him.

because it seems we've run out of time.

the number of people who have been in the dreams i have recalled the last two nights would equal the size of a very nice party: we've got people i met once at a training, someone i knew in sla, and my seester in one and then we've got some of my current students (whom i showed my dream house to in person), two ex's, and their group of friends. usually, i may dream of one or two people i know, and even then, their faces might not belong to them. but something feels very vivid about seeing all these actual faces all in a string of dreams. [shrugs]