and now I brush my teeth every night before I go to bed.

I imagine that I should have prepared myself. However, I opt out and demand from my life that I don't live in preparation for the future. I've always been better at jumping in with two feet rather than leaving one dry.

You see, I didn't always feel this way about him. I pushed him away and I denied him and I made excuses: the sounds that he considers "music," his past lifestyle that at any moment can seep it's pathetic way back into his current routines, the amount of smokes he inhales in a day, how quick he is to offer a tab or a brew. The excuses, I remember, played over and over in my mind. And really maybe I was the one with the hang-ups. No, I know now that I'm certain it was me. Again I feared the judgement I'd receive from others. Something true he taught me: nobody cares. But beyond that, I was scared. I'd listen to some dumb song with some dumb lyrics that sang, "The saddest part of a broken heart isn't the ending so much as the start." And I reflected on a past relationship with the utmost apprehension: I saw how it ended and I saw that it indeed ended, and I just viewed my current situation so pessimistically. We argued one night and I remember through tears informing him, "Nothing in life lasts anyway. Why should I even waste my time going through the pain that I'll soon feel when all of this is said and done?" The irony perhaps was that one night when our conversations were induced via MDMA, he and a friend muttered something along the lines that we should all live selfishly and in the manner of being invincible because we all die someday anyway. I remember thinking the philosophy was foolish.

Well I allowed myself to feel vulnerable, and I really let him soak me in. The first man I've ever shown myself to, beyond all the games I've played with boys. I am serious and often shy and at times rather goofy, and I like to sit and think and sit and think and sit and think and speak, but usually just sit and think, and write, and read, and be kind and gentle, and assertive and sassy. And for the first time in a long, long time, I gave myself completely to someone else.

In life, things run their natural course. (Of course after we make the decision of which it follows.) And some day soon we may find our decisions have led us down two different paths in our separate lives.

I can only hope that if we find ourselves walking in opposite directions, our paths will soon cross again. And if not, then I guess I should prepare myself to say, "Well, that was that."

And this will soon be this, too.