still staring down the sun

I came close -- very close -- to letting someone who knows my name and my face become aware of this blog's existence.

She was a girlfriend or she was a friend. I never figured it out and she would never clarify. I used to tell her things I've told no one else and in a lot of ways my letters to her were the precursor to this blog. About once a year we swap e-mails, and last weekend was this year's swap. All fine and well until I'm at my mother's house the other day and I unearthed a picture of her.

I stared at it for a minute or so... and then I wanted to jam my eyeballs out with a lead pencil. The feeling came back like blood rushing from a broken scab... the searing pain of unrequited love.

Whenever I looked into her eyes I had that feeling that I've heard about -- "this is the one!"

Except she wasn't. And I've never found that feeling elsewhere.