So why did I go?

Why indeed. I don't really know, just as I don't know why we still talk. I enjoy talking to her, I suppose. There is a comfort level there that you reach with people you know for long periods of time. And I really do owe her quite a bit, not in the sense that I feel beholden to her, but in that I can recognize that dating her was a huge turning point in my life, one that changed me (for the better, I believe), and which set me on the path I walk today.

But that's still not a reason why I'm in touch with her, why it's not too painful for me.

Most of the time I'm pretty sure I'm over her. Every now and then, I do find myself thinking about her, or missing her.

I think it's fear.

I spend a lot of my life afraid. Sometimes I think my life is characterized by fear. In this case, fear that I will never find someone who will love me like that, who I love back.

Even now, fear holds me back - and maybe it's the reason why I still talk to Ursula. It's all the things left unsaid because of fear - because I know that ignorance really is bliss, that there are some things you are better off not knowing, not because it's good to lie to yourself, but because sometimes the truth can really fuck you up.

I don't know when we broke up. I don't know when Ursula and Brian started dating. I don't know when she first felt attracted to him. I've never asked. She's said she never cheated on me. Can I believe that? I've never explicitly found out these details, and it has to be at least partially because I'm afraid of what the answer might be. I do know that when I came home in June of 2002, we were still nominally together. I went back to New York soon after, and a few months later she was engaged.

Seems quick, doesn't it?

I hope she hasn't made a mistake. But there's a little part of me that hopes she HAS made a mistake, that this ends badly and that she realizes hey, what I had was better. I'm not proud of that, but neither will I hide from it.

It also seems incredibly pretentious and presumptuous to say, "I hope she hasn't made a mistake". Who the hell am I to judge other people's mistakes? I've made more than my fair share, and I'm nowhere near done. The day I stop making mistakes will likely be the day I die.

But it's ok to make those mistakes, I think - it is those mistakes that tend to define us as humans. I was kicking around a theory a month or so ago that the person you are is formed at the end of high school; that for the most part, that is the person you will remain for the rest of your life. That's why so many people remain stuck in that moment, with the same issues and the same lives. I mentioned it to a friend, and she replied that she felt it was a cop-out; an excuse to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

She's right.

But I'm still not convinced that you can change some things about yourself. Some aspects, yes, some aspects, no. Take alcoholism. You can choose to fight it, to not drink, but it will always be there and it will always color the way you see things - it is a part of you. But, and this is where I stand today, just because success isn't guaranteed, it does not follow that you shouldn't try. It may not be logical to try when there is no chance of success, but humans are not logical creatures, nor should they strive to be in every facet of their lives. If anything, it is the reach for perfection while being fully cognisant of the impossibility of its attainment that is, to me, the simplest truth in life.

So, I'm afraid to ask Ursula those questions. I don't want to upset her, I don't want to upset myself. But maybe it would be better to get those things out. And maybe she's afraid too - maybe that's why she stays in touch with me, out of a sense of guilt for having betrayed me either physically or emotionally. I guess there's only one way to find out.