Goodbye to my childhood

The old house where I used to live in East Texas has burned down. Nobody knew about it until my cousin Melissa called my dad from Omaha while she and her husband were down there. We don't know when it burned or how it happened, only that it's gone and nobody said anything to us about it. My dad's grandparents built that house in 1950. My brother and sister and I all lived there when we were little, with my mom and dad when they were still married... from December of '76 until the spring of 1984. I have good memories and bad memories of living there, it was in that house where I spent my childhood. In 1990 my grandma and I spent the summer renovating it, fixing it up, painting it, laying new ceiling tile, making it livable again so it could be rented out. That was it's last breath of life. It's gone now, and nobody will ever make any new memories in that house ever again.

I don't know exactly how to feel about this. I remember joking once about how I'd like to just burn the place to the ground. Now some stranger, infinitely removed from our connections to the place, connections forged by family and feelings, both good and bad, have robbed us... I'm not sure what was taken, but something beyond wood, glass, brick and concrete is definitely missing. I can feel it.

I'll be in East Texas this week. I'll go take a look at it. I'll probably grieve a little. I wonder what that will be like.

The date of the picture, July 24th 2005, was one of the last times anyone attempted to take care of that land. That's me mowing the lawn. Goodbye old house.

Logismoi - the thoughts that evolve to sin through the stages of desire, action and passion.

God forgive me for succumbing to the enemy and falling into despair. Help me, strengthen me, make me an instrument of thy will. May I be forgiven for my weakness in letting the enemy corrupt my love. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a miserable sinner.

It's the logismoi that make this so horrible, that trigger the collapse of my composure. They say that logismoi are attacks by the enemy to keep people off balance, to weaken them so that it is harder for God's love to be accepted. Well, that's the damn truth for sure. The dreams are even worse than the waking thoughts, because I can't just stop what I'm dreaming or will the dream to go away. Sometimes when I'm dreaming I will actually believe it's real life, and then I'll wake up so relieved. Maybe all of this is really a dream, and I'll wake up soon. Just a bad dream. A nightmare. I haven't woken up yet though, so either I'm in a coma and I'm having the mother of all dreams, or all of this really is happening. I really am going through this... but it just seems impossible. I still have a hard time believing it sometimes.

I've forgotten what it's like not to hurt constantly, to not have to fight anger that is constantly threatening to surface, to feel like goodness, acceptance and forgiveness are all the characteristics of a natural state of mind. How easily we forget, right? I feel like all of the substance which makes me a good person - all of the qualities which I had learned to trust without question as being integral to my spirit and immune to corruption - I feel like they have all been violently ripped away from me and splashed to the four winds, leaving a festering wound infected with feelings of anger, betrayal, and injustice. I feel all of this, but I know that the enemy is responsible for causing these feelings to surface. I need the cure for this infection... please God, heal this hurt in me. Help me to remember the hope You gave me.

I'm going to East Texas tomorrow to house sit for my mom while she's across country at my cousin's graduation. I'm looking forward to being all by myself, alone, away from familiar things that remind me of the past year and a half. Maybe I can use this time to heal this hurt, to just pray constantly and come to terms somehow with what has been happening, to be able to believe that my love isn't worthless.

What is love, anyway?

Sometimes I wonder if love between two people really exists, or if it's only an illusion. I can remember my step brother, Nathan, my mom's second husbands son. When they divorced, I knew I would probably never see Nathan again, and I grieved. That was 25 years ago. What if I found out tomorrow that Nathan had been killed, or had died of cancer? Would I feel any sorrow? I don't think it's likely that it would have much of an effect on me, besides maybe a brief pang of remorse; forgotten completely within a couple of hours. What happened to the love I had for my step brother? How could it have just faded away to nothing? Was it even real at all? What is love, anyway?

I think it's likely that nobody will ever know the answer to that until after they have given up the ghost, because humans are imperfect, and for the most part, self serving. Most of us haven't ever really experienced real love, God's love. Because of the inherently flawed state which people occupy, is it the case that human love must also be flawed? My step brother, Nathan, was one example of how brotherly love can seem to just disappear, as though it never were. But what about other kinds of love?

Being in love can be one of the most wonderful feelings that a human can experience... but it can also be perceived as a source of pain, despair, even cruelty. How can love, the essence of life energy, be both wonderful and awful? How can love grow and then wither? How can love be forgotten so easily? How can love go seemingly hand in hand with our passions and our pride? I think the answer to these questions is that imperfect, human love is inevitably corrupted by the ego, and since the ego serves the self, love becomes used as a means to serve ones self. To be in love and to have that love returned to you is one of the most joyful things a person can experience. However, if you take that same love and offer it to someone who doesn't reciprocate in kind, it becomes one of the most painful things a person can experience. Why does love do this? The essence of love should imply truth and purity, therefore shouldn't it be able to stand on its own? Shouldn't a person be able to feel love for another, give love to another, and that be enough?

At the same time, how can a person receive the love of another and reject it? How can it seem to be without inherent value? How can one refuse such a precious gift? It's love, after all, a wonderful thing! Receiving love from someone should be a joyous experience, shouldn't it? Why, then, is it sometimes not? Why is it instead repelling and unpleasant in some cases, often leading to feelings of contempt and even hatred? What the heck is wrong with love?

Here's my attempt at an answer to that question. It is my idea that human beings don't know what to do with love, this greatest of gifts. The only true, pure love is God's love, and the flawed nature of humanity prevents most humans from being able to receive this gift, to appreciate it for what it truly is, and then offer it to others in that same capacity. If that were the case, then every human being on Earth would be the foci of a vast network of love, and everyone would be connected with the energy of love, and nobody would ever have to feel pain, or need, or selfish desire. Real love would destroy the ego completely; a necessity if people are to be able to experience love as God intended. However, I don't think that most people would benefit from this destruction of self. It would most likely be a traumatic thing, experienced as despair, pain, and fear... much like receiving, yet rejecting God's love. Possibly it is the same thing, since the self is the result of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and when the fruit was taken and eaten, God's love was rejected. Mankind wasn't ready for this realization of self, and because of this, our spiritual development has been stunted and cauterized. We are not what God intended us to be, and therefore, we don't know how to love.

The enemy has enclosed our hearts and sealed us inside, making each of us a terrible fortress against God's love. These fortresses seem impenetrable. They rob us of hope, or even worse, they deny us even the possibility of the existence of hope. However, it is possible to begin chiseling against the stone and mortar of those fortresses, but it isn't easy. Simply knowing which brick to start banging against is in itself a daunting task, which can have the effect of discouraging immediately any such attempt. And although it may take a lifetime to completely destroy this fortress against the Holy Spirit, it is possible to punch tiny pinholes through it... and through these pinholes, God's love can shine through with a brilliance outshining a million galaxies. This is possible for everyone, this beginning, and once real love has been allowed to touch your heart, it's like raising the shades for the first time and realizing that there is a such a thing as daylight, when the very concept of daylight had never existed before. It is knowledge that can never be unlearned; it is the greatest gift yet received... a glimpse of God's love, and the knowledge that it exists. The realization that your heart wasn't meant to be surrounded by brick and mortar and imprisoned in a dark fortress, but as an open vessel to receive the love of God, a bright temple for the Holy Spirit.

Christ Pantocrator Icon - finished

I finished the Christ Pantocrator icon.  Here it is:

Learning karate

After I finished painting the closet in the rent house today, I moved on to the fence in the back yard. I had already gotten a good start on it, but I only get a little bit done each time I work on it. It's not that the fence is so tall, and so long, and that it takes forever to cover the boards with paint, twice, on each side; it's that there are so many nooks, crannies and crevices that I have to fill in with a tiny brush. When I first started on it last Saturday, Fr. Justin came back there to see how I was doing, and the following conversation ensued:

"So, do you feel like Tom Sawyer?"
"Yeah... I tried to explain to Alex how fun it was, but he didn't fall for it." (Saturday was a church cleaning day, and Alex had wandered over, bored out of his skull, to see what us men-folk were doing)
"Ah. Yeah, we should get him to do all the nooks and crannies..."
"Yeah!"
"...but I think they're all going bowling after the church is cleaned..."
"Aw."

Actually, what was going through my mind as I painted was this:

"Paint-a fence. Up, down. Up, down. Paint-a fence. Up, down. AH-T-T-T-T-T! Like this. Up. Down. Up. Down!"
(after several hours of Paint-a fence)
"Mr. Miagi, I'm finished!"
"Both side?"
"... Not yet."
Up, down... up, down... up, down...

Except I was using a paint roller. I don't think my karate skills improved very much.

Zoe's company

Today at Fr. Justin's rent house, while I was painting the inside of a closet, Zoe decided to be my full time company keeper. I received three grocery lists, to big ones and one little one, and the promise of another one from her 'new book' that smells like bubble gum. Here's an excerpt from today's running commentary:

"Which do you want, Miss Davis? The big one or the little one?" (referring to the grocery lists)
"Just call me if you need any more paint!"
"Have you painted this part yet? Have you painted this part yet? Have you painted this part yet? Have you painted this part yet?"
"Are you gonna paint this?"
"I have four crowns!" (opens her mouth wide to show off four silver caps on her teeth)
"My toothbrush is pink and purple. My old one was just pink. But this one is pink and purple."
"Green is my favorite color too."
"Papa has green tools. See? See? Oh, it's just this that's green." (referring to a green screwdriver)
"When I get older I'm gonna have tools too."
"Do you like bubbles? Huh? Do you like bubbles? Do you like bubbles? Do you like bubbles?"
"Do you have paper at home?"
"Where is your mama?"
"Does your mama have a house?"
"Can you and your mama come to our house and watch 'The Land Before Time?' "
"How is your mama feeling?"
"Do you like Harry Potter? We watched Chamber of Secrets."
"You saw Chamber of Secrets too? You should come to my house and watch it."
"When I get dirty I just jump in the bathtub. This dust is making me dirty."
"Ow! That hurts my ears!" (referring to Fr. Justin sawing outside)
"I like peanut butter and jelly. Do you want one? Mama, he says he don't want one!"
"How did you cross the street Thea? Papa, how did Thea cross the street?"

By the way, Zoe calls everybody Miss, regardless of whether or not they are male or female.

"Mama, Miss Rogers is here! Miss Rogers is here! Hey papa, Miss Rogers is here!"
"I'm not ever gonna go to Miss Anderson's house again. I've never been there, but I'm not going again."
"I'm kidding, I have been there. But I'm not going to Miss Anderson's house again."

And when she's not calling me Miss Davis, she's fudging it up and saying Miss Beavis or Miss Davey of Miss Ash. She would rather just call me Ash, and she does half the time; but if Matushka hears that:

"Zoe, come here."
"What?"
"Come here, Zoe."
"Huh?"
"Zoe, come here."
"What?"
"Come here right now, Zoe."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to come here right now."
"I gotta get up first."
"Now, Zoe."
"What?"
"Zoe, come over here right now!"

And at this point, Zoe reluctantly abandons her post as my closet companion sidles away towards Matushka Michelle.

"Zoe, Mr. Davis is your elder. You will call him Mr. Davis when you speak to him."
"No he's not, he's Ash!"
"Zoe! You will respect your elders! You will call him Mr. Davis when you speak to him."
"... !"
"Zoe, what do you say?"
..."Ok. Hey Miss Davis, come watch me blow bubbles!"

And on and on and on and on. Matushka Michelle noticed this and said that in the evening after a hard day, when everybody is tired and all three girls are yammering away non-stop, Fr. Justin mutters to himself "Too many voices... too many voices!" I witness all of this from day to day as I'm out there helping with the work; these people who form this family unit, bickering and chatting and giggling and palavering, bonded together with the love of God. They truly do seem happy.

Trouble

Tonight I was having some trouble. I almost succumbed to it, I was very close to letting it consume me, feelings of self pity and doubt and vitriol. Then I got a grip on it. No, that's not right... a grip was gotten on me. I stopped, sat down, and prayed. And prayed and prayed, forgive me Lord for this, forgive me, have mercy on me, forgive me.

Then I went outside into the beautiful, still night with my cigarette, leaned up against my car, and saw a young mother and her toddler. She was slim, petite, a tiny little blond thing, with an even tinier charge depending on her for everything. As they explored the neighborhood, hand in hand, I thought, this is the love that Jesus, the lord God, has for me. I am the toddler, depending on Him for everything, He is my sole source of comfort and protection. I watched this pair, the child exuberant in his innocent abandon, not yet exposed to the darker things that exist, and the mother, never letting go of his hand as he explored his new and mysterious world, full of possibilities, the lawns of my neighbors. It was dark out, the sun had just set, just a little light. But enough light to see by, to see this demonstration of love displayed before me, so that I might know it. Just enough light to see it. Only such a little bit of light... but enough.

It doesn't take much light, just a tiny bit, for us to see and appreciate God's love for us. We can be so blind to it, that light can be so easily ignored, but it persists if we only choose to let it. Oh Lord God, my Lord Jesus, I am not worthy of such recognition, that you should let your Light be visible to me, such an unworthy thing, who deign to call myself Your servant. Continue to have mercy on me I pray, do not forsake me. Save me from evil thoughts and emotions, let me be a worthy vessel for Thy Spirit. I say this out loud, so that others might see it too.

A sad movie

I watched a movie tonight after church, it's called 'The Wrestler'. Mickey Roarke plays a professional wrestler who was a big star in the 80's, and now he's pretty much down and out and doing small time gigs, working at a grocery store, living in a trailer, and estranged from his daughter. A lot of the movie is from a point of view just behind him, following him as he goes about his life. This to me symbolizes everything in his past... everything that is gone for him, all of his hopes and dreams and intentions, always just behind him, inaccessible, haunting him.

His character is so sad and I feel so sorry for him, even though he's not even real. He's so lonely, and he nurtures a friendship with a stripper who he might have had some kind of history with. In one scene they are in the club, talking intimately, as friends, and it is such a surprise when she asks him for payment. It was really a bummer.

It is a sad portrayal of getting old and living in the past, with nothing in the present and no hope for the future. So many people probably end up like that, and this movie makes me grieve for all of the lost hopes of the people of the world.

Paths

I will be so relieved when this emotional confusion has run its course. Many times a day I find myself fluctuating between righteous indignation and regretful guilt. Which emotion should I be feeling? Which is right? I suspect that neither are correct, and my healthy state of mind occupies a middle ground which, unfortunately, lies about 30,000 feet below and shrouded in mist, while way up here in the Alien Jet Stream, I'm hang gliding back and forth from a live volcano to a frozen glacier. I'll be glad when the seasons finally change and the katabatic winds finally fail, so I can plummet down into those misty depths. A soft bed of grass in a protected meadow awaits me, with many myriad paths leading towards an infinite number of sunrises, and my only obligation will be to choose which one to take.

Christ Pantocrator Icon

This is my second try at painting an icon. I used oils on a 7" x 9 1/2" pine craft panel. The panel is beveled on the front, so I painted on the back instead. This particular icon was supposed to be done on a much larger piece of wood, but since I wanted to save my big boards for when I'm more experienced, I used a small one. As a result, I had to really cram the details in there... but it was good practice.

I've had a book checked out from the St. Maximus library nook for... oh, I don't know how long... months, many of them. I should probably turn it back in so somebody else can have a chance to look at it. Anyway, this book is called 'The Technique of Icon Painting' by Guillem Ramos-Poqui. It's basically a complete course in icon painting, or writing, as the art is referred to when done by a bona-fide iconographer. I'm not an iconographer yet, so I'll just say that I painted a copy of a real icon.

Anyway, I love this book. It contains step by step tutorials for several different icon versions, with this one being a Christ Pantocrator icon. I going to try the Virgin Hodigitria next, which is a version of Virgin with Child.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my progress:


All I have to do now is paint the cross/circle behind His head, and add the Greek identifying inscriptions. This is how it will look when it's finished, basically:


I've painted one other icon before this one, a St. Mary of Egypt on canvas using acrylic paint. I learned a couple of important things in the process... I DO NOT LIKE ACRYLIC PAINT. It is very difficult to paint with in my opinion, because it dries so fast. Normally, you'd probably think that was a good thing... but when paint is dry, it's impossible to mix colors directly on the canvas in order to blend the edges of two differently colored elements. Oils, on the other hand, take days to dry, sometimes weeks. This makes oils very forgiving to me, as I can always go back and repair mistakes by blending in a new color. However, since they do take so long to dry, it's a lot easier to really screw up an entire painting by dropping it face down on a dirty floor, spilling something on it, brushing up against it and not knowing, thus smearing wet paint all over the good parts of the painting, etc. I prefer oils now, but have yet to try the egg tempera technique. That should be interesting.

When I finished the St. Mary of Egypt icon, I was basically pleased with the result, but I could have done a lot better if I'd had a quality reference. I didn't, so I had to size up a low resolution picture on the internet, blow it up to about 8x10, print it, and use that for a reference. Also, I wish I had painted it on wood, but that icon was the first thing I'd painted since 1996, and I wanted to stick with what was familiar, so I used canvas board. Anyway, it's framed now and behind glass and it looks good, and it's hanging on Leah's wall.

Accepted

I got a letter in the mail from UNT yesterday. It said that I've been accepted, so I can go ahead and start school this summer. All I have to do now is talk to an adviser, get enrolled, and wait for my financial aid to clear. It also turns out that I have a 3.25 GPA when my NTCC and Art Institute transcripts are averaged. So that's good, I guess.

I figure I'll just work towards a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree, and once I have that, I can decide whether or not I want to go to grad school for counseling, or maybe just go to seminary. I'll have that figured out when I actually graduate. I've thought about going to seminary before, but I realized fairly quickly back then that I was in no condition spiritually or even physically to commit to something like that. However, my faith has been growing constantly since then, and there was a time a couple of weeks ago when I thought I might consider it again.

The Jazz Fest

Yesterday I went to the Jazz Fest. I wasn't in a very good mood when I started walking, and I was doing a lot of negative self-talk, like 'I'm hopeless, I don't know what the hell I'm doing', self pitying crap like that. Well, I was in the middle of nice, long indulgence when I slipped and fell on my arse on a random grease spot on the sidewalk, breaking my immaculately long thumbnail that my mom had painted. "What was that God? Stop the self-pitying crap? Ok."

At the Jazz fest, the first thing I saw in the first booth I glanced into was this huge Christ Pantocrator icon, amidst all of these other secular prints. It was HUGE. Wow. God talking to me again. I don't deserve such mercy and comfort but I sure do appreciate it.

Anywho, so I spent a lot of time walking around and watching people, which is what I like to do when I'm not walking around reading, and there were a lot of people at the Jazz Fest. As I passed people I overheard snippets of conversation:

"...didn't ask you to use me for a..."
"...Where did you get that big turkey leg?..."
"...these port-a-potties are so clean, the ones in Austin were so... uh..."
"Clean?"
"Horrible."
"...hey, that's my daughters chair..."
"...one huge bag of popcorn..."
"...marry the drummer!..."

And as I was using a series of stones to cross a water filled concrete embankment:

"Hey man, smart!"

I eventually found my way to where my two sisters were keeping a space for us near the stage and settled into somebody else's chair. Well, inevitably the owner showed up and claimed it, so I just went ahead and walked home. I wasn't feeling 100% that day... next year the Jazz Fest will be fun again, like it was last year.

Flirt?

Just about every day I walk down to the Howdy Doody for sundries and what-nots, and lately there is this lady who lives down the street who has been waving to me a lot as I walk by. I say a lot... ok, she's waved at me twice in the last week.

So anyway, right before the Jazz Fest, I walked to the Howdy Doody to grab a beer. On the way back I round the corner and there was this same lady again. She was in her yard facing away from me, her feet firmly planted far apart in a wide stance, wearing short shorts, and bending WAY over to plant some flowers. Upon seeing this, I automatically stopped in my tracks. It was quite involuntary, the stopping, more like a reflex. I just stopped, like in a cartoon or something. I'm sure it was probably pretty comedic looking... me rounding the corner and coming to a dead stop in mid-stride, with this spectacle planted firmly before me.

So, yeah. It was quite a shock to be presented with this woman's blatant backside upon rounding the corner on the way home. After I had recovered a little of my composure, I continued walking, feeling almost embarrassed to keep going as she was bound to notice me as I passed her. Surely she was aware of her... posture? And how it would look? To random passers by? Did she have no modesty at all, or was she really just not aware of herself? It really seemed exaggerated, this wide stance, and bent all the way over like that, with shorts that almost looked intentionally too small. I glanced to my left as I passed her and she immediately noticed me. She stopped, looked at me, and smiled real big smile and said a real big "Hi!" I'm sure I was blushing by that point, so I quickly said "hi" back to her and hurried on.

Ahem... wow. That definitely didn't look like the easiest way to plant flowers. Was she contorting herself that way purposefully? If so, and based on her earlier friendliness and the way she stopped digging right when I passed her and greeted me yet again, then that's twice in the last week that I've been walking along and some lady in her front yard has flirted with me. And it's the third time that particular one has greeted me. Do I somehow exude "I'm single now" pheremones? I wonder if either of them are Orthodox? Yeah right... but getting flirted with is always flattering.

Finally

Now is the time to either put up or shut up. The final test is devestatingly obvious. Am I strong enough? Can I endure this? At catechumen class today Fr. Justin was reading from a book talking about the catechism, and the points that were brought up directly reflected what's going on. It wasn't just a coincidence, it was God saying...

"This is it, are you really here? Do you really care? Is your entire heart in it? Because you know it's been leading up to this, you've known that for quite some time, haven't you? Well, here it is, and you have My Grace to help you, but it's up to you, your own will to choose what will happen. Listen and love and accept forgiveness and accept My Love and come forward."

That is what God was telling me.

Joke's on me

Ok, the joke's on me I guess.

What a stupid, naive, foolish idiot I have been. About two weeks ago, a friend of mine at church tried to warn me, in a very serious manner, that I might be in danger of losing Leah to a particular someone who had his eye on her.  Namely, Nick.  Here is the message I sent to my friend as a reply to that warning:

"If you happen to be talking to this person who has designs on my girl, and if he happens to ask, you can tell him that I said this:  I do understand how other guys could be attracted to such a beautiful, smart, witty, and desirable person as my Leah, with whom I've shared a relationship for the past 17 months. That being the case, for the impossible predicament in which you may find yourself... I sympathize; as unrequited love can be a painful experience.  Unfortunately for you however, the relationship which exists between myself and Leah is of a nature which precludes any possibility of hope that you or any other gentleman might have of garnering Leah's affection. In other words, we love each other. Therefore I must offer my condolences to you, as any designs that you might have toward acquiring a relationship with my girlfriend - with the obvious side effect of dissolving the relationship between Leah and myself - will have to remain forever unrealized, as it just isn't going to happen, ever."

What a delusional collection of retarded ramblings. How blind I was when I composed that steaming pile of bullshit.  And do you know what's really funny? I actually believed all that garbage I wrote about Leah and myself. I mentioned unrequited love, and how it must be hard for people to deal with when they just can't have the girl... specifically, my girlfriend, Leah. Unrequited love... wow, such irony that it now lands on me.

I trusted Leah. I actually trusted her with all my heart. What an idiotic fool I was. We had been talking about marriage as recently as Lent. She told me how Fr. Justin had asked her about how things were with the two of us, and she said, "Good." Fr. Justin then mentioned how, after my baptism, it might be a good time to start thinking about marriage. Leah told me all of this, and the implication was that we were going to talk seriously about marriage after my baptism.

As it turns out, I guess everybody knew about Leah and Nick except for me. What a gullible shmuck I am. On the day she broke up with me, that night I had believed everything was so good with us. We visited places where we had shared our first realization that we loved each other. On that day, the day she broke up with me, she made a joyous deal out of finding three of my rings that I had given her, special rings of mine that she had left at my house for a while. Those rings were the first things I'd ever given her when we first started seeing each other, and she reclaimed them with an authentic display that added to my unshakable certainty that she actually cared. On that day, we took a long walk together, talking and laughing, and she was being affectionate. I was so damn confident. Of course, after walking and laughing and enjoying each others company, she suggested that we should go visit Nick. Hey, why not? I like Nick, he's a friend of mine.

It was after that visit, during which she had spent all of her time talking with Nick, laughing at his wit, and listening with captivation as he played his guitar, that I began to suspect that something might be amiss. I asked her about Nick, and at first she said that there was nothing between them. I asked her to please tell me the truth, and that's when she admitted that she was attracted to him. At that moment, it was over between us. All the "I love you's", all the talk about marriage, all the good times we'd had together, everything I had done for her, all the love I had poured out to her... all of that was just a nuisance to be swept away so that she could be free to run to Nick. The last year and a half we spent together, as it turns out, was completely worthless. She threw me away like a piece of garbage, without so much as a "Thanks for the memories."

I trusted her, I believed her, I loved her. We were talking about marriage. She said she loved me, and I thought that meant something... but with no compunction whatsoever, without a stitch of real regret, she tossed everything we had together into the garbage without even a glance back to see if it landed in the trash can.

I'm not saying that everything was perfect between us, but I just didn't expect this at all. We were going to work through our problems. We were going to figure it out. We had been together for a year and a half. We were talking about getting married.

I feel like such a pathetic, idiotic loser believing all those things I professed, and for believing, with absolute certainty, that my relationship with Leah was rock solid, and that anyone who had designs on her should just forget about it. I actually believed that, because I trusted her. I wonder about her now. How easy it was for her to destroy me... and without a second thought or a moments hesitation... and for another guy she barely knows. What does love mean to her? Anything? I grieve for my lost naivete, when I actually thought that love between two people had value.