a bridge

ph: Emma Hartvig

It�s odd how every year seems to go faster as you get older. Here I am, almost a year later feeling blind sighted by the entire 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8765 hours, 525,600 minutes, and 31,556 seconds that made up this year. Amazing how you become a blip in someones life after they meant the world to you.

Sometimes I consider myself a bridge. I�ll meet a new guy and sometimes the very first time we�ll speak I�ll hear the sentence �you�re different than any other girl I�ve talked to before.� Something along those lines always seems to arise often in the course of the friendship, relationship, or simply conversation. It�s something I should be thankful for, a compliment, as some would say. But I�m tired of hearing it.

It�s not that I want someone to tell me that I�m exactly the same as the last girl they were with, or all my tendencies and quirks are that of similar people�s personalities. It�s that my relationships end for the same reason, not on bad terms, but simply general relationship problems. The reason for calling myself a bridge is because after they tell me for their first time that �I�m different than any other girl they�ve ever dated�, very soon after they find another girl, so similar to me in so many ways, and then stay with her for what feels like forever. I�m tired of that, when does someone lead me to a guy who stays with me?

After seeing this happen to me for the third time I sat and thought for hours, I thought about love and hate, and how they are indeed the strongest emotions, but they really are more similar than they are different.

I keep teetering between hate and love for the situation. They can be mistaken so often, but I never thought about it in that way before. I hate love, sometimes I wish I never fell in love, because I feel it�s an emotion that gives the human race something to strive for. The ultimate euphoria. It feels good only for a little, but takes work to keep up. So what�s the point? We work hard to get this feeling that everyone is dying to have and some people don�t even achieve. Even if you do it bites you in the ass on the way out. A final �goodbye� or what have you. Hate, on the other hand doesn�t do that. No one wants it and it doesn�t hurt you as much as love does. Hate burns people�s faces, love burns away dignity, pride, respect, trust. Hate doesn�t forgive, but it can forget. Love doesn�t forget, so it�s always there hurting you, tearing you apart, but love forgives.

I just needed to get this out there, I was then thinking about breaking up. How you�re never really fully over someone. When one person drops out of a relationship for whatever reason, the other is left out to dry. You�re out of sunlight, the wind isn�t blowing, and you�re on the ground. It�ll take forever to dry. So you don�t let go until someone else picks you up, pins you on the clothesline to feel the breeze and the sunlight.

I�m young, and also awful at getting over people. But I�m tired of dwelling. He�s my friend, a very good one at that. We loved each other. He loves his best friend now, but he still loved me. He loves me as a friend, and cares about me. Yes he was my first love, but it doesn�t mean he�ll be my last. I�m young, I�m flirty, I�m spontaneous, I�m goofy, I�m passionate, I�m determined, I�m strong, I surround myself with amazing friends, I have opinions, beliefs, ideas, thoughts, dreams, hates, loves, but for the past 3 years I�ve lost parts of myself every time I�m a bridge. This time I�m tired. No matter how many times I cry, how many times I scream and yell, how many times I don�t talk to people, it will still be there. It happened. I knew it was coming. So I guess it�s my turn to live.