...surreal weekend.

Running into a lot of faces from the not-so-distant past, not-so-distant future, soon to be shelved friendships and some being dusted off and put back on the shelf. It's odd how far reaching this break-up has been in my life - what people have attempted to take advantage of it, what people have offered more than they've asked and what people just can't be trusted. Sometimes you fell the person questioning and you can feel them leading - they want 'dirt', they crave 'gossip' - pulling, yanking, fucking with your emotional condition hoping to get something juicy to discuss over breakfast in the morning.

I saw "him" last night - not the 'Ex', the one I never talk about, the one who for some reason made my heart skip when I was in love with another man - the one who set the wheels in motion - how unhappy I had become in the relationship. I felt stupid - but glad that I had put extra thought and care in to what I was wearing - I had wanted to look good last night - sexy - but not sleazy, Intelligent but not unapproachable - did he get the nerd glasses with the wife-beater - the 'conflict' I was suggesting to my nature. Maybe an outfit shouldn't such deep-meaning, eh?

My younger companion - all of 20 - made it confusing to him - had I taken a younger lover to replace my 'Ex' ?? Maybe he didn't wonder at all. He hemmed and hawed - I made him nervous, he shifted from foot-to-foot...why is he boyish fear of me all the more compelling - but there was no time to find out and the bar was swimming with people and the 20 year old really wanted to be where everyone else was going - the one place - I knew I didn't and couldn't be...this single thing was becoming complicated...the 'date' from the other night would be there and so would the friend who I adored - who wants more from me, and now has laid it on the line to speak my mind on what that means to me - my cornered answer not being what he wanted to hear - my decision unsound - but based firmly in the unshakeable feeling that I'm just not ready - embarrassingly uneasy.

Once I was free from that first bar and I had convinced the 20 year old to go to Amsterdam and Boom instead - some of the tension moved away. He's a good kid and I think I'll probably take him under the wing and protect him in my paternal way, I tried to make it clear from the get go what this is - and what this is not. More familiar, strange and strangely familiar faces at Boom.

I drank, I bumped, I dropped - how did I used to be able to do this 3 nights in a row ??

I didnt even waste time going through the body concious crisis of image and just pulled of the shirts and looped them through my belt loops and created my world on the dance floor nestled between people I had known for 14 years and 14 minutes...I lost myself there til 4am, and declined the after-hour invitations, "But Everyones Going..." "You have to go - you can't go home yet?" "Here I'll drive with you"....No, No, and No thank you.

I just wanted to be with my dog, on my bed lying next to each other - the sound of her breath lazily spilling out as her black fur, her little body rises than falls...

It felt so unreal and then real last night - my old life, the relationship, the group of friends, the gym at 530pm, dinner at 7pm, then 'Everybody Loves Raymond' (his show, not mine) by 930pm, the structure of my days and the pattern of my nights, the sense of familiarity, normalcy and security - are all gone...

I fell sleeping into a small corner of my bed, almost taking up no room at all ...the bed neatly made this morning with ease - and excluding the space taken up by my dog - back to mine - curled in a ball at the small of my back...'his' side (in a bed he's never slept) remained unfilled - a reminder to the fact that I am still slowly moving on.