valentine's day reminds me of how far i've come. it used to be my anniversery. i kept track of the years since gabe and i started going out. (august 31st was the other anniversery: the day i first saw him and fell in love). i used to just know, unconsciously, all the time, how long it had been. february 14th i would mark off another year of misery. i'm proud to say that for the last 2 years or so i don't know how long it's been anymore. i have to count. 10th grade, 1997, 5 years.

that night i went to his house for the first time and we sat on the couch in the living room in the dark and talked about how long we'd been in love with each other in secret. he had seen me months before i saw him. that was when my life really became a dream. nothing bad had ever happened to me. for years, whenever i sat on that couch, usually crying in the infinite darkness of my soul, and wishing so hard for the past to be real again, i would think about how places and things have a history. this is where we were sitting, i remember how he looked, why is it different now? this room is full of ghosts, my memories are inscribed in the air. (now the room is gone; gabe's parents moved back to spain.)

(when donna was gushing about her lover, i told her: after it's been perfect for 4 months, then i'll be impressed. that's how long it was perfect for us before it started to crumble. at least i thought it was perfect.)

and now i'm in the future i could never imagine. i used to think--how long will it take? will i ever be free of this black hole in my heart that follows me everywhere? how far do i have to run? i could not comprehend a self that would be free, really free, of his shadow. in my mind he was like a god. whenever i thought i was free he would come back, and so would the blackness. the last time he broke up with me, in july 2000, we were in santander, spain. i told him, "you are a stranger now." we didn't speak for 7 months, and after a very very long time i started to be free. this summer was the real end of the end of the shadow. (now we are in the casual sex phase of our friendship. i never knew it was possible to care so little about what he did).

i always think, "after that, i can go through anything. nothing can touch me." and now that i am in a place i never could have imagined, the whole world just opens up. where does one go from the incomprehensible?