In the backseat we just try to find some room to breathe. (Day 25)

You ever wonder whatever happened to someone you used to date?

Like really, really wonder?

I do constantly.

There was a girl I dated, and for all intents and purposes of the story...she wound up with a V card one night. I was feeling charitable.

It was one of the longest nights of my life.

She came and picked me up, and we went up to the house she was moving out of. We wound up playing Monopoly with her mother and brother until about two in the morning. After they went to bed, she and I (I'll refer to her as Holly for the sake of the story) outside and talked about random things.

We weren't dating or anything at the time. Just pals. She'd just gotten through a rough break up, I mean really...really rough break up with a close friend of mine at the time. When I say rough, I mean death threats, court orders, etc. It...it really wasn't pretty.

So we were hanging outside, and it started raining. It never rains in Arizona because...it's the desert. No life should ever step foot in the cockles of hell that is this barren wasteland.

I've never been good with women. I never seem to know what to say, I'm horrendous at picking up signals. I fuck around so long, eventually I find myself firmly implanted in the friend zone, and I really don't know how to change it.

I've been told my entire life that it all boils down to confidence.

I have confidence is so many things, but when it boils down to interaction with a girl I suddenly am not so Johnny-Suave anymore.

So we're standing outside in the rain, two am, when I draw a line in a puddle and dare her to cross it. She does. I freak out.

And I do nothing.

I get the feeling I pissed her off. We wind up going back inside, and shes ready for bed. Throws a pillow at my head, etc. So...I'm pretty sure she's angry at me. But see, I'm a bit of a wisenheimer. As she hit the lights, I said, "What, no goodnight kiss."

Needless to say I got some. For the first time.

The point of the story isn't to brag that I had sex, but rather that soon after her and I began dating, and even sooner...we broke up.

And I think about her all the time.

I heard she got married to a Marine and they had a child. But that was it.

And its not that I want to stir the pot or anything, I just...

It feels like with every person I meet, date, fool around with...that I'm leaving a piece of me with them, and right now I feel like theres not much to me anymore. I wonder what those people, every person I've ever come into contact with...what they saw in me, what they got out of me, and what, if anything it is they remember me for. Have I affected them? If so...was it for the better? Did I make anyones lives that much more cheery, or am I dark spot better forgotten.

I can't stand not being able to speak with everyone, to have direct and constant contact. It feels like after I never see a person again, I'm packing up my stuff and moving, and each and every single time I leave something else behind. Another piece of the puzzle that even if I did remember to go back and pick up...might just never fit the same again.

Maybe we don't belong to ourselves, but rather to the people around us. Maybe thats why narcissists are such assholes in our eyes, because we give and give and give, and in get nothing in return. The nature order of things is skewed, and we feel robbed.

And this feeling burns deeper in my chest when its someone who I used to date.

Wondering how they are, what they are thinking of. Are they happy? How has life been treating them? Are they getting everything they wanted?

It's a vicious, endless cycle. I just wish it could stop because I'm pretty sure its not the most healthy of habits.

Until tomorrow.