The Difference

 I drive on 8th street now; I have explored the shops on 12th; I know how to get to Belmont all by myself. I can drive to Cool Springs without wrecking my car; after one million "I got lost's", I finally got found. I often find myself between Elliott and Allison...venturing toward Morgan's house. I have even been to Georgia since you left; I have learned a little bit of Atlanta. I don't need you to put oil in my car anymore; I also don't need you to throw away my trash or feed me my vitamins. I don't need you to balance my checkbook. I can do that on my own now. I don't need your help. I have learned how to cook a few things; I have experimented with dangerous empty vices that you'd never approve of. I have become an adult. I floss now.

 A publisher is interested in my work. Have you heard that yet? I might be a real writer this time. I think you'd be proud of me...but maybe not; I'm not expecting you to ever think you're not better off without me.

 Every week, I try to do something and mean it. Last week, I gave a homeless person the remains of my savings account. I'm sorry. I know you worked hard on saving that up. There's just something about a Vietnam Veteran; I didn't have the heart to say no.

 I completed my laundry this weekend. I don't need your shirt folder to do it right. My socks matched up perfectly; I bet you'd be proud because we both know how you feel about that. I learned that maybe you were right about contemporary worship; maybe you were right about a lot of things. Maybe you were right about how all guys do that. They all do that, don't they? I just missed out.

I can't help believing that I missed out.

 But at Provence this morning, my big cup of coffee was so good that I couldn't fathom sacrificing the moment for the grasping of a drifting memory. My hands even look like gibberish sometimes because everything is new. You're so far away from me you're like a stranger. There is the you I dream about, and the you I see...they are two very different people; both are different from the you I fell in love with.

 Not better.

 Not worse.

 Maybe better.

 Maybe different.

 Probably better.

 You'd like my new perfume. I don't really like citrus, you know? And I've never understood girls that are crazy about florals either. I like woodsy scents; I want to have some earth to me--some "dark night on a suede couch with Norah Jones and tangled bare feet" to me.

Bare feet-singular person

Not bare feet plural.

We're not what we used to be.

I put a dent in the back of my jeep since you've been gone. If you were here you'd do something really heroic like attempt to pop it out but fail miserably. But you know I'd still think you hung the moon...

 I still think you hang the moon, you know?

But the truth is,

I have a huge secret now too,

One that would peel the paint off the walls;

The door is closed on this end

Simply because

I can't live with what I've done.

This is my one skeleton.

This binds my journals for no one to ever see,

No-matter how much I love them.

Now I have one thing

That [if we were together]

You could verbally abuse me over

And hate me for.

Now I understand;

We have that in common.

What you did wasn't so bad after all.