Adventures of a Shockingly Average 30-Something

She said "I want us to stay friends." I said "I don't want us to stop talking to each other." She said "No, no, we won't." I said "But I don't talk to Darius or Steven or anyone I've been with anymore.  I mean, Steven and I were never really.. but.. I don't want that to happen to us." She said promised "It won't." She said lied "I really want us to stay friends." A month went by. I said "I miss you." She said "Me too." I said "So how's life been?" She never answered. And for some reason, that hurt so much more than breaking up did.  I believed her.  I really, honestly believed her when she said she wanted to stay friends... but I guess it was just a lie.  I thought we could make friends work, but a friendship doesn't work when only one of the two actually wants to make it work and actually puts in an effort to try to make friendship work.  I ...

One summer around fifth grade, I don't remember if it was the summer before or after, my best friend since second grade introduced me to her other best friend.  She lived just down the road from where I lived and just a couple of houses up the street from where my grandparents lived, so it was weird that we had never met before.  Maybe not so weird though - while I went to public school, she went to a private school a bit further away.  My best friend's brother was best friends with her brother, so that's how the two of them met.  We met that summer, either before or after fifth grade, and all I remember thinking is that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my entire life. By fifth grade, I knew what it meant to be gay.  By fifth grade, I was almost completely sure that I was... and I was so, so, so scared that someone - anyone  - would find out.  I was overly "boy crazy" because I was scared that if I wasn't, people might start to thin...

In the four years I've been writing on here, I've never once written about September 11th.  I never really... felt the need to.  I understand the importance of remembrance and of honoring those who lost their lives that day, but it's never occurred to me to write about it. When I was still at Columbia Greene, I took a class with a professor who asked us where we were on September 11th, 2001 - asked us what we were doing that day - then quickly retracted her question, saying all of us in that class were too young to remember where we were or what we were doing.  She was wrong.  Most of us there were about the same age and had been in either fourth, fifth, or sixth grade in September of 2001.  At the very youngest, someone in that class would have been 8, just about 9, years old in September of 2001. Me?  I was 9 in September 2001.  I turned 10 in October.  Contrary to what that teacher believed, I do remember where I was and what I was doing. ...

Ten days from now, it will be exactly one year since the last time I talked to my dad. September 19th, 2013. And less than two weeks from that, it will be exactly one year since he died.  How has it been nearly a year already?  How is it that a year has gone by?  It's been (10 days short of) a year since I talked to him. People say that time heals all wounds, but time hasn't healed that fact that I haven't forgiven myself for not saying "I love you" when we hung up the phone that last time.  I can't.  I mean, I should, and I know  I should, but how can I?  I didn't say I love you.  I was mad at him when we hung up the phone.  And I can't change that.  I can't go back in time and say what I should have said.  I can't fix this. I don't want September 19th to come. I don't want October 1st or 2nd to come. I just want my dad back.