I think I'm dreading this year to protect myself. 


I think it's going to be fine. 


Maybe I'll actually learn something. 


Who knows.

pretzel logic.

Different pieces of my love rest in different places. 

A piece in fort and under the covers, looking at your stern face as you slept and breathed deeply. 
A piece in the gravel, in the morning next to your umbrella and my jacket on the ground. 
A piece in the back of the car, my head in your lap as you sang to me horribly and sweetly.
A piece in that dirty house, wearing your shirt, in the cold and everything smelling like bacon and effort. 
A piece in the kitchen when I made you dance and you did and I looked up at you and knew what I wanted. 


I tend to believe that if I try hard enough, if I say a lot of things maybe everything will stay, everything will be here.

Then there are the pieces that do. 

A piece on your shoulder, on your couch with a beer and a look that knows what I need, when I need it. 
A piece on the rock, near the ocean, on the beach and the face that I've know as long as mine. 
A piece in a place that I don't want to be but there's pizza and a happy-saddness that comforts me. 


As for the largest piece, I should call it a chunk or a slice, that will probably be somewhere else tomorrow or the next or the next. 

He kissed my forehead. We lay there, in the gravel in a park in London as the sun came up. Being kissed on the forehead always seemed patronizing to me. But this one came at the right moment. 

I did not cry. At first. I hung up the phone in our poorly lit cockroach hotel in Rome and didn't know what to do. This was the logical thing to do. We weren't going to see each other again. Why would I be in a relationship with someone I wasn't going to see again. 
 I joked that Rome was the best city for me to be dumped in. Pasta and wine. Comfort foods. 
It wasn't until Florence that I realized what had happened. 
We stood on at bridge and the sun was setting. I didn't want to say anything. I didn't want to talk about it. But I had to. So we did. I allowed myself to be sad about it in Florence. But as soon as we got off of that train I couldn't think about it anymore. I was in Europe. There's no point to being heart broken in Europe. 

I realize now it will be good for me to not be with someone for awhile. 
I need to be with myself. 

Because the main thing I realized about myself on this trip is that I'm pretty sure I'm capable of falling in love with any one now. And if I'm not careful I'll be the window girl for the rest of myself, only associated with other people. 
And I don't want that. 
I want to be associated with myself.