...and it came to me then

...that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time."
- Death Cab for Cutie

Recently I have come to believe this. And father time is not answering my prayers.

The last two years have been a consistent string of disappointments. It seems as if every one of my plans has fallen through. I was spectacularly binned by both a woman and a country in the space of one week. After a year of confessions and flayed pride I had the rug pulled unceremoniously from beneath me, only to become a bullet point on someone's ecclesiastical résumé. I sometimes feel like, a la Little Pete and Artie, I'm trying to beat up the Atlantic Ocean.
I'm keeping my feet moving. I'm throwing punches.

The strange thing is that in the fevered brevity between landed blows, I find gratitude. I have learned so much.

"When meeting calamities or difficult situations, it is not enough to simply say that one is not at all flustered. When meeting difficult situations, one should dash forward bravely and with joy. It is the crossing of a single barrier and is like the saying, "The more the water, the higher the boat." - Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Hagakure

My Dear,

Here are some things that need to be said:

At my worst, I am ashamed to know you. I am ashamed to have spent so much time with someone so self-serving and unerringly vapid.

I regret having fallen for it. I regret every moment I spent ignoring my better judgment and trying to "make things work." I am grateful that I won't have to spend the rest of my life explaining punchlines. And politics. And who we were fighting in World War II. (I mean, really. How have you made it through college?)

I would love to say that I wish you only the best, but I can't. Eventually I will. At the moment I want you to hurt.

It's been helpful to remember how cruel you are. It's been helpful to know that you've pulled this trick before; that I'm not the first, nor will I likely be the last. It's been helpful to remember your selfishness and lack of depth.

I laid myself open, and you spat inside.I am bitter from that incomparable hurt.
I am bitter from the apparent defeat of all that was good in you. Amidst your smallness, I glimpsed something warm and lovely. There were times when you believed in who you might be. With your hand in mine, you reached for the beauty of it. In the end, you've fallen among thieves, and in glazed triumph have traded all the best of you for the trinkets of a culture you're too lazy to comprehend.

I prefer cyanide to your saccharine. I wonder why you gave up.

And I miss you. Still.