Sometimes I wonder:

Are you punishing me?

Or do you really just not care?

It's difficult to tell.

I say things way too early, way too late and in the wrong way.

But rarely do I say something I don't mean.

Relationships

There are those relationships you quickly learn are no good for you. The ones you put an end to in a timely manner. You don’t regret them. You put yourself out there and it just didn’t work out.

Then there are those relationships where you screw things up so completely before they even begin. The foundation of your relationship is such that no matter what you do or say afterward, the stigma has been branded on you. You regret these everyday. What could’ve been…if only you weren’t so stupid.

But the absolute worst relationships are the ones completely out of your control. The ones dictated by circumstance, whether it’s “I’m leaving in a week,” or “I’m already with someone,” or some equivalent. It’s these that are the most demoralizing. There’s nothing to regret: You did your best and it worked, but the timing was just not right. These are the ones that keep you up at night as you try to find a loophole that doesn’t exist. The ones that make you cry as you realize how helpless you really are.

Good relationships? I’ll let you know when I’ve had one.

It's 2:45am. I walk outside to get a snack. I'm a quarter short. I'm about to turn away, when I see an entire trolley full of gummy bears next to a kid studying. I reach in to grab one. "The guy literally just went to bathroom," said the kid. "He asked me to watch those." I paused, gummies in hand. "Well," I started. "It looks like your ethics are being tried right now." "What about your ethics?" They've already been established, I explained. A beat. "I think you should put those back." I obeyed, and went back inside. A tendril of regret had just started to blossom when he walked through the door, clutching a bag of gummies. He offered them to me, explaining that the guy had given them to him as thanks for watching the rest. I don't know what I've learned.

I met her at a bar, watching some friends of mine play music for their CD release party, and it was on a dare that I asked her if she would let me buy her a drink, but that was because I wanted to buy her one anyway. We talked for half an hour after that drink, and exchanged phone numbers that night, agreeing to meet for coffee sometime.

I texted her a few days later, "about that coffee," and we made plans, which she was too sick to actually go through with (though I worried that she didn't want to, anyway).

And today, everyone has plans about an arts festival in town, and everyone wants to tell me about the great time they had last night at the music crawl, and all I can think is how she's making a picnic for us to eat in a clearing.