About

December 23, 2008. Today's date. The last time I plan on coming to this account ever. This is the day I'm giving up. It's the end for me.

There was once a time when this profile contained something interesting, and relevant, and there was a picture of me, happy, at the beach, soaking wet from being dragged by my elbows fully clothed into the water. This profile was colorful, and the first song that played on my playlist was "Dirty Little Secret," by the All-American Rejects.
As you may have noticed, that's all gone now.

There was once a time when my avatar was decorated with whimsical items that matched and were colorful and pretty and I enjoyed creating new avatars, changing so often and so wildly that Matty once noted, "Every time I log on you're in a different outfit." And that made me smile.
As you may have noticed, my avatar is wearing drab brown and is no longer the vibrant symbol of myself that it once was.

There was once a time when I came on every day and read about my friends's antics in their Journals, and almost every day I, too, would keep a running commentary on my life. And they would read it, and I hoped that as I did when I read theirs, they would smile at the funny things I'd done and said, and when the things I was saying weren't happy they would offer comfort and advice and maybe a little humor if the situation called for that.
As you may have noticed, I haven't posted regularly on my Journal since summer.

There was once a time when I lived and died for this. For everything. For my friends, for that sense of belonging I once felt when I was on Gaia. For what I deluded myself into thinking was happiness.

But happiness isn't fleeting, is it? Happiness is something that you can never lose unless you take it from yourself. It's permanent. It's like love, but purer, because love can be corrupted, but happiness... there's no way to corrupt happiness, otherwise it's no longer happy.

I guess maybe love is that way too. Corrupted love is not real love.

So maybe I had that, too. I had love, I had happiness.

It wasn't even the cheesy kind of love, either. It was the best kind, the perfect kind... It was brotherhood, it was joy, it was safety. How did I say it to Matty? "I love you in the most true and necessary way." That's what it was like. Because even when he did stupid things or thought rude things or even had a total mental breakdown I was happy to have him in my life.

My real life friends and family can't understand what held me to Gaia all this time. But they're superficial. They don't understand what they can't see and touch. It's what makes them weak, and what made me different, because I coudl understand what they coudl never grasp: how someone can glean true joy from sitting in fornt of this computer on this website and pouring my heart out to a perfect stranger.

Sheri Kenyon said it best in Acheron's words: How can anyone not be afraid of love? You literally had someone a map of your heart with instructions on where to cut.

But Acheron also said: Even the devil may cry when he looks around hell and realizes he's there alone.

The point is, I've been hurt for too long. You don't know how it's pained me to log on so often, hoping when I know there's no hope, hoping even though every time I hope, the disappointment still crushes me. It's like the initial pain plus interest.

I couldn't have needed that help more than now. I would go into exactly why... but then, the only person who ever cared will never read this.

So I guess what I'm rambling on about all boils down to the inescapable, undeniable, and admittedly masochistic pain I'm in.

At first I thought there'd never be a time when I'd go a day without checking back....

Hoping.

Then as the days turned to weeks, I thought there'd never be a week when I forgot to check back...

Hoping.

And as the weeks turned to months and I came to realize that I could go a week without checking and nothing would have happened when I checked back... I stopped looking so often. Not because I could forget... no, I could never forget. But I thought, if I was patient, the time until he returned to me would seem less lengthy...

Still hoping.

See a pattern?

Hope.

Hope destroys. Hope makes you wonder if maybe, if you just wait it out, the thing you want most will come back to you and embrace you with open arms. And when Hope is sure your guard is down, it leads you to its brother and lets Reality tear you apart.

But Hope, while it lasts, is the most beautiful feeling. It lets you hold back the pain, disguise it with patience and promise, it lets you feel that maybe for one more minute you might have what you once had.

But hope is not worth it, not anymore.

It's Christmas. I can't wait forever. I need to bury that hope, bury it somewhere deep, where it can't tear at me as it does every time I log in and see that there are no PM's in my inbox, no comments on my profile, no new entries on his Journal, and nothing to make me remember that what I had was more than a fast-fading memory.

December 23, 2008.
Today's date.
The End.