Graceless lady, you know who I am

When my last relationship had finally fallen to pieces, I wrote He Who Shall Not Be Named a very long letter. In this letter I detailed all of my grievances (which were nothing new, but needed reiterating), but more than anything, it was a plea, a last-gasp effort to make things work. After writing that, I knew I had done everything I could, verbalized my every thought and feeling and truly given all of myself. It was my "Wild Horses". In the letter's final line, I borrowed a quote from the infamous ballad and said, "Please don't let me slide through your hands" (Love, Leith). Obviously, this line was ineffective, because that's exactly what happened, but at least I'm in good company. You have to marvel at the man who let Ms. F slide through his.

In a typical overly dramatic Leith fashion, last night as I was driving home around 11 PM, soaring beneath the stars on an almost vacant George Washington Memorial Parkway (undoubtedly one of the most beautiful roads ever), I pulled off at one of the scenic overlooks. I put the Volvo's high beams on, and climbed over a little rock wall and down to the ledge of the slope above the plunging Potomac River. In my hand, in what felt like a hundred little pieces, were two photos from the past that I had sort of meticulously shredded. I opened my fist and let the wind carry them down.

Earlier last night, I watched The Shawshank Redemption, and believe it or not, it was my first time ever seeing it. When the elderly librarian at the prison is finally released after 50 years and goes out into the real world only to commit suicide soon after... I don't know, something about that was inexplicably moving. The idea that something horrible like prison becomes your identity, and when stripped of that, the only thing you have left, you feel like there's no where you belong. I think the same principle can apply to relationships. When I broke up with HWSNBN, a large part of me felt like now I had nothing, and that a broken relationship with someone I loved was better than it not existing at all. I regretted my decision, started doing the whole bargaining stage of grief (out of order though). I was so worried watching the film that Morgan Freeman's character Red was going to suffer the same fate as the old man and hang himself when he was released. But he took a chance and went to Mexico to join Tim Robbins and the movie had a happy ending. And that's what I'm going to have, too.