I had one of those deep, dark moments again last weekend. The boo hoo, poor me, this sucks, why-doesn't-he-realize-what-he's-missing moments of sheer emotional turmoil (over the first breakup, still, which I seem to have gone through another round of mourning after my rebound ended) in which I realized, finally, that am choosing to die here, alone, at my own little pity party. While making a great show of going through the motions of moving on, but really, going mostly nowhere. Or maybe I just put in an order for new feelings, but they've been on serious backorder. I have spent the last nine months content to be defined as The Girl With The Broken Heart. I am the cliche. And I'm kind of tired of it.

I finally got enough perspective to actually listen to the things that were coming out of my mouth when I was sad, and realize how ridiculous I sounded. I wish I could have gotten here sooner, and without doing some of the embarrassing and unhelpful things I have to admit to, but I'm here now. When I was sad, I listened to all those voices that told me I missed him, and we were so great together, and I'll never meet anyone like him again, maybe nobody else will ever love me like that, and after all this time apart maybe we should talk again (which I told myself was for closure, but I was lying, I wanted him to want me back). And I'm throwing up a little bit in my mouth realizing how long I thought those voices were rational.

I'm pretty embarrassed about this, but keeping secrets to look cool hasn't been getting me anywhere. I was on his side of town recently, and was trying to drive home after dinner with a friend who lives a few blocks from his place, but somehow pointed my car his direction. I'd seen him that day, and he was all nice to me, and invited me out to happy hour afterward, and asked about my family, blah blah blah. And I resisted going out, keeping plans with my friend, but the siren call of reconnecting was soooo... strong... tractor beam... kryptonite... cannot... resist..... I was newly single, and really, why bother learning how to miss someone new when missing someone old is so much easier, more familiar? "I'll just go talk to him," I thought, "tell him how stuck I am and maybe get more closure." I parked outside his apartment. But then I thought about walking up to the door, unannounced, and what I would say. I sat in my car for a half-hour, playing out every possible scenario, every possible conversation, every way it could go. And I realized there was no good answer. No possible conversation was going to give me what I wanted. He can't give me what I wanted. So I just drove home. In the immortal words of Heather Armstrong, it sucked, and then I cried. Although, really, looking at it from this rational place I am in today, wearing my pajamas at 2pm on a lazy Sunday, enjoying my totally cushy life, she had a baby and clinical depression, and I just had one giant pity party that I was starting to realize was coming to an unceremonious close, as I was the last one standing around in a room full of dirty dishes and stale chips.

I went to the library and checked out this, and this, and even this. I checked them out from the old lady librarian, of course, because I only check out smart-sounding titles from the Hot Librarian, but I brought them home and bolstered my self-respect by gladly allowing the author of He's Just Not That Into You to tell me stories about women who've done much more psychotic things in the wake of a miserable breakup. I mean really, all I did was have a hard time dealing with losing someone I loved.

And I planted my tomatoes.