Two Vast and Trunkless Legs of Stone

This weekend is rich in history for me. Last night the girls and I binged on cookie dough and orange juice. Today? It's earth day.

I've thought about this before, and I still arrive at the same conclusion--the english language needs a new word. Maybe two. One for the otherwise meaningless detrius of relationships past. And one for things which once hurt but no longer do. Santa would be able to give me the precise grammatical tense of a verb which would do that, but no matter.

Earth day at the Shaker Heights Nature Preserve was my first date with L. It was the morning after we'd first hooked up, and we spent it grinning ickily at eachother, watching streams, unable to believe our incredible luck that we'd so suddenly fallen in love. His stepdad's band was playing--J.D. was playing drums, and his mom skipped over to meet me, then back away to hear him as we rambled through the woods. Two years ago.

Cookie dough and orange juice were our traditional after-sex foods, to keep up hydration and blood sugar levels. Two years ago.

And none of it hurts anymore. Not the fact that I fell harder and faster than I ever had before for someone who, really, was almost entirely wrong for me. Not the fact that he left for work in Virginia and met his sixthgrade sweetheart and, while writing me letters about his devotion, was hooking up with her. Not that he moved in with her while she kept leaving on trips to see her exgirlfriends. One word girlfriends. Not that he came back to Cleveland, me still loving him, and him still loving her, staying with her. And not that two years later there might have been a reversal of fortunes and he might have wanted to try again, but none of it hurt anymore and so he couldn't fix it.

Yeah. New words.