2002-09-08 - 5:47 p.m.

Hey diary,

I feel like shit.

I guess Michelle and I were both let down by our choices... she thought she had someone who would never hurt her, and I thought I had someone who would never leave me.

I think the worst part about all this is that I don't have the option to make amends. One of the steps of the AA program is to make a list of all the people you've hurt and make it up to them. I don't have the option to make it up to Michelle, and that really really sucks.

Our relationship ended the night she was crying in the bathroom. She froze the relationship at that point, at its absolute bottom, and it will never move from that spot. That is what is hurting so bad I think.

At least I've caught myself every time my thoughts started turning toward "there is still a chance" and "she might change her mind later" and those kinds of things. I've realized it and I've reminded myself that it just is not so. She said the words "Carl, I don't want to be with you."

I went to the marina today. The idea was to go down and sketch the rocks. I wanted to do that because yesterday's sketch didn't get finished and I can't imagine ever going back to Terrace Bay to finish it. I might, someday, because I will always remember the spot and the rocks will still be the same. That's why I liked the spot so much, after all. But anyway, I wanted to move on and take a step toward the future by making a new sketch and finishing it.

I biked to the spot that I'd brought Kris that one morning last year when I woke up early to let Michelle sleep in. Well, not the exact spot because there were people sitting there already, but close to it. It was no use. I never even took the sketch pad out of my backpack. I thought of the kite festival. I didn't cry.

It just seems so wrong. But I can't argue. It reminds me of the time I took mushrooms and I was sitting on the couch realizing that I wasn't in control. I didn't know if I was going to live or die that night. Actually, it wasn't so much that night, because I figured I would be ok, but the fact that when you are on shrooms your whole life seems contracted and you see all the time in the past and the future as together, I felt really deep down that some day I will die and there is nothing I can do about it. That's why I was so despondent that night. That's why I feel in love with Michelle so much more that night, because she was going to be there with me through my "stupid little life". That's why I thought of her as my shroom goddess.

I realized last night and today that I haven't been this sad in three years. Ever since the day Michelle and I got together, I had a peace, a feeling that my looking was done. I'm sure I told her many times that I felt so wonderful knowing I'd found the right person and that I didn't have to worry about it any more. I didn't have to look any more.

I guess if there's a lesson to be learned from this it's that I can't let my happiness be based on anyone else's will. I don't even know if that makes sense. I really thought.. that she would never leave me. It's like all the happiness of the last three years has turned upside down into a fearsome depression that is weighing me down. That's why I couldn't leave her place.. even though I tried. I *had* to have her.. I couldn't go on alone. I was physically incapable of doing it.

The people coming over snapped me out of it. Funny.. funny. Funny because it's the same thing as the truck. I didn't swerve because I would have been hurting someone else. At least that moment passed... *shudder*

I just had to go check and see if I had really left that line in the last entry I wrote. I did. I had remembered it earlier today, lying on my bed. I thought to myself: "you left that line in there, it'll still be at the bottom." "it's there" "it's there" "it's there". I actually thought I had erased it then. I argued with myself. I finally gave up trying to be right and just accepted that I didn't know.

But it was there. it is there. yikes. I didn't want it to be there. I left it at the bottom of the diary entry as I was writing it so I could fill it out as a reminder of that. So it sits, as a reminder, but not the way I wanted it. I can go back and modify it or delete it. It was a wrong thought.. a non-thought.

Yikes.. my mind...

I just have to live day by day. One day at a time. Ottawa will be a fresh start.

It was the worst possibility. I should have been expecting it. Why didn't I understand? Looking back I saw that all the clues pointed to it. She never started a conversation just for fun. She didn't look forward to me coming. She asked "what is there to talk about", when I said I hoped the woman I would marry would be her she said "I don't think so"... So then why did I focus all my thoughts on her answer to my very first question... when I asked her if it was over for good she said "Carl, I can't trust you". When I said "just say yes or no" she said "I don't know." She must have meant "I don't know how to tell you that the answer is no."

Oh well, it doesn't matter. It is over (for now?? HAHAHAHA I still think "for now". No, Carl, no, future self, it is not over "for now", it is just over.) It is over. What happened in the past is irrelevant and wondering about how you didn't understand her or she couldn't tell you or whatthefuckelse isn't going to help anything. Live in the now and continue doing what you've done for the last 3 weeks minus any thoughts related to Michelle. That is all you can do, because you are the sum of your thoughts and actions. blah blah blah time to go to badminton.

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