all things considered, I have a wonderful life. my job isn't exactly what I want to be doing, but I'm lucky to have it. I have fabulous friends, a spiffy house, and the greatest guy ever to share it all with. in the grand scheme of things, this is the happiest I've ever been.

maybe it's this happiness that has made me feel so overcome with guilt about things I've done before. mistakes that I've made in relationships years past keep surfacing in my mind like corpses. several times before men--beautiful, intelligent, caring men--have hung their hopes on me, planned the rest of their lives around a relationship with yours truly. obviously I'm glad that those relationships didn't pan out, but each time I've been the one to smash their dreams. I could never do that to justin, nor would I ever want to. and I'm older and hopefully wiser now. but that doesn't stop me lying awake and thinking of the promises that I've made and broken.

a lot of it comes down to this memory that's on a continuous loop in my mind lately. I'm in the apartment of...well, let's call him fred. I'm in fred's basement apartment waiting for him to come home from work. fred loves me, and I love fred. we've been together exclusively for several months and have already spoken of a lifetime commitment. I'm sitting on the sofa when I see his car pull in. he gets out and runs down the stairs. he runs. just because I'm there.

I broke it off with him four months later, in a cowardly and juvenile fashion. but even if I'd done it diplomatically I'd be bothered. we were supposed to be the rest of each other's lives. but I think that part of me knew all the time that it wasn't right. I guess that's what really gets to me in each of these past romances. part of me knew, but I kept smiling and nodding. sure, my relationships tend to move fast, often before I realize what I'm getting into. and in each case I really did believe--for a while--that "it" COULD work. but none of these justifications can undo what I did.

maybe it just speaks to the depth of my feelings for justin that I feel this way. if anything happened to us I'd be destroyed. in addition to the "relationship survivor's guilt" of late, I've started developing disturbing takes on other issues. the remarriage of a widow/widower, for instance. if someone completely gives him/herself over to someone else who dies, how could he/she dare to make a similar commitment to another person? if the spouse was truly loved in the first place, how can the survivor even entertain the notion of picking up the pieces and moving on with someone new? call me radical, but I just couldn't.

sorry to ramble so much. but I wouldn't be awake at 6:00 on a sunday morning if I hadn't been preoccupied all night. well, maybe I can get some rest now.