Ok, enough Fight Club Quotes (For Now)

I wrote this a bit ago, but I've been so 'Zen' lately I thought it would ruin the mood. But I think it's time to get it out of the way.

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Ever since I was a kid, laying on the floor on the edge of sleep (I had this thing about sleeping on the floor when I was younger) when things with my latest Crush of the Week took a nosedive and I knew we'd never get together, I'd imagine a dusty, steel plated room deep underground.

All this room had was an old TV Monitor set into the wall and a rusty dashboard with a big, red lever, like the emergency break of a fighter jet or something. I'd walk into the room and look at that switch, my hand grasping the lever, hesitating.

I'd take a deep breath, and then, after running the gamut of emotions, I'd finally, with a stoic expression of determination, pull the lever down.

The screen would light up, and on it would be a fast forward slideshow of all my memories of the person, how I made her laugh with a corny joke or taught her something she didn't know before- all the happy memories. It usually didn't take too long.

And then the screen would go blank, save for the word [Deleted] in bold, red letters. A few seconds later, that would fade as well, and the room would be dark once again.

I'd sigh, look at the screen again for a bit, sad, nostalgic, and then I'd walk out and begin the long trek back to the surface.
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Weird, eh? That was my way of coping with heartbreak. I suppose it gave me some sort of feeling of power, this conscious, visual act of saying goodbye and moving on. Better to just put the person out of my head than to let them make me feel miserable.

Every time I found myself thinking about them again, I just had to remember pulling that lever and my mind would move on to other things.

The other night, I found myself thinking about that Bunker again.

The last time I saw her, 'Amy' and I had a good time. We hung out as usual, drunk some beer, smoked, talked... She had picked up a new phone, and when I asked for the number, she said she'd give it to me the next day. A little odd, but I didn't think much of it.

Then, we boarded the subway together and I walked her off to her stop, where she'd board a train to go visit her family. Nothing unusual, she went down there every other week or so. We planned to get together the next week and said our "Seeya's".

I texted her a few days later, asking how the trip was. No Response. I tried calling every now and then after that- voicemail. I was worried for a bit, thinking she was sick or in trouble, until I saw that she'd been logging onto her MySpace daily.

The last time I called, it was answered, but no one said anything. I heard a train announcement in the background. 'Amy' must have tried sending me to voicemail but accidentally answered it instead. A few seconds later, the call ended.

I was hurt. I was angry. All these years and that's how she's going to end it?! I found myself wondering if this was some spur of the moment thing. Did someone say something about me? Was there a misunderstanding somehow? I racked my brain, thinking if I had upset her somehow. What did I do?

And then I found myself thinking about the second possibility, that this was the plan all along. That maybe that's why she didn't give me her new number on the spot. Which is about ten times worse- me going along all happy go lucky, hanging out with my Best Friend, while she's plotting in the background to cut me out of her life.

We've had our rocky experiences together, but I can tell this has an air of finality about it.

Over the course of this blog I've gone on ad nauseum about my feelings for 'Amy'... Emmy, so I won't waste time writing again about how much I cared about her in the face of her indifference. How I felt we shared a lot of the same life experiences that connected us by some sort of mutual sadness. (She sent me an email semi-recently that said pretty much the same thing).

I always joked with Emmy that she was like a cat because she seemed to sleep all day.

Cats can be affectionate, but in the end it'll always go off and do its own thing (And if you don't feed it or change its litter box, it'll probably find someone else who will, though that might not apply here. ...Though I did spring for a lot of dinners and drinks over the last three years...)

I'll never forget her, or the experiences we shared together, the adventures we had. I'll never forget the gifts she gave me, the opportunities she created for me, the feelings of warmth she gave me.

And, I'll never forget all the times she hurt me, or made me cry.

I will never forget her, but it's time to bury those memories deep, to move on once again and walk that lonely road.

It shouldn't be too bad. The future is freshly fallen snow, full of promise, and I think I'm a little better equipped now to travel that path than I was at eleven.

It's time to pull that lever.