Warning: long, sentimental reflection ahead. I have a lot to say. I'm sorry...but if you get bored, you can always stop reading. Or perhaps you shouldn't even start reading.

He was a good kid, that John Henry guy. Really. I know that certain people thought he was horrible for (and to) me, and in the past few months I've come to realize that - in certain limited ways - those people were correct… But I also know that he was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I’ll never regret him. He did too much for me.

The fact of the matter is that, prior to the John Henry experience, I was hellbent on being as non-human as possible. I refused to acknowledge that I had any feelings or that I had the capacity for things like...love. I didn't want or seek fulfilling human relationships (not even the romantic kind...I'm talking friendship here); I was positive that getting to know someone was the equivelant of stabbing myself in the eye with a carefully sharpened stick. But somehow, over the course of several years, John Henry wore me down. Though I fought it, he forced me to accept the fact that I am, in fact, a member of the human race. He's the one that taught me to feel, care, and love. And, of course, he taught me the other side of humanity, too; I've had my share of tears on his account. He's proven to me (twice, actually) that I was correct about the sharp stick. I'm not sure whether I should be happy/smug that I was correct about being human, or depressed as hell because humanity sucks just as much as I expected it to. Dilemma.

Greater dilemma: How will anyone ever be able to compare to him? How will anyone ever be able to give me as much as he did? Awakening someone to her full human potential isn't something that just anyone can do, nor is it an act that can be repeated or easily followed up. It just seems that the getting-to-know-you/falling-in-love experience has been forever spoiled. Well...not spoiled, so much as used up. It's over, it's done, it was nice while it lasted. This is why I suspect that it will be a horribly, painfully long time before I even think about having another boy. In all honesty, I don't expect to ever really want one.

But that's not even what's bothering me right now. I had a realization last night. It came to me as I was sitting on Jillian's loveseat with Andy curled up in my lap. I realized that John Henry will some day have somebody else. But not only will he have someone else, he'll have experiences with somebody else. She'll play piano while he plays guitar; maybe they'll even sing together. She'll watch anime cartoons with him. She'll be able to carry on a conversation about the newest Red Hat release, and she'll be able to discuss the latest episode of The Screen Savers. And then there are all the other things... She'll do everything I didn't, couldn't, or wouldn't do. She'll be perfect...she'll be all of the things he tried to turn me into. And she won't get upset when he doesn't visit, doesn't call, doesn't write. She won't mind when he doesn't come to see her on her birthday, when he doesn't even try to take off of work for holiday weekends when he knows he'll be able to see her. She'll be his fucking wet dream.

And, of course, he'll forget about me...he'll forget that I even existed. This came to me yesterday, and though I felt my heart hit the floor I was very calm. It was very matter-of-fact, but also very profound - as if someone had just shown me (for the very first time) solid, easily-understood, undeniable proof of God. I just sat there. I didn't move. I didn't cry. I didn't think. I maybe didn't even breathe. And then Andy moved, jarring me back into the present.

It doesn't seem fair, though, that someobody else will get to have him. Will she know where the scars came from? Will she have watched them come into existence? Will she know how his parents treated him while he lived at home? Will she understand why he never goes home, why he tries his damndest to work on Christmas and Easter, why he never learned how to care? (Ironic, isn't it, that the kid who made me feel too much is practically incable of feeling?) Was she there for his first kiss (and his first everything else)? No. Was she there when he got his first guitar? No. Did he promise her that he'd wait for her forever, no matter what, regardless of what got in the way? No. But she'll have him, and I won't. Something about that just seems so wrong.

Missing that boy comes in phases, like the ocean or the moon. There are high tides and low tides, full and new moons. This will pass, I'm sure, as it always does. In a week or two this will all seem so fucking melodramatic. And then, a month or two after that, I'll read it again...and cry. (Random note: I'm not bleeding from my snatch. This is genuine emotion.)

It's been eight months. Everyone says that it's time to stop caring...everyone says that I should have more than moved on by now. But what's eight months compared to seven years? That's how long I knew that kid at the time of my disposal. (It's been almost eight years now, but this past year doesn't really count...I've seen him just once since August - thank you, Nathan N*ze - and I've only talked to him a few times more than that.) We were really good friends for a really long time, and we dated for just as long. It's not just letting go of this boy I had and it's not just getting my heart broken. It's also saying goodbye to one of my oldest friends. (I've only been friends with Rock longer.) It's bidding farewell to an entire era and admitting that one of the best things I ever had is gone...it's coming to terms with the fact that I simply wasn't good enough for one of the only things that's ever really mattered.

I know that he's not coming back. I already had my second chance...it lasted for two years. It didn't work out, though I tried so hard...so hard. I'm not sure that I could have possibly done anything else. Unfortunately, I've learned the hardest lesson of my life in the past few months:

I loved him more than he loved me. I loved him enough for both of us, but love isn't like other things. If one party has a defecit and the other an excess, the one with the excess simply cannot cover the other's debt. It just doesn't work...it can't.

Goodbye.
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Are you uncomfortable now? Do you know too much about me? I don't care. Go cry about it.