Love, part -1

The soundtrack for my writing was not selected by me, but fits the mood my writing. The rain rumbles lightly on the pavement out the open windows, the fans click periodically as they turn, Ethan plays something that I recognize as a minor-key Thom Yorke creation which I can never discern the words of - just the discontent - as they fill the space of the cluttered room. I felt oddly disturbed today by news that my first boyfriend was potentially blocking my path to a meeting. He was there half an hour ago she told me, sitting by the entrance. So I walked with purpose, didn't look around, stayed focused on the floor and the doors and kept moving. I didn't see him, don't know if he was still there. When I ran into him six months ago, entirely unexpectedly, I felt like I had lost my equilibrium. He asked me why I was there. But he was in my city, my school, my favorite curry-noodles lunch spot. Today there was no surprise and I know the reasons (and perhaps he does too). We haven't spoken in years. Sometimes I wish we still did, but how do you start a conversation with I loved you but I rejected you? Words we never spoke but both could claim. How can you look at someone you could still love and say I found someone else. Someone better. Someone more right. I feel guilty sometimes, like I betrayed something even though it wasn't ever quite right. This is the situation where love becomes selfish, becomes self-serving, personal and heart-breaking. If I am right that a real love never leaves entirely then what you have is an expansion or extension which you fall into and reach out to someone else. For your own good, for your own happiness. How can this be bad? And yet you have betrayed the faith and the hope of the first, however trivial it may become over time. I am often regretful that my previous relationships faltered in some way, regardless of where blame for that is due. I think mostly I mourn the loss of those I have been closest to in my life where now instead we communicate through a thick pane of glass all the time, electrons, memory. Someone wise will tell me I cannot have my cake and eat it too, but I always wondered why you couldn't just bake another. I suppose the singularity is what makes it special.