I'm going through a lot of memories again about the summer with Stephan and Tara, the images and emotions captured in my brain.

I'm looking for something, but I'm not sure what.

("Got to find the reason, the reason things went wrong" -- Sublime)

There isn't a single reason things went "wrong", and not all things *were* "wrong". There were lots of good things.

Sifting through the ashes.

I think that ashes image is going to stick with me.

Some of the things C says are reminiscent of the things they would say... but somehow they make a lot more sense now. Perhaps I'm more able to accept them. Perhaps it's because I've grown, and/or perhaps it's because my relationship with C is, well, in a lot of ways, more of what I want, more of what I wanted back then but didn't get/couldn't have.

I know some of what I want to say, but I don't know how to say it right. I'm not trying to place blame -- blaming is so pointless. In nearly all cases where people try to assess blame, all involved share some of the responsibility, whether they own up to it or not.

I'm just trying to convey the wounds I was left with. Not that I even know them all.

When I'm alone and trying to write like this, I often can't think of anything they did (I should say "he", really -- it wasn't her); it was all me, how I interpreted things, what I chose to emphasize and internalize. But I know that's not exactly true. I feel like I have so much to justify.

His dishonesty is one of the few concrete ones, in my mind. And, as of a few months ago, he still wouldn't admit to it.

But I can't trust someone if they're not telling me the whole truth.

Ashes... this is what's left. For a long time, most of it was kept locked up inside, and now for the past few months, I've been digging through those ashes, revisiting old wounds that hadn't really healed. Many wounds.

That "bad place" in my head, the one I used to lock myself in, as much as it hurt?

That place probably still exists... but the only time in the last couple of years that I've been there at all was one conversation with a creepy co-worker who reminded me a lot of Stephan.

C still has never made me want to hide from him. There have been few times when I've even hesitated to meet his eyes. I marvel.

I guess what I want to say is... just because it wasn't real to you doesn't mean it wasn't real to me, and you can't tell me anymore that my perceptions are invalid -- whether or not you meant to, you DID convey that -- and because it was real to me, it could do just as much damage as something that was real to everyone. Because when I try to talk to you, it seems like you don't understand that.