Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Absence makes the heart grow...balls?

Dear short story,

When I wrote you well over a year ago, I loved you. You were witty. You were dark and you made me laugh.

Then I took you out to meet my friends. They didn't get you. They confided that you weren't quite right for me. That maybe you weren't as funny as I found you to be. Some were gentle, knowing that I loved you, while others outright said that we'd never work. Their words made me sad because I really thought we had a future together.

That's when we did that little stint in heavy duty counseling. I told you what I loved about you. You offered to change the things I didn't. We worked hard on our relationship for a few weeks. Tweaking things here and talking it out there. We even tried a little bit of a different direction, but it was never quite as fun as it was at first. We both knew that.

You went away for a while, promising to come back when the time was right. I moved on, though secretly waiting for the day when you'd show back up, all polished and trim, ready wow me and bring me back to that wonderful feeling we first had.

But it's been over a year and I hadn't heard from you. So, wondering how you were doing, I peeked in--not that I was stalking or anything, honest. You agreed to meet and I was excited. But when we sat down to catch up, all I got was a clammy, limp handshake.

You hadn't polished anything. In fact, you were far more lackluster than I remembered. Those weeks of intense counseling ruined you. They sucked out your humor--dark and misunderstood as it might have been. They turned you into something I'd never intended you to be.

While I had captured our magical first days together on my flash drive, we're too different now. I've moved on. That magic is gone. It's time for you to move on too. Thanks for the laughs, short story. We had some good times together. But its over. I hope you understand.

-Jean

8 comments:

  1. ...I'm sorry for your loss. But it sounds like you're better off now. ;)

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    1. It's one less project looming over my head anyway. :)

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  2. Awww...it obviously wasn't meant to be. I hope you parted on good terms :)

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  3. Shows you can trust your writing friends sometimes more than yourself.

    It's also ironic. I stayed up late last night re-reading a novel I gave up on, and had the extreme opposite reaction -- why the hell did I ever shelve this?

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    1. I'm much more attached to my novels than I am my short stories. I don't know as I could shelve one. Not to say that they're aren't a couple that are at the back of the line because they'll take a lot more work to clean up than others.

      I'm glad your distance brought the fondness. :)

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  4. An interesting way of lightening up what often times is a heartbreaking realization. I enjoyed this.

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