damn.

"I mean they don't seem able to love us just the way we are. They don't seem able to love us unless they can keep changing us a little bit. They love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love us, and most of the time more. It's not so good that way." -- J.D. Salinger, Nine Stories

I hardly ever say I love you to anyone anymore. My step-mother. Once in a while a cat. I said it to my father the other day, but he didn't remember the next day that I had even been there. That would almost be sad, except I don't think it was a waste.

I've been looking forward to November. It's like a convergence of sorts, where the past meets the present and the future all at once. Today marks the future I'd been thinking about all year, and really I'm not all that far away from where I was. At least less far than I thought I needed to be to be happy with the present. Mostly. I thought for a while I needed to be doing something different than I was last year to get o.k.

That was stupid. I had to be o.k. before I could go anywhere.

Yesterday someone said they're not leaving, because I haven't given them a reason. This didn't really make me feel better, even if the intent was there. I mean, my mom left and I was five. I can't remember whether I gave her a reason to leave, nevermind stay. This isn't a sob story (though it's real). It's just an example, and a poor one at that. I don't need a therapist to tell me it couldn't have been my fault. I'm just saying it's really difficult to love people selflessly. I'm not sure it's even possible. Maybe that makes it hard for me to say it. I'm going to try, though, and when I succeed I'm really going to mean it. Otherwise, what's the point?

Still, I wonder if we're all looking for reasons not to love each other, or if we're clinging to the reasons we do love each other, and whether either one is right.