New Road (3/13/09 Friday)

There has been no rational resolution to all this, but perhaps it's past rationale and has decided for itself that it's over. The inadequacy of that statement is an ironic summation of itself: It doesn't need saying. I am over Julie, just not the feelings for her. I still want her attention but make less effort every day to get it. I like to see her; I like to look at her, but I won't interrupt my work to do so or position my task to put her in my sights. It's mostly a conscious effort--not to avoid her, but to remember why I'm really at work--but it becomes easier, more natural. I suppose I'm faking it, but I guess I'm making it, too. I am still envious of the people she talks to, and I still wish she held enough interest in me to initiate conversation, but I am beginning to form useful, rational mantras to chant to myself when the feelings arise that help calm me and subdue rising resentment. I don't say them with bitter resignation, either, but with as little attitude as possible. I seem to have a regular slot on the desk with Julie Thursday nights. I hope it stays. Tonight I asked after her mom, who has moved to a rehab center. I hoped, out of habit, to have her ask after me, but stated to myself that there was no reason she should. There was no anger, no feeling that she would or should talk to me, bu a realistic resignation based (finally!) on what I knew of her. There was simply no reason to resent her being who she was.

I will say this is the end of this journal, and saying it makes it so, because there's little else more pathetic than hanging on too long. Perhaps resolution has been reached, imperfectly and at least in spirit, without irony, or the expectation of it. I'm convinced resolutions yet to come will now come more easily. On that new road I've taken I'm no longer walking backward, but before each step is a bend around which I can't see. I'll just try to enjoy the scenery.