sadThings with Joe and me always seemed so perfect -- we were made for each other. We never got bored with each other. But along the way something went wrong.
I'll never forget when I realized I had to end it. It was the summer of 2000, and Natalia and I were living together in Nashville and talking one night, and the talk turned to him. And Natalia was like, "You have to do it." That, combined with Jason's statement that my eyes were totally dead, did it.
Even as I tried to break up with him, I didn't want to do it. I can tell you a million reasons why I did it -- Joe's laziness, his spoiledness, his mother, who I still call "Martha Stewart on crack" behind her back. Scars from mistakes I made that never quite healed, despite both our efforts. Too many parties where he looked on disapprovingly while I downed Tolman 3 Lethal Lemonade. His unwillingness to try new restaurants. How he always had to know everything about my past. The time when I asked him for space and instead he started calling three times a day. The way he thought, and still thinks, a year later, that my world should revolve around him.
I look at all these old photographs, at how we beamed at each other, and ask myself, what happened? Because I know that it's over. I don't want him back; I doubt we could ever get back together. I have moved on, though he seems unwilling or unable to. I just want to figure out what went wrong, and if it was my fault like I think it must have been.
