Supposedly a broken heart takes half the length of the relationship to fully heal. I had been awaiting that benchmark with an unspoken eagerness, thinking that six months after my year-long relationship with Yuu-chan went sour I might finally breath a sigh of relief and clutch a scrap of closure to my chest and thank my lucky stars that our relationship was over and I had been able to move on.

But honest to god, I'm not. I'm not happy without him, even if I wouldn't be happy with him, and it has been nothing but a constant struggle to find reasons why, flaws and all, I should be delighted that he's not curling up beside me in bed on Sunday nights. I cringe when my friends call me by his pet name for me. I recoil when I stumble upon a photo of him. I wilt at the thought that he has cut me so completely out of his life.

I have never fallen so recklessly in love, and I have never paid so high a price for it, I am beginning to realize. I am completely undone by it. And after six months of examining and focusing on myself, after running a marathon, learning to play the drums, traveling the world, delighting in life, I'm still not able to put it all behind me.

Dating has been a riot, if you can imagine. I've cut out a stream of reoccurring exes. I've more or less lost contact with the Greek archeologist, bared my soul to the boy in Thailand and flicked back the sentimental but inadequate returns, fell in serious like with a professional boxer/actor/waiter I work with and dated a continuous series of other men, but I have to admit that not even the most perfect resume will get someone beyond a second date with me.

My emotional baggage is well over the weight limit. After six months, I feel like a big, steaming pile of crazy, hurt and distrust. On this day of Tanabata, a celebration of star-crossed lovers in Japan, I'm not seeking any Shakespearean romance, but to know that the possibilities of falling in love again with someone who turns out to be totally different from Yuu-chan would be a dream come true.