The Fourth

You know when you read the first sentence of a book, you know immediately you're going to love each and every word you absorb? I picked up "Post Grad" by Emily Cassel a few days ago at work, and immediately fell in love. To be perfectly honest, the book first drew my attention based on it's cover (I know, tisk tisk Hilary!), which includes a picture of Alexis Bledel from the soon-to-be-made-into-a-movie-ness (also including Jane Lynch and Carol Burnett, holy cow!) but as soon as I opened the cover and read the first sentence, I was hooked.

The book is about a young girl who is just about to graduate college with her B.A. in English, and wants to work for a publishing house, reading and editing books, and hopes to discover the next big novelist (um, hello). Unfortunately, even though she has excelled through high school and college with high marks and scholarships, she is just not able to grab that perfect job, and is forced to move back home and live with her crazy family, all the while being rejected from all jobs she applies for, and feels like her life is headed straight for nowhere-land-ville.

It's as if they studied my life for a year, and then wrote everything down, and are now making some serious profits off of me.

Hi. They even stole my shoes.

In other, less promotional news, the Fourth of July - a day which normally means squat to me - was really tough to get through. I worked pretty much all day, but had very few customers and very little to do, which led to large bubbles of time in which I was able to stand around and think about the past 5 Fourth of July's, all of which included Travis. I don't think I ever did anything on the Fourth until I met him, but once I did, we spent it together. We both always had that day off, him with the bank, me with camp, and I would always drive up North, and we would go to one of his friends' houses for a BBQ, or drive into Brooklyn and climb up a scary window-ladder and eat burgers up on the roof of his brothers' apartment building, or spend an hour driving around Hoboken finding the fireworks park with a bunch of his guy friends (including a stop at a shut down police station to ask for directions), sitting out watching four fireworks shows over the river, and taking 4 hours to get out of the insane parking lot afterwards. Instead, I spent this year being yelled at by rude customers, followed by sitting at home alone and watching old Gilmore Girls episodes - normally an activity I would kill to have time for doing.

I think what's happening is this: the idea that I am not getting over this break up as quickly as I thought I was - or as quickly as I thought I would be able to. I'm not bouncing back, and I'm not happy about it. I think I always assumed, foolish as it may be, that he and I would end up together - probably because these are things we sometimes talked about. And perhaps it's ridiculous to think that your first love will be your only love, but I thought I was one of the lucky few who fall in love only once. To have something so solid in your life become something nonexistent overnight is earth shattering - especially when I'm a person who needs to feel as though I have some control over the things happening in my life (I mean come on - I had dreams for weeks about all my teeth spontaneously falling out of my gums, one by one, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out).

I suppose I thought I was stronger - or lead myself to believe I was tougher than I'm turning out to be. And I guess that's okay - but it certainly doesn't make it any easier. Why is it that the person who cheated and lied is the one who gets to move on so fast, and get to sleep at night - when the person whose heart was broken is stuck sitting up nights, still hurting 5 months later, and wondering what's ahead?

I know it takes time. Everyone told me it takes time. July 13Th will be 6 months, and it's certainly easier - but it's not where I want to be. I still miss. I don't know if I still love him or not - I've never gone through a serious breakup before. I certainly feel as though I won't meet anyone, or that I'll never heal thoroughly enough to move past this. I just never saw myself here, in this place, still hurting and still thinking, and part of me still hoping he hurts too. I'm really looking forward to that day when I can stop caring, at least a little bit.

I usually love fireworks. I couldn't bring myself to go this year - but they're shooting them off down the street, and it's all I can hear.