warning: the surgeon general has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health, and that this post isn't funny. again, dear readers, i must remind you that these more serious posts are essential for me to win oprah's "sharp, irreverent, and unfailingly heartwarming" validation of my book/blog.

sometime back in 2005 when my blog was more frequently laced with artistic wit and clever sarcasm, an overgenerous friend compared my writing to that of the much more talented -- and much more famous -- aaron karo.

when i proudly relayed that comparison to my boyfriend-at-the-time, after choking back laughter of wholehearted disagreement, eric also informed me that it wasn't a coincidence that aaron never mentioned his girlfriend: she specifically requested that he never writes about her. so i took that as a message that, with the exception of unsurpassable stories and unrequited praise, i should leave him out of twenty-nothing.

unbeknownst to him, i've been writing chapter eleven of my book for two years now.

it's working title vaciliates between: "dating is dead" and "relationships & sex: not necessarily mutually exclusive categories."

i suppose that eric and me making the logically-based-but-not-quite-emotionally-founded decision to take a break from our relationship -- and me being left to deal with the fragments, loneliness, and shattered pieces -- leaves me the opportunity to explore perhaps one of the most painful challenges of the twenty-something experience.

break ups.

(dearest readers: let this be a profound lesson -- never break a woman's heart. especially if she has a blog.)

relationships and intimacy are the two elements of growing up that, i would argue, leave us the most vulnerable. all our young lives we search for someone to love. someone who makes us complete. someone who takes our breaths away.

we choose partners.

and we change partners.

a few nights ago, i caught up on something i've been needing to do for a long time: i just shut the door and lay down on the bed and put in three hours of good, solid self-pity.

this past semester, somewhere in between the new friendships and the phone calls home and somewhere in between all the changing and growing and somewhere in between the classes and the pretending to study for tests ... i forgot.

i forgot that you can't just forget the past. and i forgot that sometimes the things we want to forget are the things that we most need to talk about.

when i started writing this blog post last night, i thought i was ready to talk about the specific emotions associated with the break up that have finally hit me. i thought i was ready to talk about how defenseless and isolated and regretful i feel. i thought i was ready to talk about how breaking up enables us to be incredibly self-conscious yet simultaneously self-unaware.

i thought i was ready to talk about love. falling into it. and if it's ever possible to fall out of it.

i thought.

i thought i was ready.

but it turns out that i'm not.

it turns out that breaking up with someone you love is incredibly painful. and you often just have to ride out the pain. hope it goes away on its own. hope that the wounds heal. there are no solutions. no easy answers.

and you have to deal with the heartache because you can't outrun it. all you can do is take a deep breath and wait for it to stop hurting so badly.

because the thing about relationships -- the warmth of emotional and physical attachment -- is, that in spite of the heartache and in spite of the vulnerability, they are impossible to live with.

and impossible to live without.