I have a soul mate.  He is handsome, gentle, selfish, vain, funny, compassionate, supportive, proud, generous, kind, wonderful, a great dancer, someone incredibly special.  However, he has recently come to the conclusion that I am not his soul mate. 

So, he's left me.  Alone, broken, uninspired.  I've been sobbing uncontrollably for 7 nights now.  I can't talk to anyone about it without breaking down into humiliating tears.  I hate to cry in front of others.  I hate to be seen as weak.  I've been praying to -- or more accurately, raging at -- God for some kind of intervention.  Whether it is restore his love or to take me out of all of this, I am past the point of caring.  I just want one of the two. 

I have plenty of reasons to go on with my life:  my wonderful friends, the darling girls I nanny, the dreams I want to fulfill, the possibility of seeing my Spurs repeat...  But the thought of living like Princess Buttercup (The Princess Bride) wears me down, breaks my resolve, tempts me to surrender to the waves of despair.

I try to contemplate life without him.  The huge hole gaping in my soul... how can that possibly heal?  He (and others) tell me that I will find someone else.  I know they mean this as comfort.  It is, instead, the worst thing they can say.  But I cannot convince them of this because they think I am talking out of emotion.  But I'm not.  In this, I am coldly logical and determined. 

You see, he's dumped me before.  And I became what I am now: cold, broken, lost.  And it lasted.  It didn't get better as time passed.  I know that in time, I won't think about him as much.  I realize that as time drags on, I'll be able to sleep and eat and not cry.  But even should some man march into my life like Prince Humperdink and declare I must marry him will my heart soften again.  The hole in my heart may heal over, like the inside of a piercing, but the hole will remain.

Some say that it's okay, the heart can love again, even seriously scarred and torn apart.  Well, I don't want someone like that!  Someone who has only the shadows of a former great love to offer me.  So what right do I have to do that to someone else?  Like Evita, my love burned and it burned so brightly, but for such a short time, and now it lies in ashes, never to be resurrected by another.  Yes, call me over-dramatic if you like, I've heard that before.  But time will prove me correct. 

I don't think I'm particularly unpleasant to look at or be around, but in the past 5 years, I've had two men ask me out.  One was my boyfriend, the other, a half-drunk guy at a movie event.  30 is three months away.  Not the greatest odds, even if I were inclined to start looking.  I'm already living one country song, I don't need to mix a few more in.  Yes, yes, I've heard 30 is the new 20.  Whoop-de-doo.  I feel old and you can't change that.

As such, my inspiration is gone.  I could care less right now about other people's romances.  The only character I can write right now is Minako, and I would fill her with so much anger and depression that she'd be dismissed as emo and everyone's dislike for her would unfairly increase.  I have standards for my writing and my character development (borrowed as the characters may be) is carefully sculpted out of the written language.  So please understand that there will be an unpredictable delay till my next update.  Other pieces may come out of this depression and pain.  Or I may only write things for my eyes only.  All I can promise is that I will be back. 

All I can pray is that I can have him back, too.