Dear Greg

I don't know how to solve the puzzle of you. You said that you thought about writing me a letter today but didn't. I'm writing you a letter but I just won't send it. I'm not even sure right now if I want you to know what it is that I'm going to write. I don't yet know what I'm writing; my hands are just sort of moving over the keys.
I understand what you said about seeing me everywhere. I find reminders of you all over the place. I haven't thrown out anything related to you or to us. I finally took down the last few pictures of you that were in my room here last night. There are still prom pictures up in my bedroom at home. Whenever I open my photo album, you're there on every page. The CD you made me is here, as is every card and note you ever wrote me. I would never discard any of this, if only because it reminds me of so many happy times. I saw my favorite picture of you, the one I took of you in my kitchen the day before you left for camp (or was it Philmont, I can't remember), in your hoodie and your old hat, and I smiled, even though part of me wanted to cry.
Part of me is also sorry that I blew up at you the last time we spoke. Another part of me isn't. I always tried to not get mad at you when we were going out, but it always came out in the end somehow. A lot of things about you always did frustrate me but I didn't want to make problems where there didn't need to be any. Once we started talking cordially again those things started to come back, and by that time I was obviously no longer constrained by any responsibility toward you. So I let myself get pissed off, and now we haven't spoken in weeks. Again I'm divided; part of me says fuck it, who cares, but another part of me just wishes that we could really be friends.
Do you see how this is a paradox? I can never reconcile the ways things are now with the way they used to be. I hate it that now I don't even speak to someone that I once cared so much for. I especially hate that I don't even know how this all happened. I've spent time trying to trace it back to where it started, when I started to not feel the way I had before. I'm sure you've figured out that there are still things that I've never told you, even after all this time. There's not many, really, but one thing I don't think you knew was that I was actually on the Pill for about eight months. There was a time when I was pretty much planning on having sex with you, so I thought it was a good idea. My not telling you was purposeful, so that you would always be cautious and not depend on it. Anyway one day I realized that I no longer had any desire to sleep with you, and that being on the Pill was a waste of money and effort, so I stopped. This was sometime in May, as far as I can remember. In retrospect, I probably should have given deeper consideration to the thought that I had no sexual desire concerning you, but I guess I chalked it up to just not wanting the trouble and ignored it. This isn't to say that I suddenly disliked you or anything. I had a lot of amazing times with you towards the end of senior year and over the summer. I had a million doubts about staying together with you in college, but I tried to put them aside. Do you remember a sort-of fight we had the day after i came back from FU orientation, about you talking to people online while you were on the phone with me? I bet you thought i was irrationally upset about it, but not only was that something that had annoyed me for a long time, i had also reached the epiphany the day before while here at fairfield (in campion, no less) that i could do it, that we'd make it, and i returned home just full of happiness at the thought of you, and then.....that happened. it was just sort of of set-down. i still had hope though. it was really only after i got here, and was separated from you, that i realized that i thought of you in exactly the same sense as sara or rae or heather. i only missed you like i missed a friend, and not someone who meant something more. the end result of this all was obviously us breaking up. then that ridiculous business with andrew. if you ever feel the need to be malicious, just know that that brief mistake is probably going to haunt me for a very long time here. it's often made me laugh, the irony that a guy i was involved with for less than a month causes me more perpetual problems than someone i dated for a year and a half.
you should also know that i consider that year and a half to be a really wonderful time in my life. i wouldn't exchange the memories for anything, hence why i'll keep everything that reminds me of you. i want to remember you; you were my first love. no matter what came after, no matter if we never speak to each other again.
as to that, i don't know what to do or say. it's obvious that we have such hugely disparate viewpoints on a lot of things, especially education. i can't help feeling frustrated and angry as i watch you throw away all the opportunities you've been handed. You repeat over and over on your site that you "do nothing". That's what i can't stand. I can't stand watching you do nothing and just live life in a dull cycle. See, I already feel the frustration rising in me as I write this. this is why i don't know if we can or should be friends. we'll never agree on this. you'll always feel like i'm trying to impose my views on you, and maybe you think that i follow the crowd because i consider college the best, if not only, route to a good future, but that's what i believe.
i'm trying to think if there's anything else i should say here. probably, because believe it or not i do think of you a lot of the time. like i said, there are reminders of you everywhere. i really hope, for you sake, that you do something, anything to break the pattern you're in. i also hope that we'll be friends again someday.
The first paper we ever wrote for HILL class was on the book "The Secret to Staying in Love", which incidentally i think you still have. Mr Tressler told us to analyze some of our own love relationships, and of course I chose you. I mentioned that some people are of the opinion that teenagers aren't capable of being in love because they're not mature enough, but I loved you, so I knew that couldn't be true. The conclusion I came to was that I loved you as much as I could, and that while I knew we would not always be together, and that while ours wasn't a mature, adult love because we were not mature adults, it was still something incredibly valuable. i still believe that.

How do I sign this? Love, I suppose,

Michelle