I just got the memo, it's over.

Closure is kind of an elusive thing.

I used to always tell people that I didn't believe in it - that in actuality, it was just a reaffirmation of knowledge that you already have. But I guess, in effect, that can essentially be what closure is sometimes.

Another fling of a relationship passes by and I am somewhat more wise but as equally alone as I was before it all happened. He came to me from the internet. A place where many good and bad things alike come from these days, and possibly in my delusion, I thought that maybe it was one of the better relationships I've had.

I feel a little bit like my bubble had burst, because before we met in real life he mostly knew of my existence and my writings. My writing, obviously is a filtered, saner version of the mindless rambling that happens nightly in my head. And my existence not too long ago (but before I started this blog), had a reputation for more composure and liveliness.

These days, in the aftermath, I find myself wishing that he would go back to knowing me in the distant sense... hoping that he did not get to witness in person the tragedy that is myself:

We broke up when he left Shanghai. I remember it as bittersweet, watching him at the train station as he faded past the security checks, and slowly, with a bit of melancholy towards his departure I walked back to the subway and went back home. We'll call him Davy.

For two months, Davy and I had some really good times, and even a nice little trip. I picked him up at the airport in a sick version of an extreme blind-date. The guilt of seeing him and deciding was too ugly and leaving, would in this case, have been tenfold. I got lucky with my gamble and he turned out to be, actually, quite cute.

But the silly thing is that when it all ended, this was all I remembered. I had forgotten about the bad stuff. I had forgotten fights and weeks without sex and almost kicking him out and the mind-numbing headaches. I wanted to remember the good, and at the end, I did still care for him. So much, that I told him I wanted to leave our Facebook status alone. And he did.

We continued to talk for a couple weeks, and then communication got hard. Call backs turned into three word text replies, and I got sad... and nervous. I knew inside that he hadn't forgotten the bad parts, that I had really wanted to. Then three weeks ago, he Facebook broke up with me.

It doesn't have a full affect of being timed with the actual break-up, but a Facebook break-up stings at your very soul. I logged in, looked at my page, and had found that I was in a relationship... with myself. No longer was I announced to the world as in an (assumed) happy relationship with Davy, but simply as in a relationship with an anonymous entity. Possibly one of those amazingly headstrong folks who've managed to resist getting an account up until now.

It hurts... it really surprisingly does. It's like going to your prom, with all the eyes on you and having your date suddenly leave you in the middle of the dance. People in the distance gaze into your private space and find you alone, single, where once there were two. And I found myself scrambling to change my status appropriately back to single, so as to not appear as I was left sitting idly in a sinking boat the captain had already abandoned.

And then I called him today. Because I missed him. Because the last three weeks have left me wondering whether the two months I spent with him were so easily forgettable or simply best left forgotten.

Before he left, we had lunch one day and he mused, "I don't know if I were staying in Shanghai, if we'd still be together". I shifted nervously trying to avoid the question. I had a pretty good idea what the answer was, but I told him the beauty of our situation is never having to find out. At the moment I had taken it as a way to probe into my thoughts, to deliver an answer from me. Turns out, it was more of a statement than a question.

Davy basically told me he would have left me anyway, had he not moved away. I find myself floating dangerously into the territories of past casualties. He had come to know me during a time where I had started to fall back into darkness.

I am sitting in my Rochdale apartment back in Berkeley, tears flowing freely down my cheeks and dripping onto the sheets. I'm telling Arthur I wish he had gotten to know me at another time in my life. When I was or will be someone more capable of being loved.

Maybe I'm a fool with conflicting beliefs. I don't remember when it happened, but I stopped believing in being rescued. People helped me come to that conclusion. You have to save yourself before anyone can save you, but if you've already been saved, what the fuck do you need that other person for.

I've been telling myself I need to be a better person. That I need to finish what I've started, before I can be with anyone. But I also want to believe that when I see the guy I'm going to end up with, I'll see through his mess and his baggage and love him anyway. I want to believe I'm that kind of guy. But if I don't believe that he could be that guy to me, then what do I believe in? My own superiority?

My craziness with Davy was exacerbated. In Beijing, on a beautiful day, where I was giving him a shit of a time for something bad that happened mostly out of his control, I knew some part of me was testing us.

He showed up late to some reservation I had made at a new Peking duck restaurant, because his mom had booked some ridiculous lunch in some ridiculous part of town. He couldn't figure out what to do to appease me, but I knew in my head I just wanted someone to see through the stupidity and the frustration. I wanted someone to bypass the career cluelessness and the pangs of loneliness, grab both my arms at the side and say, "hey, let's just go get something else".

Sending up tiny smoke signals, I wanted to turn him into something he wasn't. Because he was a lot of good things and I needed him to also be that good thing as well. Because I'm tired of looking and want him to appear under my nose. Because when the fall comes, I'm going to want to get rescued.

Happy perfect people.

I have this movie about my life reeling in my head. It's really depressing and no one would ever want to watch it but me. Anyway, it's comprised of several events in my life that I consider movie moments. Not anything extraordinary. Rather inconsequential actually, but just a little bit off the regular.

I had just turned off the lights, and crawled into bed with him. The room is warm, silent, comfortable... and I put my arms around him. My clothes feel better on him.
Did you know you talk in your sleep?
Oh yeah sometimes, I reply. Did I say something stupid?
No. You asked me to be your boyfriend.
Shut up. No, I didn't.
No, really.
Really?
Yeah... I don't think you're that type either.
We laid there awkwardly for a while. I had met him a week earlier. Then he started to fall asleep and I hugged him tighter.
Don't go to sleep, I urged.
Why?
... I'm so lonely.
Just keep talking. I'm right here. And he passes out.

I've lately been trying to understand the my-age-old question of why I don't have a boyfriend, even though I seemingly want one (and apparently seemingly don't). However in the past, I've limited it to surface level things. Like my hair is too puffy. Or my cheeks are too fat. My voice is too soft, etc. etc. Now, I wonder if the cosmos is a better source of understanding.

In high school, I developed a motto: we are exactly the people that we want to be. Given that you're not just too afraid to do what you really want, I feel like this is a fair assumption. Although, fear drives more of our lives than I think we'd like to admit. But in general, you end up with the people you end up with because that's who makes you happy.

I had been trying to be a perfect people. Surrounded by them, it's a little bit hard to feel confident as an outsider. Everyone has some crazy expensive degree. Everyone is a banker or a consultant or some kind of convoluted form of business strategist that I will never truly comprehend, even if Berkeley taught a course on Deciphering Job Titles in Corporate Earth. It's easy to feel lost, among the crisp suits, nightclub gear consisting solely of clean striped button up shirts and dark jeans or slacks. They are slim on accessories and heavy on pedigree. In a small wine bar next to Tomorrow Square I have a conversation with Max, while admittedly trying desperately to look nonchalant.

He tells me there's parts of this he loves and parts of this he loathes. He loves hanging out with good friends and loathes the networking. I decided today that I grew up when I started accepting people's business cards as a way of weaving together a social life. I also decided that it was distasteful. Whipping out the card saves you about 30 seconds as opposed to taking out your phone and taking the time to save it in your book.... that's 30 seconds you could use to hit up other contacts at the gathering. I know some people are just lazy and aren't actually vultures looking to peck at the fatty flesh of the corporate carcass, but I decided to not let other people confuse me for the latter.

So then I lament to Max about not fitting in. And he says, no you don't... My heart sinks a little. But in a way, you also do. I give my eyebrow a lift. You're also smart, he says. I think for a bit... Is that what ties me to these people? And is that even enough? In a room filled with smart people, I've learned that I'm off-smart. Not the kind that gets you hired, but the kind that let's you get away with things that a lot of people don't normally get away with. But I wonder exactly how off am I.

I like to think that I have a lot of attractive qualities. It is not my intent to be boastful, but I think I do. Someone recently told me I was funny, good-looking and smart. I instantly fell in love with him but that's beside the point. They seem like pretty good qualities to have. Indeed, almost enough to make me one of those perfect people I've been trying to be. I am on the cusp of resubmitting my resume Google or McKinsey. I really, really want to be able to like Obama. I long to be normal, because at times those qualities only seem to shine when they are at stage center. Offstage, they brood, melt-together, bubble as they wait for their turn. If you're only off-funny, off-handsome and off-smart you've got to work hard to turn some heads, because most people won't give you credit for what you are because your formula is untested. I don't give myself enough credit either.

I want to be perfect, but I want to be a perfect me. And I don't fit into the mold. Perhaps those I should truly be jealous of are the outsiders who manage to figure out at a very young age exactly where on the outside they want to be. Oh, what a luxury that would be.

Sometimes I dream of having my own perfect boyfriend, but then I wonder.... will I stay? Will I ever believe that they love me for who I am? Maybe the main reason I don't have a boyfriend right now is because I'm not ready to accept anyone's love. After all, who are they to love me... when I am just starting to get there myself?

In retrospect, I'm still ok.

There comes a time in your life when you can divide a century by your age and come out with a relatively low number. Thursday's number is 4.

I've been thinking about what to do in celebration of the day, which is better than what I've been thinking about the couple weeks before. For anyone who knows me, I'm kind of a nut when it comes to my birthday. I get really sad for a couple of reasons:

Reason 1: I stop thinking my friends are really my friends. Instead I consider them to be people who just happen to be in my life for reasons of convenience.

Reason 2: I think about how relatively little I have accomplished in my life and all the things that I don't have.

Reason 3: I'm (with the exception of one year) always single. And as the past five years may dictate, I don't even get a birthday fuck. W.T.H.

Now imagine a life without sex, friends and goals. All your left with is food, and even the really great food doesn't taste as good without people to share it with or things to celebrate. This is what occurs annually from March 10 to April 10.

As it stands, in my old age, I seem to have matured a bit. Because reasons 1 and 3 don't seem to bother me that much anymore. In my distance from home and in the friendships that I've forged post-depression, I find a little more stability in my current relationships. And my mindset is less prone to disregard them in a sweep of emotional volatility.

It remains though, that number 2 is a huge one again. And in light of everything that I wish I had accomplished this year I accomplished very little. I got a better job, but it still pays crap. I got a dog, and at least we seem to have a pretty good relationship lately. I've travelled a decent amount, which is an important goal. But career-wise... while I may have planted some seeds to what may eventually become a profitable business, I'm still buried deep under the soil waiting to germinate.

As a performer, I've seen what I used to see as great potential and talent wither away in the light of harsh realities. Now, I wonder if I can ever set foot on a stage and leave proudly again. Was my time in Berkeley as amateur as I think it might have been. Am I only really good, when very few others are trying?

Yes, the landscape appears desolate. And there are only a few, mostly trivial things that give me hope. That assuage my fears that at long last I am just *gasp* an average human being.

But somehow, among all the reasons I can find to give myself hope that I will make something of myself that I can be proud of, I find solace in a simple success: I'm still alive.

Now, I have not lived a very risky life. I didn't go to war for my country. While I would describe La Puente as ghetto, I don't think my life was ever in danger. To this day, the greatest physical threat to my life was probably a drunken night with a possible STD carrier. Though, I remember clearly, whether it was an actual threat or not, a time in my life when I believed in my heart and in my head that I would not survive the next couple of years.

I do remember feeling empty, and wanting to stop breathing all together. Since, if I was dead, there would at least be an explanation as to why I felt nothing. I remember crumbling to my knees in apartment B12 and in the most distraught state of mind I had ever felt, repeating to myself, "I can't do this. I can't do this."

I knew back then that I wasn't going to take my life. Rather I took a relatively "safe" overdose and hoped for the worst. That if there was a higher power out there he would look upon this poor coward who didn't take quite enough painkillers, and give him the extra nudge to get the hell off this planet.

What I also knew, was that there were two ways for me to go from that point. There was down, and there was up. Down led to a place where a higher power would have no place in stopping me. I could feel it. Just an extra nudge. A really bad argument. A momentary rush of emotion and lack of judgement...

I walked through the quieter streets of Shanghai today. Looking at small furniture shops, past parks booming with the beat of some drums. I walked to where the quiet streets opened to giant streets and retreated to more quiet ones. It reminded me of when I first came two years ago. I didn't need a jacket, because spring was finally here. I was happy that the new baby green leaves would remind me that every year is a new beginning, and that in this flawed place, I would somehow find something settling. I'm happy that I was born in April.

And then I bought myself a trumpet as a gift to myself. I thought it was the perfect present. I hadn't played in two years and when I brought it home, I crooned for about 30 minutes, barely playing out a whole octave of notes. Then I remembered when I was young, how hard I worked to be good. I practiced almost every day. 

Looking back, actually, nothing ever came easily. Talent is a high ceiling that you still have to climb up to. Life is an hour in open water, struggling to stay afloat. And I've survived my first fifteen minutes.