I used to spend a lot of time on this blog writing about this dude who broke my heart. It’s why I started the blog in the first place, admittedly. I would say hundreds dozens of entries are about how that affected me, and the entire spectrum of emotions that come from a loss like that. (I’m hurting! I’m over it! I’m reflective! I’m empowered! I’m pathetic! I’m hot shit!)
Since I’m moving to a new blog and it will be a while before I transfer this over, there’s a part of me that feels like I’m officially moving on, even if I moved on emotionally 3 years ago.
But I feel like there’s one more thing I have to admit; one regret I really have about that entire relationship: I really wish I had known more about my city when he was here, so I could have shown him why St. Louis is so great. The only places I really showed him were West County and that stretch of Natural Bridge Road where he spent a semester at UMSL. Not the best representation of the Lou, you know?
I don’t regret it because I think he would’ve moved here instead of dumping me for that band. These days, I’m glad he didn’t.
I simply regret it because St. Louis is so fucking amazing. Every day since I moved to the city (and these days, when I spend every weekend downtown) I discover something or someone new and I fall in love with it all over again. The architecture. The history. The revitalization. The diversity. The quirks. The landmarks. The food. The bars. SOUTH CITY. And so on, and so on.
People from the East Coast have such a strange perception of everything below and west of them, at least until they reach California. They consider the rest of us uncultured and ignorant, when they’ve never driven through the rest of the country and interacted with the people (or even acknowledged that underneath the southern accents, they are people at all). This was my chance to show some kid from Connecticut why my city was so rich – why people left his homeland, met up here, and called it expansion – and I blew it.
Some people think it’s sad to live in the same area all your life (and I’m not even sure I will; I would love to migrate north to Michigan or Wisconsin someday, and so would J). But I love how every corner of this area is mapped in my heart, through the various groups of friends who lived in each neighborhood, the people I was with when I explored each street and discovered its haunts. And I love that in the past year, I’ve realized how much of this city I DON’T know and how astonishingly gorgeous it is, despite all it’s faults. Last week, I watched fireworks in the playground where my dad used to play, without even knowing, and I felt him there. Next month, I’ll be able to look out my window and see the building my mom worked at 50 years ago, directly across the street.
So yeah, aside from stories about London, heartbreak in general, or that time he knocked my tooth out (or if Justin dumps me some day and I go on another heartbreak bender), I can’t picture myself writing about him the way I used to. But I had to put this out there. B, if you read this, St. Louis is fucking beautiful, and I’m so sorry I couldn’t show you why.
Secretly Stephie 