The Art of NOT Letting Go...

Since, you will come to realize, I'm not above using a cliché, here and there, I will go ahead and throw one your way, readers, right off the bat: I've always been horrible at goodbyes.

Even when it came to school, I always wanted to stick around. I never wanted to just...move on. I remember coming home from my first day of high school, crying to my mother, exclaiming "I just want to go back to middle school!!" And briefly, for about five seconds, she was gonna "look into it" (that is, until my dad elbowed my mom and, with a bewildered look on his face, said "you can't tell him THAT!!") Love ya, mom!

When my paper, The Omaha Pulp, shut down, I stopped writing for over two years. In fact, what you're reading right now, as we speak, is probably the fourth thing I've really written since that time. Until now, I just haven't been able to let go.

Letting go: It's never really been my thing, especially when it comes to severing ties to The Women of my past. In fact, it was easier for me to quit smoking than it ever has been to wean myself off those gals. I just can't do it!! The rest of the general population of souls that have crossed my path, sure...no problem! LATER, people!! But The Women...

Well, they're different.

Failed romantic relationships be damned, I've never been able to--or willing to, for that matter--cut myself off from them. I've allowed myself to enter into the dreaded "Friend Zone" with each and every one. Truth be told, I think it exasperates the hell out of my friends to watch me go through that awkward, somewhat ungraceful metamorphosis of going from romantic interest to reject to Platonic Guy Friend. After all, why go through it when you can start fresh, move on...right?

In order to make it through this particular change, you have to be willing to do three things. And folks, it's not easy. First and foremost, you must, must, MUST be willing to accept failure. Second, you have to be willing to distance yourself for a while, as hard as it is. Third...and this one is, by far, the most painful...you have to be ready to watch them walk away from you and to another.

There is one major reason I put myself through this insanity, people.

The Women of my past are some of the loveliest, most wonderful and giving people out there. They have become some of the best friends a high-strung, neurotic Jewish guy like myself could have. With each and every one of them I share an experience that, good or bad, is mine to learn from and mine to grow from. I have grown so much wiser because of them. Certainly, the initial feelings of infatuation and possibly love that I may have felt, over time, have given way to those of respect and admiration. They have touched my life in the most profound ways--all of them. Who am I to just let go of them altogether? They would never do that to me.

Look, as trite as this might sound, every relationship is its own journey. In every great journey, you're bound to reach the wrong destination the first time around. It happens! But when that happens, the only thing you can do is dust off the map, retrace your steps and hope to find a new route, a new way. And for all the pain and suffering experienced, all the sweat and sleep lost, sometimes you're lucky enough to find yourself in a better place than where you started.

Ya know, I've never understood the phrase "women: can't live with 'em...can't live without 'em." Personally, I think the people who use it have probably never known the kind of women that I know.

If they did, they'd realize that there is only one absolute in that statement.