I believe the things I want aren't so uncommon. I want the feeling of meaningful connection with other people. I want to feel like the things I do each day have a purpose. That they lead to something better, something beautiful.

DC is a city that is hard on beauty. Hard on dreams. It is a city of cold reality. Of scheming. Of working your connections. Of knowing what can be done and what cannot be done. Pragmatism is the rule.

But pragmatism means saying no so much. Pragmatism means keeping people at a distance, keeping passion contained. It means wearing suits and having endless catered Cosi lunch meetings. It's exhausting. It is draining.

I come home from work at the end of the day, and I cannot maintain the focus to read. I come home at the end of the day and all I can do is watch tv shows on netflix instant. I have no energy to cook. No energy to write.

And I am tired because I am once again depressed. I tricked myself, last year, into thinking that I was done with this. And I am so, so angry. I am furious because I see now that this depression played a role in things with Alex falling apart. He could not make me happy, no matter what he did. But what he didn't see and what I didn't see because I did not want it to be true that this dark shadow had returned again, was that I would not have been happy anyway.

But I didn't see. And he didn't see. And I lost him.

Most people, I think, have trouble understanding why Virginia Woolf laid down in the water with rocks in her pocket. It is terrifying to realize that I do. You lose things to mental illness that you regret, that you are sad and sorry about, even after the spell is over. The losing is hard. So very hard.

But I did not fill my pockets with rocks and wade into the Potomac. I called and called and called until someone could see me. I have pretty light pink pills that will make me feel better. And I will never, ever allow myself to lose something precious to the shadows in my mind again.

Cities I would like to move to (an alphabetical list):

Albuqurque

Austin

Chicago

San Francisco

City I am stuck in:

DC

Since graduation I have picked up and moved to a new city with a week's notice twice. Once a year. It's tempting to continue the streak. DC is serious and small, a small town that doesn't know it's smallness, but not in a romantic way. In a "I'm kind of a big deal" kind of way when it just isn't.

It's running into people all the time. It's what do you do and who do you know. It's brown flip flops. It's trying to be something, someone it's not. It's never admit your failures or your weaknesses. It's what we do really matters, even though we're just pencil pushers. It's only dream of moving into a fantastic condo or renovated town house, not dream of making something beautiful.

It's terrible lounges and "you can't smoke here"s.

It's men who don't know how to fall in love.

People who don't know how to fall in love.

I cannot imagine a true romantic gesture happening in this town. I imagine proposals are all diamond rings in the tiramisu . Spoons tapped on champagne glasses so that the whole room looks. Look at me, look how I look like I love this woman. Look how we will spend a hundred thousand dollars on the wedding, and then even more on the divorce. Look at us. Look at me.

Look at my ring. Look at my wedding invitation. Look at my dress. Look. Look.

Or else it's "I'm afraid of commitments" Everyone in this town seems to be afraid. Don't say that. Don't take that picture. Don't be so loud. Don't dance. Don't make me have feelings. Don't make me take risks with my heart.

My heart never learns not to take risks. It lets people in, it gets hurt. It gets so hurt.

But I would rather have a brave and bleeding heart than a frightened cold one. Every time my heart is broken, I at least know I am alive.

I need a city where other people are alive, too.

2009 was a dark, strange year. It will stay a year I prefer to forget, but I cannot because it shaped me. In ways I do not yet even know.

I caught up for lost time in having sex. Sleeping with strange men who now I do not know, or never did. The year passed in a blur of body parts, whiskey, and stolen cigarettes. The tastes of different tongues, different skins. The smell of different sheets, different borrowed shampoo, different disappointment.

It was a year of Js, most disappointing.

The first was my first, now married. Now expecting to be a father. Now preparing for war.

The second took my heart in his hands, weighed it and found it wanting, and told me that he could no longer see me. Told me as I stood about to board the L train on my way to work. Told me as the smell of our sex still lingered on us.

There was another like this, who does not matter.

The third, the one in between the second and the one who doesn't matter, taught me. It was a lesson I took my time in learning.

We met on a rooftop in brooklyn. Fourth of July. He brought me pbr and gave me his cigarettes. We flirted. We danced at union pool, awkward hipster dancing that put a smile on my face.

Later we went to a dank bar in brooklyn where he played pool with D. D who is another story, but as I watched them play pool I was deeply, sickly satisfied with knowing it was up to me who I went home with that night. I could have had either. I maybe could have had both.

I went home with this third J. We shared only two nights together. That first because I did not want to sleep with him. Because I was fond of his hands and his voice and his dirty blond beard and wanted to see him again. And I had learned that with men I cared for, it was best to make them wait. Because more often than not, they left after sex. So I stole time from them by delaying their inevitable ejaculation, their inevitable leave taking.

The second time we were in bed, in his bed. He was hard, and full of wanting. He kissed me, hard, deep, and told me he didn't want to have sex. I told him I didn't believe him. I asked him what else he could want from me. What I was doing there.

He held me and told me that he liked me. That he would have wanted more from me. That he didn't want me to sleep with him because I though that was all there was.

He was moving to Chicago. There couldn't be much more for us. But he wanted me to know that I had more to offer a man than my body. More reasons to be desired than my breasts.

It took me a while to learn this, for these words of his to sink in. But I finally found it. I had to change jobs. I had to move to a different city. But I found a man who loves my body, calls it wonderful, but sees me as so much more.

Thank you, J.