Writes..."Why I Left Sinsinattie"

"i pretty much spent the entire month of december trying to get my affairs in order. due to all the stuff that had been going on at work and the fact that i'd gotten an opportunity to come home and actually spend a holiday with my family, i felt my time in the "queen city" was done. i'd been there eight years and had accomplished things that i'd only imagined possible for myself. i'd made friends, been in love, maybe even achieved my own spot in adulthood, things that i been real slow about doing in akron. but most importantly, i lived. and through my experiences i became a better man than i was before i came to cincinnati. so i don't regret the time i spent there. at all.

one thing i do regret though is that during my last month there when people asked me why i was leaving sometimes i would tell them because i didn't have any reason to stay. i mean there were people who cared about me and that kinda does seem like a slap in the face, a big extended middle finger. i mean, like i said, in eight years i had developed relationships with people, and whether it was an extremely strong friendship or just someone i spoke to occasionally, i can say that unlike when i was in akron, every person in my life was someone i'd personally put there. every relationship was based on me and that person. i can't tell you how many of the people i was cool with in akron because i knew somebody who knew somebody. i've never really been a people person. so most of my friends were basically relationships by association. but in cincinnati i tried to be better. i had no associations of my own there and knew i'd have to make my own friends if i was gonna have any. and i did that. i made lasting friendships and i'm proud of myself for it. so i really shouldn't have said i didn't have any reason to stay. i could've stayed just to be close to the people i care about. then i'd tell others that i was leaving because i wanted to be closer to my family. and there's truth to that, i mean the only reason i even came to cincinnati in the first place was because my mother was there and i needed to be close to her at the time. but honestly, i see her now just barely more now than i would if we were still in two different cities, though i'll take the blame for it. i see my sister about the same and my brother even less. so technically, we are closer in distance but really only in distance. and i could've stayed where i was and achieved the same result. so why did i leave cincinnati? because even though it was inaccurate to say i didn't have any reason to stay, the truth is i didn't have any woman to stay for. i mean if i had been in a relationship i wouldn't have even considered coming back home. i love my family but i wouldn't have left what i had in cincinnati just to kill a three and a half hour trip up i-71. i just felt like because i didn't have anyone special in my life that i knew wanted me to stay, there weren't enough reasons to stay in a foreign city by myself.

why did i leave sinsinattie? that's a good question but i think a better question is how do two people go from being happy and consumed by love for one another to not talking to each other in literally no time at all. i don't know. i've spent years trying to figure that out. there were things we were both going through, things that we didn't want to have the other person to help us to shoulder. i know that we can both rationalize our drifting away to not wanting to expose each other to certain aspects in our lives but we were in love and kinda missing the point of it. love means giving everything of yourself to another person, the good and the bad, and in wanting to spare each other the bad we failed each other. she told me i should have fought for her, that i should have fought for our love and the proud part of me wanted to take her words as her putting the blame on me for what happened between us but the reality is she's right. i loved her and i know that us not being together was a pain worse than anything i would have experienced because of her. from my perspective, i should have done anything i could have done, exhausted every option, to let her know that she was my heart and that i never really wanted anything in this life for myself but for us to be happy as a family. i should have told her. i should have let her know. i remember i'd written certain similar words on a picture we took the first day we ever saw each other. we'd spent the whole night before talking on the phone and i knew that the first thing she wanted from me was a hug as soon as she got out of the car. the picture said something like, "i knew from the moment we hugged for the first time that you were going to be my wife." i mean i wrote that within hours of having been in her presence for the first time. that's not something you just say about anybody, especially the first time you're together. and it's not something you just feel in your soul, like you were destined for this person. i still have the notes she wrote me, the chain with her name engraved on it. memories of her picking me up from work, wearing one of my t-shirts to bed, hitting home runs off her on the wii. her smile, her eyes, her lips on my own. memories of us together and then not.

why did i leave sinsinattie? i was kinda surprised when she asked me why i left her behind. i mean i know we shared a special connection between us. but i never assumed that she thought about me at all now. so i told her the truth, i didn't think she wanted me. then she said she didn't say that. which is also true. the problem is she didn't say anything. yet as much as i wanted to fault her for that, i didn't say anything either. we both fucked up. we had the thing we wanted in another person in each other and let it go so easily. and regretfully. so why did i leave sinsinattie? i guess i could say because i didn't know that sinsinattie wanted me to stay. or i could say i didn't know there could be anything for us again. but i won't say either. all i'll say is that my heart will always belong with the 5-1-3."