So last night I talked to Maria on the phone. I was sitting in my room, drinking cranberry juice from a wine glass, playing guitar with a little pink candle flickering on my desk, and I just spontaneously texted her.
"Hey, did you get my letter?"
And went back to my guitar. And then I was like WOAH I just texted Maria.
"Yeah," she replied. "I wrote you back."
"Sweet. I guess they don't call it snail mail for nothing."
"how are you?"
And so it went. I told her about how I accidentally set my guitar pick on fire, and she mentioned some cool people she'd been hanging out with. I continued texting her, just going back and forth, about my gay boyfriend, about whatever, while I went downstairs and made myself a bowl of ice cream.

And then she says "Can I call you?"
And I pause to collect myself and say, "Gimme five minutes to finish my ice cream."

So I finish my ice cream and on cue, my phone starts ringing. And I answered. And we started talking. "Hey." "Hey." "Man, it's good to talk to you again." "Yeah I know."
It was... amazingly NOT awkward.
So she starts telling me about this boy she hooked up with--wait. What? yeah, that was right. the boy she hooked up with-- how awesome he is--stab, stab-- but then slowly, as we start talking--no stabbing, not so much-- woah, am I feeling happy for her-- "Oh, wow, he sounds SO cool," not lying. Not faking it.

What is this? And then I started calling her straight, to piss her off. Which worked. She's not straight. Sure, Maria. And then we started talking about neck-kissing. And then she was talking about that time in Boston when I was kissing her neck and how amazing it was for her. And I told her how I'd spent the entire week before that reading really really serious, melodramatic vampire books so mostly what I was thinking about was... *chomp*

Still not awkward. Not awkward at all. Just totally fun. Totally chill. Laughing at ourselves and each other. Being serious for a while, about the dumb stuff we did, why it is that suddenly it's okay. Because that's what we missed about each other, when we weren't talking... was friendship. Was being able to laugh. And that's something we hadn't had for a LONG time.

And connecting again was what made me let go. I find I Never completely get over a person until I've talked with them again. It's the greatest thing.... just being comfortable with somebody who meant that much to you.

So we were joking around about our kisses, who started what, and then my big sister pokes her head into my room. "One second," I say to maria. Sarah (the sis) yells "GUESS WHAT?" I reply with the obligatory, "CHICKEN BUTT." And Sarah continues "THE WHOLE HOUSE CAN HEAR YOUR CONVERSATION." And leaves. Great. Gotta love sisters.

So I tell that to Maria and we laugh, and then we talk a few more minutes, me being very very very quiet, and then I go "Ok, now i feel awkward about people hearing me in my house," and she goes "yeah, I'm pretty tired." So we joke a little about the end of our phone conversations, say "and I love you," with perfect ease, and then I say "Ohmigawd, My phones out of batteries!" ((because her batteries always die)) and then just hung up. Because I LIKE being mean.

And so here's what I realized last night. I was holding holding HOLDING onto this little thread of an old idea. "I just love maria so much!" I would say. But holding onto something from long ago, someone far away, is just easy. Why make a big effort to move forward when I could just hang out in the past?

Well now I'm ready to make the fucking effort. All I need now is the fucking spine to ask her out. ((not maria. Somebody else))