last night i adopted a kid.

a few nights ago the woman i had just married died suddenly and i was left with her two sons to raise as my own.

i ran into kim tonight.

i want to talk to her, but not at her work, and not over the phone. and i'm not sure what exactly i even want to say to her, i just know i want to talk to her.

she surprised me tonight by making a statement that actually kind of made her seem like she understood some of the stuff she did to me was a little bit, you know, wrong.

and it's been too long, i'm wanting to be involved with someone, again, and so standing there, talking to kim, watching her almost look like she was jealous of this girl she thought was my girlfriend, i kind of wanted to kiss her.

this makes me feel like a complete and total asshole for a number of reasons.

not the least of which is, you know, i'd go to emily in a second, still.

but, ah, have no fear, because i keep telling kim i want to talk to her and she keeps blowing me off and so i won't ever talk to her so nothing will ever happen (if there was even a modicum of chance of it happening to begin with) and so i only have to feel like an asshole in the comfort of my own bedroom.

this sounds crazy, and like i'm just trying to convince everyone and myself this, but tonight when kim and i were talking i saw a little bit of the girl i fell in love with, and not this selfish, self-centered heartbreaker everyone's been telling me she is.

and, honestly, kim deserves better than me and whatever it is i can offer right now.

or ever offer anyone ever again.

so pretty much right now i'm fighting between being the asshole i know i can be and doing the right thing.

whatever the right thing ends up being.

but, see, okay. sometimes i talk to myself in my car, while i'm driving. i talk, have conversations with the air, because it helps me think out some things, sometimes it helps me to write something i'd been stuck on.

but last night i was talking to the air.

and last night i said, "i want to wait and see what happens next."

and i thought about that. i said, "but that's only because i'm really scared to make something happen next."

you see, if i go for something, if i establish a goal and say this is what i want to attempt next, then i get all these dreams and fairy tales going in my head.

i think, okay, i'll find emily, i'll tell her i think about her every day, and she'll say i miss you, and i'll say so be with me and she'll say but i can't, you're leaving and i'm leaving and it's just not going to work out, i don't want to miss you again, and i'll say i'll go to arizona.

and then i'll go to arizona, get my teaching license, teach while she goes through school and then we'll live in a cabin in the woods as she supports my writing ass.

but then, you know, if i actually go to emily and say i think about you every day, it wont ever work out like that.

maybe one world in a million, but not this world. i'll just be crushed and heartbroken all over again.

so it's better not to go for a dream. it's better for something to just happen, good or bad, because if it happens you don't have any prior, previous expectations about what might happen.

it just is. and you handle it, good or bad, and move on.

and then it becomes this big fucking question about whether or not you follow what the voice in your gut/heart/mind says or if you follow what everyone else says.

so i guess the point of this giant rambling nonsense is:

i like cocoa puffs.

no!

what i meant is that the point of this is:

am i willing to keep going out on a limb and falling in the hopes of one day something magical happening or am i just going to go for what i know will end up hurting anyways?

well.

am i?

any input would be nice.