But the thing is, she's just what I needed right now, I think. A cute girl, funny, smart, going to law school, has a handle on her money; she's just more or less showing me right now that there are women out there like that.

And while there really is nothing there (she has a boyfriend and I don't do that and I'm in absolutely no place right now for anything) she's showing me that I'm... worth? Maybe?.... having... a woman cook me dinner.

She's given me hope, I guess. Giving me hope. Showing me that I can do this, again, this whole watching someone cut up red peppers for a meal for me, this whole going to a movie with someone who isn't Kelly, this whole finding out about their music and going to their book case and taking the plants she's buying from her even though she's insisting she can carry it all herself.

It's going to happen again and that knowledge may be easing a soft spot in me I hadn't realized was there.

Kelly was and is a great girl. She's going to make someone really happy one day, if she can ever figure out what she wants from herself and what she wants from life, and I don't want to discount the time I've spent with her because... because for the first time since Emily I was with someone who was, basically, a pretty good person even if she did shitty stuff at the end.

And it gets me... happy, I guess... that I know that as good as Kelly was at the good parts, as happy as I was with her, there's somewhere another woman who is so much more, who is whatever "the one" means.

I've got all the time in the world, all this time because I'm just now, I think, really settling into becoming a grown up, and... I'm trying to stay positive.

So.