Songs and smells will bring you back to a moment in time more than anything else. It's amazing how much can be conjured with a few notes of a song or a solitary whiff of a room. A song you didn't even pay attention to at the time, a place that you didn't even know had a particular smell. I wonder what will someday bring back Dex and our few months together. Maybe the sound of Dido's voice. Maybe the scent of the Aveda shampoo I've been using all summer.

It was the same night I gave myself to him completely, knowing that I would belong to him for as long as he wanted to keep me. And, as it turned out, even longer than that.

No scratch the word "career". Careers are people who wish to advance. I only want to survive, draw a paycheck. This is merely a job. I can take or leave this place. I start to imagine quitting and following my yet-to-be-determined passion.

He nods, as if to acknowledge that endings are almost always a little sad, even when there is something to look forward to on the other side.

there is always something comforting about knowing that you are not alone. That other people feel the way you do. That you are a bit screwed up, but still normal.

Anxiety was not an emotion I could ever remember feeling when I went out in New York, and I wondered why tonight felt so different. Maybe it was because I no longer had a boyfriend or fiance. I suddenly recognized that there was safety in having someone, as well as a lack of pressure to shine. Ironically, this had cultivated a certain free-spiritedness that had, in turn, allowed me to be the life of the party and hoard the affection of additional men....But that had all changed. I didn't have a boyfriend, a perfect figure, or alcohol-induced outrageousness to fall back on.

I had never understood what people meant when they said they'd rather be alone if they couldn't be in the right relationship. Now I got it.