When I am in a relationship, I don’t wear lipstick at all. I hate the smearing, the retouching, the constant throb of phoniness as you surreptitiously check the damage in your compact between kisses. I wear lots of mascara to compensate, different colors so I don’t get bored. When I am about to break up with a guy, he has full warning because I start wearing lipstick again.

It took a long time, but my heart now feels full when I think of him. When you fall in love again—which I have—it's funny the other things that come back in with that open-ness. You have this ghost chorus of the lovers who came before, but they're benign now, they're good spirits.

In other words, it was a struggle with himself. And the product of that struggle: anger, bitterness, resentment, envy or transformation, aspiration, hope, decency..the product of that struggle is the quality of your life and the nature of your soul.

Time heals all wounds. And if it doesn't, you name them something other than wounds and agree to let them stay.

Someone asked me the other day, "Oh your story is like Cameron Crowe's, he has the same thing of having been a teenage journalist," but he was a guy and you just add gender into the mix, it's a 16-year-old girl with adults and rock stars, and it's tough.

I finally accept that not only do I not understand the death of my relationship, but I do not need to. These men were good and kind to me, they loved me and I loved them back and the shock at the finish holds no wisdom. The revelation is not that I lost them, but that I had them.

Now that he's gone, I feel like I'm a senior citizen who gave away her life savings over the phone. And this is the crux: I never in my life believed in someone as much as I believed in him. The shame is overwhelming.