"Blame Canada!"

I've having the hardest time getting over Mr. Rebound.  I don't think it's a problem of me getting over him as a person, but getting over him as an idea.

I think I depended on him more than I or perhaps he knew.  I was relying on him to help me pull myself up out of a relationship funk and the lonely pit that Floyd left me in when he left.  After he left, I worked so hard to fill my days with all the things I loved to do—but put on the backburner to spend more time with Floyd.  But for some reason, it wasn't enough.  I felt only partly content with the new life I built.  And I unconsciously began to seek out that something extra that I was missing.  For me, that was the excitement and complement/compliment of a guy.  I don't like to think of myself as the sort of woman who needs a man at all times.  But I think last spring, I was and given my persistent fantasies of finding Mr. Right or making Mr. Rebound Mr. Right, I am that sort of girl.  I may try to insist that I'm better off without a man, without Floyd.  But I don't think that I really believe in my heart that I can't be without a man, without a kindred spirit like Floyd.  Floyd recently noted that I'm too much a romantic to ever give up on the ideals of marriage and love—no matter how jaded I feel I've become. 

I don't really know how it happened.  I was okay before I met Floyd.  I was strong-willed, independent and seemingly knew exactly what I wanted out of life.  I was 19 and high on the possibilities that living on my own in this big, exciting city.   Now, I fear that I've become your typical jaded, cynical twenty-something—broken by an unfulfilling relationship that ended on someone else's terms.  Mostly, broken by the realization that life is not some fairy tale—that evil, hurt, and misery abound.  You would think that I'd learned that lesson as a child dealing with a deceased father...

I don't think I'm making any sense.  My point is that although I recognize all the important life lessons that having a rebound relationship/summer fling has taught me, I just can't wholly accept the fact that it was just a rebound fling.  I'm holding out for the fairy tale ending and for the knight in shinning armor to save me from myself and this amazingly beautiful yet monstrous world. 

Eventually, I'll have to give up.  And at that moment I'll finally accept that the only "savior" that matters and that is real is the one within me.