"of course I'll be all right. I just had a bad night."

I don't sleep now that I'm alone. I end up staying awake writing and creating and listening to songs that I try to make me feel better, but most of the time I end up drifting off around 4 or 5 feeling nothing but numb, unnecessary and sorry for myself.

"I felt the shift," I told him on Thursday night after dinner. He said he felt it in me, too. "You're not as bright. It worries me because you're the most hopeful little being I know."

He said he thinks stuff he said resonated and he feels somewhat responsible for cracking that spirit, but said it wasn't a bad thing. "Well, you've got to grow up sometime," he said. "Life sucks and it's better you learned it now before you got too jaded."

I later read something he wrote me in a letter that I'm pretty sure is some pathetic regurgitated quote: "Becoming an adult means doing the right thing for those around you even if it hurts you." It didn't fit in the letter at all, and for a writer, it was quite misplaced. So was the letter. Silly rehashings of things he's already told me about how he feels about me, us and the world. Do the right thing? I didn't know what the right thing was, and I really wasn't in the mood to be hurt anymore. Just the day before, I was told to leave my house until I "figured out my so-called quarterlife crisis." When I tried coming back that night, the father I always thought was gold shut me out.

Feeling that type of hard love sent me for more, which I why I went immediately to another source of it. That's when he gave me the letter. I didn't read it until I got drunk, pissed him off for keeping him up and left because I was too antsy and he wouldn't have sex with me. I could've done what society would deem as mature and tucked away the letter, kept my emotions to myself and cry about it quietly in the private. But I did the opposite and acted like the child he was accusing me of being lately. I threw a tantrum by screaming and banging on the steering wheel of my rental car. Any passersby would've found my expletives completely audible. But there were none. It was 3:30 a.m. and I was alone on Spruce Street contemplating whether to disarm the alarm of my job and sleep on the couch until my shift started in three hours or just to fall asleep in my car. I chose the latter and woke up only because a street sweeper started honking at me at around 6.

It wasn't long until all my dire thoughts turned into motivation and hope. Sure, I was temporarily "homeless," but at least I had a car. Yes, I felt alone, but in reality if I were to count the people in my life who I know would do everything and anything for me, I wouldn't be able to fit them on one hand. Attempt to count the people who I know honestly love me? Well, I don't have enough fingers or toes to achieve that task.

And that's where I buckled. Right there in a red Indiana sweatshirt, blue jeans, flannel clogs, brown hat, red scarf and plaid coat. Shivering in 20something degree weather, my 20something body felt the weight of everything I have to be grateful for lifting itself out of my present heavy heart and flowing through my blood stream to bring me instant literal warmth. A different types of tears streamed down my face before the cold served as a thief. I unlocked the door to my job, shut off the alarm, sat on the couch and cried the types of tears you cry when you genuinely forgive someone -- only this time the only person I was pardoning was myself for getting lost in self pity.

Reality might have set in and I acknowledge that sometimes it's more than difficult to just brush things off and hope for the best. But I'll still always try. I'm convinced that karmic energy propels effort full circle. And I'll always live for the joy that's produced as a result.