And....cut.

I'm looking for a clean break. Tidy, well-defined, with no strings left hanging. If my life is going to make the cut (for a novel, that is, followed by a based-0n-the-book movie), I simply cannot have any less. Oh, the ending might be dramatic, tragic, a real tearjerker -- in fact, anything less may not do -- but above all it needs to be clean.

The novel of my life will not be one of these pomo-y the-only-meaning-is-that-there-is-no-meaning choose your own adventure (because who knows what really happened?) type of books. It's not going to be one of those books that leave you hanging, the air pregnant with potential meaning but with no damn birth. I want meaning, consistent symbolism, authenticity and accessibility. No pretension, no bullshit, just honest emotion.

You see, I have a secret belief that my life is eventually going to become a novel; or, rather, I like to turn events in my life into novel-worthy stories. It's a game I play with myself, writing the prose even as I live through a situation.

"They hugged, desperately, unsure where their paths were taking them or what the next morning would hold. Reluctantly, she stepped into the cab and he closed the door, his eyes not leaving her for a second. Even as the taxi pulled away, he watched her, and she him, never breaking eye contact until finally the shifting geography of the road interfered."

Sometimes I skip right ahead to the movie. Zoom in on her face, pensive, full of hidden truths. She looks at him. One tear slides slowly down her cheek. She looks away. Pan back to reveal the city skyline; cue soaring music. Etc., etc.

(Thanks, perhaps, to my uncanny ability to come up with a song lyric for each and every situation or in the place of just about any line of conversation, I also usually have the soundtrack to a scene pre-cued.)

I'm constantly aware of the subtle symbolism of a potential-novel situation, the hidden meanings of every glance and every word. (Regardless of whether such meanings exist...when in doubt, I'll make them up.) Unfortunately for my upcoming novel, of course, I have a tendency towards melodrama.

Hence, perhaps, my desire for clean endings. Melodrama and uncertainty don't work together; if there is uncertainty, you can always come up with a happy potential ending to drown out the sheer tragedy of the likely ending. The fluxes of emotion need a clear ending; they need a death, a last kiss, a final goodbye. They need closure.

I, too, need closure.

When I was 15, I broke up with my first boyfriend, the love of my life (at least at that point.) I did not, shall we say, take it well. I was a mess, for months on end.

Very specific in my mind is the time when I had finally decided-slash-realized that it was over, that he wasn't coming back, that we weren't getting back together. I had saved every physical memento I could of our relationship (yeah, I was, at one point, one of those girls). I had ticket stubs, I had notes passed in class, I had pictures and dried corsages and the bows on the presents he gave me for xmas. Oh, I kid you not.

Looking back, I cringe a bit at the melodrama of it all, the pure teen angsty-ness, but at the time it was all deeply meaningful. That night I finally decided it was over, I held myself a little ceremony. Sitting on my bed, I spread out every memento and keepsake. I picked each one up, thinking about all of its associated memories, crying over each date, each inside joke, first kisses and last, love lost and all the rest. (Zoom in on the dried corsage; flash back to prom night, Melissa beaming in her red silk dress, her boyfriend by her side.) One by one, I put them into a box. And then I sealed the box and put it away somewhere safe, to be viewed again only when I was safely through all the trauma and could view them again without breaking down. Needing closure and unable to get it, I created my own.

This time round, a little older but lord knows not much wiser, I'm resurrecting old tricks and finding ways to manufacture closure once more. I tried the dramatic ending, full of effusions of passion and lengthy proclamations (half geared towards a clean final ending; the other half hoping these effusions of passion might win him back.) With an eye towards the novel of my life, I laid myself out completely on the table, trying to prevent any future possibility of regret. ("If only I had told him....").

It didn't work. After awhile of laying on the table, unnoticed or at least unacknowledged, I realized all I was doing was getting chilly. Raw emotions don't weather well, and dramatic, climactic endings don't work in monologue form. Besides, let's be honest, I wasn't really looking for an ending that time.

This time around, I'm trying a new approach. The quiet ending, full of slow acceptance and gentle resignation. I don't have much to work with, but I'm manufacturing closure as best I can -- archiving old emails, deleting his number from my phone. (Clearly only a symbolic gesture; I very much doubt that I will never call him again, but we'll cross the bridge later.) Pulling away discretely, under the radar. Unnoticed again, but this time on purpose. It won't make for as good a scene in the novel...but at least it'll be clean this time.

This is my last love-lorn blog entry, as well (at least about this failed relationship.) Another form of closure: a bit of indulgence, a little wallowing, and then cutting myself off for good.

So in the interest of written documentation, a bit of indulgent melodrama, and notes for the novel, let me write this down, get it out of my head, and be done with it. I loved, foolishly but forewarned. I loved, despite all of his best efforts to make himself as unlovable as possible. I tried every conceivable way I could to make it work, not even knowing what "it" is, or was. I loved and loved hard, and it was not enough.

And now, in the words of Blake,
Enough! Or too much.