As a little girl, I dreamt about my soul mate. Sitting on my bed, fingering the smooth cotton sheets and baking under the warm California sun, I was certain that somewhere on this earth...he was also dreaming of me. Where would we meet? When would we meet? How would we meet? All of these questions concerned me, espeically the question of "if" we would meet, that is until he walked into my life. Then I knew.

He was a young boy in New York and he knew that someday, somewhere, somehow he would meet me. Someone who would understand the way he looked at things, not as they are in reality, but as they might be and should be. When his eyes first fell upon me, he was captivated. To him I seemed so quiet and gentle, yet in some way so strong. But most of all-so deep, not shallow. He gazed at me not flirtatiously or seductively, but clearly...and unafraid.

Soon we met and starting talking, casually at first. He was kind and honest and he saw right through me. Time quickly passed before we knew that we were falling in love. I know that life will never be the same again. It will have more depth, more meaning, more excitement and wonder than either one of us ever dreamed possible. Life will also hold some heartaches, irritations and frustrations, but they will pale in comparison. Together we will achieve life's greatest prize- happiness.

In this moment, I am happy, I am in love and I am vulnerable.

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. Fear has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment I am feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into my mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. I become anxious. Then reason comes to do battle for me. I am reassured. But, to my amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. I feel myself weakening, wavering. My anxiety becomes dread.

Fear next turns fully to my body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already my lungs have flown away like a bird and my guts have slithered away like a snake. My ears go deaf. My muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and my knees shake as though they were dancing. My heart strains too hard, while my sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of my body. Every part of me, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only my eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.

So quickly I make rash decisions. I dismiss my last allies: hope and trust. Now, I have defeated myself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over me.

This matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as the kind that shakes you to your foundation, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So I must fight hard to express it. I must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if I don't, if my fear becomes a wordless darkness that I avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, I open myself to further attacks of fear because I never truly fought the opponent who defeated me.

My fear is love.

He has stayed with me. I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.

Think you're going to make me cry,

Make me cry, make me cry.

Think I'm going to wonder why,

Didn't I, pass you by.

Your mind is always changing.

You say so all the time.

Don't know how long you're staying.

That will be your choice, not mine.

Think you're going to make me run,

Make me run, make me run.

Think I'm glad that I'm still young,

Now you've begun to have your fun.

Your eyes are always straying.

You want whatever's far.

I hear the words you're saying.

I'm' learning you, by heart.

I will know you, by heart.

Think you're going to take your time,

Drink your wine, move on to mine.

Music plays, the singer sways,

And you can say – you always move in time.

Today I needed to apply a band-aid to my arm. With a sigh, I leaned into the mirror to plant the adhesive strip to my skin and was reminded of a memory from my childhood. I was nine years old and I fell in front of my neighbors house, scraping my knee. Blood and gravel mixed together to form an ugly, painful sore. I knocked on Frank's door and waited anxiously for him to answer. As the door opened, my knee dangling in the air, Frank smiled and let me in. I sat down on the chair in his living room while he retrieved the band-aid and neosporin from his medicine cabinet. I remember thinking that band-aids were best applied by somebody else. There's something about pulling off those white plastic tabs by myself that always feels pathetic, seems to emphasize the fact that there's no one in the world to do it for me.

Why is it that we always want what we can't have? If you are short then you want to be tall. If you have straight hair then you want it curly. If you are in a relationship then there are times when you wish you were single. The grass always looks greener on the other side. It seems that the feeling of contentment is so fleeting. For a few moments we are happy, but it lasts for just that, a few moments. This is especially true in the dating world. In my year of single-ness I have met a slew of men. Some great and some not so great. Some just down right sucked. But it is almost always the men that down right sucked that leave you wanting more. There was something captivating about them, something intruiging. They are the ones I look back on and wish that it would have worked out. It's not the nice guys who would have given me the world had I asked for it.

She discovered that underneath his exterior appearance was an impossible, incurable Romantic- who forgot the candles, who broke the wineglasses, who lost the ring. Who made love to her with a passion that took her breath away. She had always thought of herself as a somewhat uninteresting, small-chested, thick-ankled girl. Not bad-looking. Not special. But when she was with him, old limits were pushed back. Horizons expanded.

She had never before met a man who spoke of the world-of what it was, and how it came to be, or what he thought would become of it- in the way in which other men she knew discussed their jobs, their friends or their weekends at the beach.

Being with him made her feel as though her soul had escaped from the narrow confines of her island country into the vast, extravagant spaces of his. He made her feel as though the world belonged to them- as though it lay before them like an opened frog on a dissecting table, begging to be examined.

In the time that she knew him, she discovered a little magic in herself, and for a while felt like a blithe genie released from her lamp. She was perhaps too young to realize that what she assumed was her love for him was actually a tentative, timorous, acceptance of herself.

As for him, she was the first female friend he had ever really had. His first real companion. What he loved most about her was her self-sufficiency. He loved the fact that she didn't cling to him. That she was uncertain about her feelings for him. He loved the way she would sit up naked in his bed, her long white back swiveled away from him, look at her watch and say in her practical way "Oops, I must be off." He encouraged their differences in opinion, and inwardly rejoiced at her occasional outbursts of exasperation at his decadence. He was grateful to her for not wanting to look after him. For not offering to tidy his room. For not being his cloying mother. He grew to depend on her for not depending on him. He adored her for not adoring him.

A year into their relationship and his charm had worn off. It no longer amused her that while she went to work, the flat remained in the same filthy mess that she had left it in. That is was impossible for him to even consider making the bed, or washing clothes or dishes. That he didn't apologize for the cigarette burns in the new sofa. That he seemed incapable of buttoning up his shirt, knotting his tie and tying his shoelaces before presenting himself for a job interview. Within a year she was prepared to exchange the frog on the disecting table for some small, practical concessions. Such as a respectible job and a clean home.

-Arundhati Roy

What I know for sure is this; things can change in a day. Make one mistake and you are loved a little less. One action...One moment can forever alter the course of your life.

The decision I made to move in with my best friend has turned out to be a faulty one. I completely lost my friend when I gained her as a roommate. The decision I made two weeks ago to stay out late at a bar has also proven to be faulty. I have been silently paying the price for choosing "beer and strangers" over loyalty and friendship. Each day I am greeted with a cold glance. With tension. There was once love. Trust. Conversation that could go on for hours. Now there is hate. Mistrust. Conversation that consists of superficial chit chat at best. Am I worthy of this kind of punishment? Obviously she thinks so. Have I learned my lesson? I'm not sure.

I made one mistake and now she loves me a little less. There is a Crystal-sized hole in my universe.

It is true. Things can change in a day.