So I've been exchanging emails with Ashe -- starting about a week and a half ago and getting stalled out until I realized that we both thought the other one was going to respond next. That's laughably representative of our disconnects I think; we just have such different ways of saying anything at all. Anyway, it's been a lot on my mind. I really wasn't expecting to have contact with Ashe again, even to sort out what happened four years ago... I don't know how I feel about this really. Ashe is the person who has caused me the most pain, and also catalyzed a lot of growth for me, and...

I feel like it is not a coincidence that both times Ashe and I broke up it was right after I started investing a lot more (Ashe didn't see it that way I don't think). I feel like one or both of us got scared, and our tenuous communication fell completely apart. I feel like if we were to be friends again it could so easily end in a messy shitfest but I'm still drawn. I never could put into words what it is that connects me and Ashe and I still feel puzzled about that but I miss zir. I think part of my desire to reconnect is just wanting to be better at what I failed at before. Part is we were just starting something new and exciting when everything went to utter crap. Part is there's just something unique about how we interact and I miss it.

Ashe used to make me feel this thing that I haven't felt with anyone else, I wiiiiiish I could word it. It's like grounded, like energized, like exploratory, like relaxed, but not quite any of those things. I don't feel like I know Ashe, I'm not even sure I knew zir before because ze was changing so rapidly -- we were always close in times of huge upheaval in zir life (and mine, the second time around). Ze says ze feels like I never saw zir. I feel like I did see zir but like I didn't know how to see very well back then... I dunno.

I'm pretty confused about it all.