there we were. two years ago now: tucked warm under my red fleece blanket, listening to your lullabye voice over the phone. my ear glued to the phone. alone, i strung christmas lights around the walls. alone, you recorded an alison krauss cover with your stuffy nose. alone, apart. together.

here we are. two years later! my red blanket is across the bed i share with him and my christmas lights wait in target bags aside my downstairs desk to decorate the house i share with him. and i could never have been happier than this.

but listen: this week, for the first time in a long time, i missed you.

oh, not like i used to, with a question mark after the direction my life was taking. now there is an exclamation point and my ship sails freely and happily.

but the new missing you is listening to your songs for the 4937th time and hearing them for the first time again - and people's reactions, wow, his voice made my heart skip - and being impressed. again, still, more. the new missing you is dreaming about what we could have been (what we should have been - friends rather than lovers, partners in crime rather than life) and lamenting the impossibility of it now, the dead end of any kind of future, and thinking that forever i will remain, downloading new songs off your website instead of you sending them over im for me to preview. the new missing you is remembering the BEST memories - the curvy roads at 60mph in the black of night, the phone call at 7:00 am to play a new song for me before i left for school, the roommate playing journey for 15 minutes at night while brushing his teeth, the smell of the bathroom and the rain and the mud and the blankets.

the new missing you is me, a little girl, admiring your talent and wishing i knew you. funny, isn't it? two years ago, in the summer, that was also me. and all of that potential lies broken on the ground between then and now.