'Tis Better to Have Loved and Gained

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Dear Reader, I have something I must confess to you. I am a pine-er. I am one who pines. I pine. And I am embarrassed to tell you that I pine. I am embarrassed in the same way that I am embarrassed to discuss anything that resembles romantic emotion or my own feelings towards those I am interested in. But for me to make my argument today, you sadly have to know that I pine.

I have always been hopelessly romantic. I try to present as cynical and above all things love, but at my core I am a 'cry at the end of When Harry Met Sally' kind of girl. I have seen You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle more times than I can count; I watch the Hallmark Channel and am genuinely touched when the nice white folks finally get together. I think I am a smart and reasonable woman, and yet, I firmly believe that love can conquer any obstacle. Disgusting, I know.

This deep-seated desire for an all encompassing love has lead me to — you guessed it — pining. I develop feelings quickly and with poor judgment. I get tangled up in emotion and next thing you know I am chasing after someone who has shown very little interest in me, if any at all. Very often, I find myself falling for people, not telling them for months, and then having to pick up the pieces after a dramatic confession of long-ignored emotions. I am — simply put — messy.

However, once I have started to recover from my pining and heartbreak, I try my best to remember the things I gained when I loved and lost. I find that while the people who have grabbed my attention are sometimes best described as terrible, they often introduce me to something new. They help me grow and discover new things about myself. B introduced me to the website time.is, which has become integral to my life (I use it whenever I have to reset my watch). J bought me my first New York Times Games subscription, and I have spent the subsequent years battling with crossword puzzles. N is the reason I am deeply fascinated with canning and am hoping to learn how to pickle in the coming months. Sure, it was hard to be left behind by these men, but they each gave me the gift of further discovery of myself.

And now, Dear Reader, I have reached my point: It was M who introduced me to Murder, She Wrote. M was my singular thought for years. M was my end-all-be-all. M was who I thought my future would be with. And in the end, M was none of those things. Now, M is just a memory. But M gave me Angela. M is the reason my nights are made brighter by the soft sounds of cozy murder. And while I will always be slightly vexed with M, I will also always be grateful for the gift of MSW. I doubt this blog will ever end up in the hands of M, but if it does and you're reading this, I forgive you and I thank you.

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So, I leave you with this, Dear Reader: I have certainly loved and lost. I have loved and lost more than I care to remember. But every time I have loved, I have also gained. Perhaps you, too, have loved and gained. May you remember the MSWs from your own abandoned love stories. I do whenever I tune in to Cabot Cove.