July 16, 2002 | 2:03 PM

You want to live your life as a succession of first moments.

First kisses. First times. The rush of the new.

There is no room in that scenario for mess. For pain. For hardship and tears.

That is why you cannot experience true intimacy and lasting friendship. That is why you cannot finish things that you start. That is why you scarcely even bother to start anything anymore.

You consistently make the error of searching the gaze of some new acquaintance for redemption and reinvention.. But you have to wake up with yourself every day no matter whose sofa you crashed on the night before. Continually embracing novelty stagnates you, leaves you like the Lotus Eaters shipwrecked on an island off the coast of your own life.

The irony is that your pursuit of novelty masks a desperate fear of any meaningful change or growth. There is an endless circulation of props and characters but the plot recycles. There is the illusion of movement, but it�s like riding a stationary bike in front of screen upon which changing scenery is projected.. Really, you are going nowhere. And you are so well defended by your own sedation and stubbornness that it is impossible for anyone to break through it. You are addicted to your own rut.

You have for all practical purposes been asleep since you graduated from college. You can make believe that you are happy. And all the parties and pals and amusement and toys create the illusion of happiness. But the truth inconveniently shines through the cracks.

You think that magically you�re going to wind up at age 35 with some kind of a life. That you�ll attach yourself to a passing fancy that will miraculously have lasted. But the only life that�s just going to �happen� is the one you have right now. Shit jobs, beer, and revolving door friendships.

Real life is something you have to build, as is love. It doesn�t just happen to you. You and I were happy once because we built something together. We didn�t just grow apart. We didn�t just lose what we had. It didn�t fall out of a pocket or wind up in the wrong drawer. We had something amazing and miraculous and special and you threw it away because it required too much effort. Because it was too fucking hard and scary.

You have convinced yourself of the ultimate lie�that easy is better. That things should feel safe and painless all the time.

I remember you when you came back from Europe, and when you were a senior. I remember how engaged and hopeful and happy you were. What happened? Why are you so fucking afraid?

I am severely overstepping my bounds by writing this. And the fact that it was inspired by an innocuous anecdote about a t-ride, an anecdote you have every right to relay, has not escaped my attention. I am obviously, in the short term grossly over reacting. But I am losing it right now. Or rather, I have lost it�it being love, a pregnancy, trust, my faith in mankind, and a whole host of other things. And these thoughts have been infecting my spirit for ages. These words are the rot and gangrene that has taken over my life, and the only way to get over it is to fucking SAY IT. OUT LOUD. And I�m going to because I am the one who suffered through four abortions. I am the one who was homeless. I am the one who lost the god damned job that you had PROMISED FOREVER you would leave. I am the one who found out about your drunken indiscretions. I am the one who actually had to go through those things while you turned away and pretended none of it was actually happening. It was happening to both of us, but somehow it was only just happening to me. Because you conveniently jumped ship every fucking time it hurt a little bit.

And this anecdote you wrote in an online diary, however irrelevant, small and not in any way having to do with me, reminds me of another anecdote that happened in 1996, an anecdote that very much had to do with me. An anecdote set in a bathroom stall starring you and a girl named Danielle. That was the day before my first abortion. It�s not the same. It�s not the same at all. But it�s feeling the same right now. And I have to make it stop feeling like this. I have to pull up all these weeds and strip away this rot before it kills me. It has to stop hurting.

You have broken my fucking heart. And unbeknownst to you, you have broken your own too. And maybe some day you will wake up and realize what it is that you lost.

But I really doubt it.

Because in the end, it�s all just a bunch of stuff that happened

Right?