shoot the moon.

everyone remembers their first true romance, followed--in most cases--by their first heinous break-up.

you really, really liked them. they really, really liked you.

for about a month.

i was a freshman in college. he was a sophomore.

he liked dave matthews and john mayer and norah jones. i liked dave matthews and john mayer and norah jones.

he was italian catholic. i was italian catholic.

he coached our intramural flag football team. i was the runningback.

he bought me roses and a poster of dave and told me i was beautiful.

we took walks around the city at night and talked about Important Things.

he was spontaneous. and funny. and sweet.

and he was cute.

really. really. cute.

i was smitten.

this. this was it. we were perfect. people wanted to be us. life couldn't possibly get any better.

and suddenly, it was over.

he called me naive before ceasing to speak to me and began dating...a sophomore.

enter the chocolate, the hugs, the kleenex, and the 'he didn't deserve you's.

over time, we learn that the break-up recovery period is directly proportional to twice the length of the relationship and some mysterious algorithmic factor designed to take into account things such as roses, number of songs ruined, etc.

yep. it took me about two months to move on.

from this, it would be logical to assume that i'm still bitter about what happened.

wrong.

there have been several more relationships since, yet each time i hear norah's 'shoot the moon' or john mayer's 'city love' i cannot help but smile and think of my first perfect tragedy.

yeah, it hurt.

but for that month.....

yeah, life was good.