graduation at uva

i just had quite the weekend. i was down at the university of virginia for my younger sister's college graduation. it was lovely to be back there (i'm a uva alumna), i felt waves of nostalgia as i walked around grounds, visiting places i hadn't been in 3 years, and seeing old friends.

i stayed with my friend paola, who is still living in charlottesville, 2 years after her graduation. she's working for the university library, doing web development, but is soon to be starting grad school in i don't know what. after i arrived on friday night, we were sitting around the dining room table talking and there's a knock on the door. it's rob, another friend from school. a few minutes later another knock, and it's cora. another knock, and ellen comes in. finally, paola's roomate allie comes home and we've got a full-fledged reunion going on.

we chatted late into the night, and parted with the happy glow of old friends reunited. next evening, after a day of family stuff and more wandering around grounds, rob, paola, our friend cj, and i got together for drinks. we went down to the downtown mall, and got drinks in miller's, a bar popular with the townies. lo and behold, but my ex-boyfriend ben walks in. shocker. i haven't seen him since 7 january 1997, when i broke up with him. we'd talked several times via phone and computer, but never seen each other. he looked the same, except that he was walking wih a cane, the result of too much jumping off stuff.

we stood there for a few minutes catching up. i told him about me and john, and he expressed sympathy. he kept giving me these looks that i couldn't interpret. sadness? pity? relief? i'm not sure. i was introduced to his girlfriend darby, who was graduating this weekend as well. she lived in the same set of dorms that i did. small world i guess. turns out ben is moving (with darby i think) to san francisco in the fall. good for him to get out of charlottesville. it's too small a town for him i think.

speaking of san francisco, that's where rob is living. after drinks on saturday night, the 4 of us came back to paola's house, 3/4 of us drunk. paola went to bed, and cj left to go home. rob stayed around, ostensibly to sober up before driving to his brother's house. however, we'd been hinting at an attraction at the bar, and after carlton left we sat down on the couch together. the happy drunkenness was just wearing off, and we got quite chummy. went from arm around the shoulder to kissing to naked fairly quickly. i tried out my new 2nd tongue piercing on him...

i'm not sure what the hell happened. in college, we were certainly not attracted to each other. he was just a guy who lived in my building. we haven't spoken to each other at all since i left school 3 years ago. i've promised john that i wouldn't date during our separation. but i'm definitely feeling the end-of-relationship loss of intimacy, and there's a dent in my self-esteem. that nagging feeling that i may be giving up a sure thing (john) for a life of loneliness. so i took comfort in some physical closeness.

i'm taking a cross-country trip this summer. taking all of august off to drive around the country. i had thought of rob as someone i knew in san francisco who might be willing to give a couch to sleep on for a couple of nights. i asked him (even before the hook up) and he said no problem. maybe now when i go out there i'll have somewhere more comfortable to sleep than the couch...

so john and i had our last counselling session before the separation last night. i'm so dreading the actual leaving. our therapist suggested having a "leave-taking" of some kind before we split up. we'll probably go out to dinner--that'll be a fun night. (not) john and i both thought that having a last dinner would be too emotional all by itself, so i suggested we make plans for another dinner together for the week after i move out. also, i thought we could go somewhere that had something to do besides eat (like damon's sports bar--they have a trivia game) so we can concentrate on something other than our sadness and loss. john thought that was a good idea.

i still haven't started packing up my clothes and stuff that i'm going to need to take with me to my summer sublet. because it's furnished, the packing thing is really low-key--i don't have to move all my furniture now. but i do need to do some of it.