The End of an Affair

It's always tough when relationships end, isn't it?

For years now, this woman has been an integral part of my life - day after day I've woken up to find her smiling face peering out at me over my morning cup of coffee, night after night her laughing eyes have been the last thing I've looked into before going to bed. She's the one person who's always been there for me, always welcoming, always reliable (except for the occassional network outage) - no matter how foul my mood she's always stood by me, always accepted me for who I am (as long as I remembered my password, of course). As relationships go, my friendship with her has been one of the most pleasant and most long-lasting of my life.

So imagine my shock when I logged on to check mail this morning and found that her wonderful face had been replaced by a bunch of random pictures of people having fun on a beach. Why? Why did it have to end this way? No word, no mail, just this awful absence staring back at me from the homepage, the laughing pictures on the screen serving only to mock me. Did I do something wrong? Did she, perhaps, find out how much time I'd been spending with G? I'm devastated. I can't think straight. I type in the old log-in and password and my mail opens, but the words have lost their magic now and my inbox seems empty, so empty. How can I find her? Where shall I look for her? I have nothing - no name, no phone number, just the indelible memory of that charming smile beaming out at me. Is this how Love ends - not with a bang, but a whimper? What was it Janis Joplin sang: "I'd give all my tomorrows / for one single yesterday" - but it's impossible now, it's too late.

YahooMail woman - please come back. Please don't leave me this way. I know I should have appreciated you more when I had you. I know I should have spent more time paying attention to you, instead of always brushing past you so rudely, in a hurry to get to my mail. Forgive me, you must. Think of all those hours we've stayed up together, waiting for someone to e-mail us. You must come back. Or if you can't just tell me where you are and I'll follow you to the ends of the earth (or well, to the furthest Starbucks - which is the same thing really). My obssessive mail checking just isn't the same without you. [breaks down and sobs]