A Bitter Break-Up Letter

Dear Ipod,

From the very start, I have loved you with the best of my ability.  From the first one of you, given to me by my father for Christmas, I have been enthralled by your ability to entertain me.  But our relationship extended so far beyond entertainment - you have been there for me when I was alone on the metro, alone on the train, alone on the street - alone except for the sweet nothings you would whisper in my ear (or yell depending on my mood).  In return, I took you with me whenever I could, filling you with delicious and beautiful songs as often as possible.

I'll admit that we've had our tough times.  There is, of course, the first one of you that I broke almost immediately - ah, young love is so careless.  Wouldn't you agree that I simply didn't know HOW to love you yet when I did that?  But even with your blank and glaring screen, I still managed to keep that broken ipod for a year, listening to my music on endless shuffle mode, never complaining, never angry at you.  Then I received your newer model (we might say you had some plastic surgery, or went on a diet) -  a day of even purer joy!  When I saw that you had my name tattooed on your back, I knew that we were still in this together.

Oh how wrong I was!

I will admit that breaking you again was my fault.  I'm not sure how I bent you, how I broke the microchip heart inside you, but I will never forget the words of the idiot at the Apple "Genius Bar" (remember in better days how we snickered at their incompetence to EVER help me? it didn't seem so funny this time) as he told me that I had destroyed you once again.  Flooded with guilt, I immediately tried to fix you.  I didn't upgrade to a newer version, I didn't try to get more memory space.  I loved you as you were (it's just that I wanted to hear out of both headphones and not just the right one).  So I replaced you and loved you as if you had never changed.

But you did.  Your affection for me was not the same.  For months you tried to hide it, building up resentment and anger towards my carelessness.  And yes, I'll admit that I was careless.  I read books on the metro instead of listening to you.  Communication is so important, but I'm a working girl now, I'm not in school anymore, and let's face it, when I get home, I just want to rest.  Now, I'm not trying to make excuses - I'm just telling it as it is.  But suddenly YOU were the one treating ME poorly.  Shutting off randomly, losing battery time when I had turned you off, halting my Nike + workouts after 25 minutes...you know I can't deal with that kind of drama.  I'm training for a marathon.  I always knew that I'd had to run the marathon without you (it's the rules of the game, not my own!), but I never thought that I'd be able to bear to train without you.  Now you have decided that I must start running alone, that you are tired of my "games" and my antics.

That was your decision Ipod, not mine.  I almost cannot stand to run without you, I need your distracting lyrics, your glowing face...but apparently you don't need me.  So starting this Sunday, a little more than a month to go till the marathon, I will run without your little headphones stuffed in my ears.  My ears and my arm will feel naked without your presence and the emotional turmoil of your dismissal may be detriment to my training.  But I've come to accept that this is for the best.  I don't like it, not one bit.  But perhaps....this is for the best...

Mileage: 15 on Sunday, 6 on Thursday = +21 miles

Total mileage/$ earned: 78 miles, $78