Dear Nashville,

We can't go on like this.

I never see you. I think about you a lot, and I still miss you. But I can't wait for you any longer.

I'm here with Memphis. I will be for I don't know how long. But while I am here I need to stop loving you, because it's not fair to me, or Memphis, or you. I know you don't love me. I'm not sure you ever did. True, I can't say that Memphis loves me either. But at least Memphis is here with me. Memphis pays my bills and gives me stuff to do when I'm bored. You give me nothing but heartache. Good memories, sure, but that's not enough to build a future on. And while Memphis may be forever indifferent to my feelings about every mundane detail of life, so were you.

You, Nashville, with your myriad obligations and distractions, will never be able to give me the happiness and the meaning I crave. You've got so much going on, and you're already loved by so many people who are actually there with you. So I can't put that burden on you any longer, especially since you're so far away and it's so hard to maintain this relationship without seeing you every day.

You see, I've started to care about Memphis. It hit me today as I rifled through posters and mugs at the big Wonders closeout sale in the Pyramid. While getting eight souvenir shot glasses for $1 and a beautiful Egyptian papyrus print for $5 is a sweet, sweet deal, I was filled with sadness and concern that the Wonders series was to be no more. I remember a school field trip to see the Catherine the Great exhibition back in 1991. I bought a wooden Russian nesting doll pen. And it was so exciting, going to the big city to see with my 10-year-old classmates to see a glittering carriage and rooms full of golden accessories.

And now there won't be any more Wonders exhibitions. And the Pyramid is going to be a Bass Pro Shops mecca. It's depressing.

The point is, I care. I tried not to, I really did. Sometimes it was easy not to care, with all the frustrations Memphis provided for me during my first year here.

But Memphis needs my love. And I needs Memphis' love. And I know Memphis won't give me its love unless I love it first.

Sure, there are still a lot of assholes who hang out around Memphis, just like I complained last year. A lot of crazy people who yell at the sky, too. But you've got your fair share of crazies hanging around you. All cities do, I guess.

I hate to sound shallow, but Memphis, unquestionably, has better taste in music than you, Nashville. I would much rather feel the constant pulse of the blues than have to suffer through the incessant, glossy twang of nu-country.

And Memphis may not have as much money or clout as you, but it has substance. And soul. And drama. And a raging inferiority complex that lends an air of defiance and attitude to every possible thing.

I don't think I'll be with Memphis forever. It's conflicted and ambivalent and, in many ways, old-fashioned and behind the times. And so tired. Memphis has a lot of emotional scarring that feeds a seething resentment. And I can tell sometimes that Memphis would just as soon be rid of me as have me. That's just how it is. And I accept that, because I would just as soon be with Memphis as be without it. That's the kind of relationship we have. Not too close, but not too far away, either.

Some day I might change my mind and come running back to you, aching for a glimpse of your Batman-building spires and the shimmer of sunlight on the river as it snakes through downtown. If that happens, you can say I told you so, and we'll go back to loving each other the way I had always dreamed we would again some day.

But until then, as long as I'm here, I've got to give my heart to Memphis. Starting now.