I sometimes feel like a spectator outside of my life, marveling at the way things have unfolded, often better than I anticipated.
My life has been marked by a series of fortunate events - such as my unexpected acceptance into Berkeley where I met many brilliant, hilarious friends who I’m fortunate to still have in my life. Or the trajectory of my career, the success of which still catches me off guard. Or now, in my new relationship, with someone who is so incredibly warm and silly and kind and devastatingly handsome, I’m sometimes baffled he even exists.
I find myself bracing for impact. How can this be real? How can he be real? How can we fit into each other‘s lives in a way that feels inexplicable? While I can’t explain it, I am grateful. I look back at my old writing, all my love letters to a faceless, anonymous “you,” and I can’t help but feel like he is the person I’ve been writing to all along. He is the “you” I’ve been speaking to.
I once wrote that I wanted a hungry kind of love, one that felt sticky between my fingers. I’ve since changed my mind. I’ve discovered that what I really want is an easy kind of love. One where I don’t overthink everything that I say or do, one that doesn’t make me fear what happens next. What I really want is a love I can wrap around me like a warm blanket, a love I can sleep soundly in, curled up in its safety.
I’ve spent the last couple of years cultivating love – love of my friends, love of my work, love of myself, and love of my life. And in so doing I’ve learned that love should be easy, given and accepted freely. It shouldn’t come with conditions, with rationalizations, with excuses. I’m lucky to find myself in love again, with someone who makes it so easy.
I love you, Liam. Thank you for being you.
Hey love hey life hey you.
Sometimes I think the small print to the laws of physics will be revealed to say that you and I were made for each other. Sometimes I think one day they’ll change certain mathematical properties to declare that you plus me will always equal us. Sometimes, but just sometimes, I think the chemistry between us will eventually reach an explosive state, and we’ll forever be bonded together at the lips and hips. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Sometimes I think the universe has actually conspired to use its gravitative state to perpetually draw us two together.
Hey love hey life hey you.
Sometimes I think we’re forever doomed to repeatedly find each other. I think our moments of separation over time over space over miles are mere formalities of living, because I think between us there’ll always exist a thread to follow back to one another. Like Theseus in the labyrinth with the Minotaur, I think we’ll always have an invisible ball of thread in our hands to lead us back to the beginning. If we are the sum of our parts, I can tell you right now that the addition of my parts would equal you.
Hey love hey life hey you.
I may be lost, but I know one day you’ll find me.
- (me, circa 2005)