or something.

When “her” fish becomes “our” fish… that’s how you know. I hope these guys are together for a million years watching a thousand fish swim through rock-holes and feeling oddly (but endearingly) overblown emotions about it… together.

[Perhaps I’m blowing my wad early on this “A Sense of Place” thing.  I don’t care.  It was this guy’s birthday this past week, and I didn’t tell the internets at all.  That needs rectifying.

Man, this is going to sound so cliché.  So trite. Please bear with me. It’s all true.]

I first saw him in person in March 2005, as his girlfriend opened the door to her tiny NYU dorm room and ushered me inside, where he was waiting. (Someday, maybe I will tell the specifics of why I was there to begin with, and how I met the two of them, but for now, you know enough.) I put down my bags and hugged Emma (not her real name) tightly. We exchanged “I missed you”s, then I turned to Aziz, who stood in the corner by her desk, excited to hug me. We’d talked online so many times, and on the phone, but this would be my first time seeing my friend in the flesh. “He looks even goofier in person,” I thought.

I received my first Aziz-trademark chiropractic hug.  And then we started talking.

I don’t even know what we said. We bantered and riffed, we made Emma laugh together. We fed off one another in a completely organic way. We said nothing of consequence, but from moment one, utterly on the same page, utterly in sync. Immediately, we spoke as though we’d known each other for ages, as though we’d played in the sandbox together as toddlers, learning language together, creating a dialect of our own.

And there it was. There I was. The way I had always been inside, but hadn’t known how to be externally. The way I’d always spoken to myself, but imagined no one would understand.  In those short exchanges, (Lord, it sounds corny, but there’s no other way to say it:) I. Just. Knew. I wasn’t Alone. Capital-A Alone In This Uncaring Universe Alone. Something in my mind shifted, then came to rest. Something important. We all have, or have had, a frustrating search within us, one where we don’t even know for what we are searching, only that we are constantly scanning, quietly unable to ever be fully content, never quite at rest. One of mine ended there in that room.  I remember throwing my arms around him, and pulling back to stare at each other, wide-eyed, grinning. And I had one of those moments where your entire present condenses to a single, simple, well-formed phrase that pushes all else from your mind and just sits there, waiting for you to acknowledge it. That time, the phrase was “you will always be with me.”

All of this, strangely, was entirely platonic: he was thoroughly and stubbornly committed to Emma, and I was on the heels of a wrenching breakup, still in love.  But even if that had been the last time I’d ever see him, he still would have been with me forever: now I knew someone else spoke my language. Now I knew I wasn’t Alone.

Needless to say, that wasn’t the last time I ever saw him.

That incredible shared language of ours is alive and well.  We have used it to build a life, to create a Place for ourselves, founded on the knowledge that There Are Two. And wherever we are together is home.

I’m forever grateful, forever humbled, and forever a little bewildered that I managed to find him. Happy belated birthday, my dear one. Thanks for helping me find my place.

shoesonwrong:

poeks:

While this rings true, I wonder what it means that all I ever say is “fuck, I’m dead.”

Ah, divorce mode. My personal mantra is, “If you jump on my head while I’m trying to jump and push me down a hole one more time, I will take that Wiimote and shove it up your [redacted for decency].”

Dear Dr. Ruth,

My boyfriend and I are really good at two-player Super Mario Bros. Wii.  Sure, there’s the occasional accidental death, but for the most part, we can do all the special moves and progress throughout a course, even in world 8, like a well-oiled machine.  We usually even get all the big coins on the first pass.

I’m worried that we’re not normal. Should I see a doctor?

Effie

So, this happened today.

It’s just for insurance purposes, but whoa: we totally got gay married. (Would this have been funnier if I said we “got DP’d”?)

(I’ll probably post later about how infuriating it is that we can treat this like “no big deal” because we have a completely legal opposite-marriage to look forward to in our future [no plans yet but in the next couple of years]. But right now, we’re kinda sitting around and saying “this is not a big deal but it is,” so let us have that.)

[The names in this story are changed. It feels cheap, but there it is.]

I started this post before the second photo was even taken.  It included a long history of my relationship with the pictured gentleman, but because of something that happened in the course of the wedding (from which the second picture is obviously taken), I now need to write a completely different post.

The facts of this story are thus:

The first photo was taken at the top of the Eiffel Tower in 1999.  I’d known the boy for about 11 days, and I already knew I was going to marry him. Daniel was a skinny, inept 17-year old with a grating Long Island accent, and he made me believe in love at first sight.  We stayed together for the rest of high school and all of college—six years (which ended up being about two and a half years too long, as is often the case with your first forever-love).

The second photo was taken early last Sunday morning at a hotel bar on Long Island.  We’d just gotten back from Daniel’s wedding reception, and (as you may suspect from the mono-color dress in a shade that washes me out), I was in the wedding party.

How we got to Paris is a story in itself.  How we passed these ten years vis-a-vis one another —and how I became a part of his wedding— are also long stories, and the former is not a happy one for much of its duration. I don’t know that I could do any of those stories justice, though I probably owe it to them to try.

All I know is this: I have to write this down.  It might not be interesting, and it certainly won’t convey the impact that the event had on me, but I have to keep this moment alive and present somewhere, so that maybe someday I can construct around this kernel the frame of history and emotion that make it into the downright-cinematic moment it was for me.

_____________________________________________

At the reception, as guests were lining up to process through the dessert line, the Maid of Honor decided to go outside for a cigarette. She asked the bride and the other three bridesmaids to come outside with her to keep her company, so we left the table.  As I passed the head table, Daniel grabbed my arm.  “How are you enjoying tonight?” he asked.  I told him that everything was beautiful, and said, “but I’m on my way out the door with your wife.” We shared a warm laugh at her new title.

“I need you for a second,” he said, firmly leading me out to the empty dance floor and extending his hand.  Only then did I pay attention to the song the DJ had been playing: “The Origin of Love” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It was “our song” many years ago. “I requested it,” he said, smiling.

We were the only ones on the dance floor, the groom and me.  I was bewildered and embarrassed at first. We began dancing, and made some small talk about how the day was going, and at what point and with what severity we’d cried during the ceremony.

“I love you so much,” he said, after a pause, as though he’d planned to say it. I told him that I had always loved him and always would. It’s not new for us to say this to each other, but it always feels good to say and hear.

“We promised each other we’d dance at our wedding,” he said. “I didn’t know if you’d be the bride or a guest, but I am keeping my promise, and I hope when it comes to be your turn, you will too.”  I assured him that there are precious few promises I’ll be happier to keep in my life.  We had indeed made this promise, long ago, during one of our many breakups, as a metaphor for our commitment to staying friends. I had forgotten the promise (though not the spirit), but he hadn’t.

We were silent for a bit, but after awhile, he said, “the greatest joy in my life is Allie [his new wife].  The second greatest joy is that I have gotten to keep you so close.” I probably agreed in some way, but I’d reached that point you reach when someone is saying such lovely things that you want to be silent, so the words stick, so nothing gets tangled, so everything is pure good.  There were tears in his eyes and I laid my head on his shoulder, still a little embarrassed about how improper the scene might incorrectly look to someone who didn’t know us, but knowing I’d kick myself later if I didn’t savor it. He rested his head on my head.

Despite my worries, the hovering photographers were elsewhere during the entire dance, and the guests all seemed preoccupied with their dessert and coffee.  Even my friends and boyfriend were somehow unaware that I’d been gone for five minutes to dance with the groom, alone on the dance floor, about twenty feet away from where they were sitting.  But it seemed right that no one noticed and no one recorded the event: it was as though we stepped out of time to give our shared history its due, just the two of us, while everyone else enjoyed their tiramisu.

The point is this: take heart, my friends, because true love learns how to grow and change. It has to. It *can*, actually CAN, go from fiery to platonic.  It certainly wasn’t easy for Daniel and me to do the emotional toil necessary for the utter pupation from “lovers” to “people who love each other.”  And it’s true, we don’t have an easy category to assign our relationship: “exes” certainly doesn’t work, and while “friends” is far more accurate, it absolutely doesn’t do justice to the journey we took to get there.  And we are both immeasurably lucky to have partners who lovingly, confidently, and without reservation embrace (and actively encourage) what could (understandably) have been a difficult relationship to stomach. But none of us really had a choice.  Love abides and love survives.

Handsome men in jackets Tuesday. Sorry, everyone else. Here’s the handsomest.

Edit: for anyone who’s never read my Twitter stream, Facebook, Tumblr, or mind before: that’s phylhrmnix (also on the tumblr).