Let's not get all mushy over here.
Day 01 - Introduce yourself
Day 02 - Your first love
Day 03 - Your parents
Day 04 - What you ate today
Day 05 - Your definition of love
Day 06 - Your day
Day 07 - Your best friend
Day 08 - A moment
Day 09 - Your beliefs
Day 10 - What you wore today
Day 11 - Your siblings
Day 12 - What’s in your bag
Day 13 - This week
Day 14 - What you wore today
Day 15 - Your dreams
Day 16 - Your first kiss
Day 17 - Your favorite memory
Day 18 - Your favorite birthday
Day 19 - Something you regret
Day 20 - This month
Day 21 - Another moment
Day 22 - Something that upsets you
Day 23 - Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 - Something that makes you cry
Day 25 - A first
Day 26 - Your fears
Day 27 - Your favorite place
Day 28 - Something that you miss
Day 29 - Your aspirations
Day 30 - One last moment
I was just nearly twenty. I was laying in a bed at the hospital in the crowded triage area of the Emergency room, alone. I had sent my best friend back to the dorm after she had dropped me off -- you have an important exam to study for, and what's your waiting around going to do for either of us? Go home, I insisted.
I was a frequent visitor of hospitals then, a bit of a routine flare-up. I had spent a good few hours wretching til my throat was bleeding, head pounding, feeling as if someone had built a fire in my lumbar spine. My stomach twisted in knots as I tried laying in any and every direction to calm myself down. I was pasty and dehydrated, trembling, even, when my roommate decided I needed to go to the hospital no matter how much I protested it. Probably good because I was in a bit of a delusional state by then, from internal pain.
The kind of pain I had wasn't treatable with pain medication, particularly because I had blood in my vomit now. Laying in the too-short, too-high wheeled bed was all I could do, which, unfortunately, left me in the same state as I was at home, at least til a medical imaging person could be spared to take me to a barium swallow-test. I was happy to divert my attention any way possible, in this case; it would likely be hours until someone freed up.
I remember this with surprising detail, then, considering (or maybe because of the pain).
Across from me sat a couple, in their late twenties it looked like, a girl and a boy. The girl was in the hospital bed, in a gown, sat up on a crooked angle by the bed that been before her waist started, and bent up again like a small tent at her knees. She was really sick, the kind you couldn't help but feel as you looked at her: her eyes were dark underneath, head heavy, sweat wetting the jolted neckline of the snap-together gown, her shoulders tight and close to her neck but without any weight or strength in her hands. She shivered, and she moved her head from side to side in an effort to get comfortable, and she quietly wept. The boy sat in the single standard bedside chair, the uncomfortable kind that skin gets stuck to no matter what temperature the sitter, not moving in his seat, but moving his hands, and holding the girl at her ankles so she knew he was there; he didn't move otherwise.
The girl would occasionally murmur, choke her words out, and then the boy would stroke her leg lightly. Soon her legs were irritated by whatever she was suffering from. She writhed even at his touch, like she was sunburned and he was a slap on the back. I could see him apologize, defeated, nearly. But then he stood up and instead dropped one of the side rails, and pulled her toward him so that she could stretch out differently, bury half her face in his chest. She resisted and he stroked her face, assured her. She sobbed into him, then. Her chest heaved and ached, and he just held her while they waited, for nearly two hours solid until she was moved and they made him walk behind her.
And I thought, That is love.
But you know what else was love? My best friend taking me to the hospital, and leaving when I asked her to.
It was one of those dizzying, big ideas that flutter around your head. It didn't matter what kind of relationship it was, both stood for the same idea.
I think love is responding.
Giving a damn. Knowing when to step in, or when to give space. Listening and only listening. Saying nothing for as long as someone needs it, and feeling when you ought to jump in with ideas. Caring enough that you want the best for someone, but not compromising who you are or who they are to show it. Hugging, crying, whispering, writing. Giving, and taking. Trusting. Actually responding so someone feels that, in some way, their existence and choices matter to you. And, hopefully, they do.
Day 02 - Your first love
Day 03 - Your parents
Day 04 - What you ate today
Day 05 - Your definition of love
Day 06 - Your day
Day 07 - Your best friend
Day 08 - A moment
Day 09 - Your beliefs
Day 10 - What you wore today
Day 11 - Your siblings
Day 12 - What’s in your bag
Day 13 - This week
Day 14 - What you wore today
Day 15 - Your dreams
Day 16 - Your first kiss
Day 17 - Your favorite memory
Day 18 - Your favorite birthday
Day 19 - Something you regret
Day 20 - This month
Day 21 - Another moment
Day 22 - Something that upsets you
Day 23 - Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 - Something that makes you cry
Day 25 - A first
Day 26 - Your fears
Day 27 - Your favorite place
Day 28 - Something that you miss
Day 29 - Your aspirations
Day 30 - One last moment
I was just nearly twenty. I was laying in a bed at the hospital in the crowded triage area of the Emergency room, alone. I had sent my best friend back to the dorm after she had dropped me off -- you have an important exam to study for, and what's your waiting around going to do for either of us? Go home, I insisted.
I was a frequent visitor of hospitals then, a bit of a routine flare-up. I had spent a good few hours wretching til my throat was bleeding, head pounding, feeling as if someone had built a fire in my lumbar spine. My stomach twisted in knots as I tried laying in any and every direction to calm myself down. I was pasty and dehydrated, trembling, even, when my roommate decided I needed to go to the hospital no matter how much I protested it. Probably good because I was in a bit of a delusional state by then, from internal pain.
The kind of pain I had wasn't treatable with pain medication, particularly because I had blood in my vomit now. Laying in the too-short, too-high wheeled bed was all I could do, which, unfortunately, left me in the same state as I was at home, at least til a medical imaging person could be spared to take me to a barium swallow-test. I was happy to divert my attention any way possible, in this case; it would likely be hours until someone freed up.
I remember this with surprising detail, then, considering (or maybe because of the pain).
Across from me sat a couple, in their late twenties it looked like, a girl and a boy. The girl was in the hospital bed, in a gown, sat up on a crooked angle by the bed that been before her waist started, and bent up again like a small tent at her knees. She was really sick, the kind you couldn't help but feel as you looked at her: her eyes were dark underneath, head heavy, sweat wetting the jolted neckline of the snap-together gown, her shoulders tight and close to her neck but without any weight or strength in her hands. She shivered, and she moved her head from side to side in an effort to get comfortable, and she quietly wept. The boy sat in the single standard bedside chair, the uncomfortable kind that skin gets stuck to no matter what temperature the sitter, not moving in his seat, but moving his hands, and holding the girl at her ankles so she knew he was there; he didn't move otherwise.
The girl would occasionally murmur, choke her words out, and then the boy would stroke her leg lightly. Soon her legs were irritated by whatever she was suffering from. She writhed even at his touch, like she was sunburned and he was a slap on the back. I could see him apologize, defeated, nearly. But then he stood up and instead dropped one of the side rails, and pulled her toward him so that she could stretch out differently, bury half her face in his chest. She resisted and he stroked her face, assured her. She sobbed into him, then. Her chest heaved and ached, and he just held her while they waited, for nearly two hours solid until she was moved and they made him walk behind her.
And I thought, That is love.
But you know what else was love? My best friend taking me to the hospital, and leaving when I asked her to.
It was one of those dizzying, big ideas that flutter around your head. It didn't matter what kind of relationship it was, both stood for the same idea.
I think love is responding.
Giving a damn. Knowing when to step in, or when to give space. Listening and only listening. Saying nothing for as long as someone needs it, and feeling when you ought to jump in with ideas. Caring enough that you want the best for someone, but not compromising who you are or who they are to show it. Hugging, crying, whispering, writing. Giving, and taking. Trusting. Actually responding so someone feels that, in some way, their existence and choices matter to you. And, hopefully, they do.