in memoriam
Tonight was the kind of night we would have had together, the kind of night where we would slow dance sloppily once the last friend left and the door had shut for the night, the kind of night where we would have laid quietly in a warm bath with my head on his chest and reflected on the evening. The kind where we stayed up too late and drank too much and talked too loud, smoking on the balcony while the wind began to cool the night. But tonight it was me, just as myself and not as part of a unit or half a pair, staying up too late and drinking too much and talking too loud with unlikely friends. It is strange and scary and sad and exciting to begin carving out a life of my own, that is mine and no one else's. This is what I want and need, but I'm not sure that it's any easier. I feel unmoored, walking without this person that I planned futures with, envisioning endless lives of reclining naked on South American beaches and becoming social entrepreneurs revitalizing broken cities, right down to the details of who I will watch our favorite shows with and how will I ever move this huge fucking bed when my lease is up next summer. I don't know where I am going next, but I think that tonight was important and has begun moving me in the direction that I vowed I would go, onward and upward. There is a belief that "when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born - and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible." This seems true to me and I pray that it is. As for God, I don't know quite where he falls into this; currently I feel that perhaps he should know that I am not so crazy about our relationship either, but I am going to keep looking for the good and trust that somehow he is present and still loving, even when I am not. At this point, I don't know whether memories help or hinder this process, but I would like to be grateful for nearly two years of kindness, adventure, the healing of previous wounds, soul-affirming sex and affection, and a deep friendship. "Your absence goes through me like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color."