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Sara,

When I wrote that August 22nd post, the one about being in love, I knew you'd be the first to comment. And I knew you'd be happier for me than anyone else. That is the very nature of you.

The boy and I were curled up on the couch last night talking. I told him that while catching up on your blog, I learned that our days of reading each other are coming to an end. I explained a little about AS, about how it has affected you. He said, "It's like everything's been stripped away...like she's been deconstructed."

I understand how it may sound that way. But to know you is to know what has been left. It is to know the seed--the very seed of love and peace and joy--that lives, completely unscathed, in you.

I am going to miss you like whoa, girl.

Love,
T

All the memories fade
Send the ghosts on their way
Tell them they've had their day
It's someone else's tomorrow.

- Patty Griffin

On faith...or whatever this is

The older I get, the less I know for sure...and the more this feels like a powerful, peaceful, liberating kind of knowing in itself.

I grew up with fundamentalist Christians. I knew a lot of things for fucking sure. I had a firm grasp on most of what was so clearly the black and white, good and righteous truth.

It only makes sense to me that this truth still exists. To say that it is relative or that I could just live my own version of it would be to betray an ignorance of the very word. But, it makes even more sense to me that something as righteous as this cannot ever be understood by something as human as me.

When I say that I know there is a God, I am not convinced of my rightness. I am, instead, sure of my experience. While those things may sound the same, they feel like the difference between Jerry Falwell and Anne Lamott.

The older I get, and the more I have some experience of God, the more I know that, mostly, I just don't know. Resting in that, in a God that understands that, feels like grace.

A Saturday

As they walked on ahead of me, I thought, “If I could take a picture…it would be of this.” The Boy and the dog, walking next to each other on that horse trail, her leash clipped onto his backpack, his arms swinging, her tail wagging, trotting along, both kicking up a little dry dirt with each step. He sang the mostly wrong words to Free Falling…

It’s a long day livin’ in Raseda.
There’s a freeway runnin’ through the yard.
Something, something…cause I don’t really miss her.
And I don’t know the words to this song.

…and, for the fifth time that week, I fell in love with my life.

Out loud

We were lying in bed. It was after midnight. You know that achy feeling you have when you first catch the flu--the feeling that even your hair might be sore? Yes, well, I felt that way on the inside. (Son of a bitch cardiac rotation.) I was completely drained, but wide fucking awake. I couldn’t lie still. I got up, got myself a glass of water, wandered into the living room, and curled up on the end of the couch, hugging my knees to my chest. That lasted all of three minutes before I commenced to pacing. 

Traipsing through the apartment in the dark was doing little to help, and it wasn’t long before it woke the dozing boy. 

I crawled back into bed, mostly because I didn’t have a good explanation for why I’d left in the first place. Then, because it was just about the only place in the apartment I hadn’t yet been, I slid on top of him and buried my face in his chest. He threw his tired, heavy arms over me and kissed my head. I’m certain this was as much a physical restraint intended to prevent further idiotic wandering as it was affection. (He is a warm and sweet smelling straight jacket. I am straight up crazy. We were made for each other.) 

I was as close to sleep as I’d been all night when I whispered, “I love you.” 

Shit, I thought, that wasn’t out loud, was it? I didn’t mean for that to be out loud. 

But then, “I love you, too” was whispered into my hair. 

Now, it's something he says all the time to that crazy girl he's dating. And she says it back. Out loud. And what they both mean but don't (usually) say is, "...even when you're pretty much insane."