For Stephanie

"I shouldn't have a girlfriend right now."

I told myself this after things didn't work out last year with this girl at Vanderbilt. I was sort of glad that they didn't work out because of all that was going on. And other people have been telling this to me too, ever since I've been dating Stephanie and all the way up until today. They tell me that I have sooo much on my plate right now, so much hardship and loss and transition in my life, that maybe I shouldn't add the extra burden of being in a serious relationship. Especially a long distance one where you can't see each other enough and have to make sacrifices just to be together. I have come to discover that, given a certain perspective, they were right. It has been very hard and I have had some thoughts that maybe the whole thing was a bad idea.

But. They didn't know what happened. They didn't know about this girl I met under no unusual circumstances that somehow swept me away. That made me feel comfort and happiness that I had such a difficulty feeling those days and I felt this unspoken, subconscious bond with her from the first moment our arms touched. They couldn't understand that I hadn't had a connection like this before in my life and that it was overwhelming the urge to be with her. And the funny thing is she shared that feeling. They didn't know about the day our arms touched or the tickling on the bus or talking in the cold outside someone's house until the wee hours of the morning without thinking twice or the kiss after Celebration outside of Leatherby's or they might have known why I asked to be her boyfriend on that blanket under the stars and why she said yes. They might have understood that I couldn't have passed up the kisses that would follow and the trips to the bookstore and the movies we watched snuggled together and the hours-long talks on the phone about the most random topics and the TV shows we made and the parties for two and lying wrapped in each other's arms and falling asleep together and all the emails and the thrill of seeing her and even the sadness of leaving her.

And they wouldn't know how she made me love her. How she made me love her by making me smile and roll my eyes sometimes. By teaching me new things like the joys of libraries, the ins and outs of Chinese cuisine, how to play Go for Broke! and Thirteen, why to watch the Food Network, what a so-so is, how much fun IMing can be, why I'm special, why the world is still worth it, and how to be a boyfriend again. By giving herself and her heart to me and taking mine and keeping it warm and loved. By caring for me and wanting to see me and hating to leave me and making me feel so wanted and so special and so worth it. By traveling such long distances just to be with me and putting me first in her thoughts even when I wish she wouldn't because I know that it hurts. By holding me and kissing me and giving me the comfort of touch that I forget was so special about relationships and that I missed since my mother got sick. By sharing her days with me, her thoughts with me, her past with me, and her dreams with me. By noticing more things about me and caring about me and criticizing me more than any other person just to make me a better person and she made me a better person. And I have no idea what kind of a loser I would have been the past months without her in my life. I have no clue how sad I could have been and what that would have led to. And I'm so glad that I don't. I'm so glad I met her and fell in love and have shared the last months together. I'm so glad that she's a part of my life and I'm a part of hers and we could make each other happy.

It has been hard to really feel happy lately. I suppose it's normal with the grief and loss and tragedy of it all. It takes a lot to smile sometimes, even when I'm happy. I only recently realized that this past month I had slipped pretty low into depression. Although I could hide it for a while, if you were around me enough you could see it. And not only has Stephanie been around me a lot, but she is also keenly observant. And even when I didn't know how sad I was, she did. And she kept coming. She kept calling. She kept wanting to see me and love me. She kept smiling and trying to make me happy even when it was hard and even when it made her sad. She took a lot of my pain onto herself because she cared for me that much. When I wrote the poem about having thick skin to absorb the shock of tragedy and pain, I spoke about how thin her skin was and how she didn't have that same protection. How she couldn't buffer that pain and instead took every blow hard. And she took them for me. And it hurt her a lot. And if she doesn't want to take them any more, I can understand.

It hurts me more to know I hurt her so much. And it kills me that I can't stop it, I can't stop feeling sad. But tonight my sister told me something that made me hopeful. She said that she battles with depression (as many in my family have) and that you can't count on your family or friends (or girlfriends as implied) to be your therapist. You need to get one for yourself. You need to leave the rest of those people you love to care for you and support you even when they can't take away the pain or listen to all of your feelings. Even when they don't understand. That's not their job. Their job is just to love you. And, she adds, drugs can help a lot. As opposed to them as I once was, I'm not anymore. And I've begun seeing a therapist. And just like my sister is doing well now (maybe not perfect given the circumstances), I see a light at the end of this tunnel. Hopefully the tunnel isn't too long. I know that like anyone who experiences a loss like this there will be moments for the rest of my life where I'll be reminded of the grief for what I no longer have. And, like all people, I know I'll have times when I'm sad or grumpy or moody in my life. I just don't want them to consume me like they do know.

In that fabulous book I quoted before, Joan Didion talks about some of these feelings saying that "On most surface levels I seemed rational...I was thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts or wishes had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome. In my case this disordered thinking had been covert, noticed I think by no one else, hidden even from me, but it had also been, in retrospect, both urgent and constant." She discusses some studies done on mourning and says, "The mourner is in fact ill, but because this state of mind is common and seems so natural to us, we do not call mourning an illness...To mourning the subject goes through a modified and transitory manic-depressive state and overcomes it. Notice the stress on 'overcoming' it." And I will overcome it.

So, I'm sorry that I have been sick. I'm sorry that I hurt you. And I'm really sorry that all this happened and turned my world upside down and things just couldn't be easy for us. But I'm not sorry I kissed you and dated you and gave you my heart and made you a part of my life.