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"Holding on, the light of night A year ago tomorrow, I wrote: "For reasons they can't clearly define, these two people each feel a certain draw, an attraction, above and beyond something so simple (or complex) as a sexual tension, but from a deeper, more ethereal and penetrating need to explore one another. It's like an unexplained curiousity combined with an unusual trust and comfort. Yes, it can still be accompanied by all the usual sexual tension, and all the usual jittery butterflies at being around someone you find fascinating. But somewhere, deep down, in a way you can't easily put your finger on, you feel an unmistakable tugging at your soul, pulling you in a direction." Now, a year later, I find it impossible to imagine my life without her in it. My whole life, virtually every aspect of it, is now in a state so remotely removed from where it was this time last year I could certainly never have predicted it, and Liza-Ann has certainly been the largest factor in that. I've grown. I've evolved. My whole world has changed and is still changing. And while my life these days sometimes seems quite hectic and perpetually exhausting, it is a burden I bear gladly, as I bleed willingly and hold myself in daily wonder at the miracles of my life. A little more than a year ago, lying in bed one night staring at the ceiling, I closed my eyes and made a wish. A little less than a year ago, sitting on a beach with Liza-Ann and watching Olivia play at the lake's edge, I made another. It's important to understand that wishing is not something I do often or do lightly. My mother long ago told me, "be careful what you wish for - you just might get it". It's a warning that has borne true for me so many times it remains one of my few superstitions. And I can't say exactly what I wished for those two times; that's part of my superstition too. It's my belief that wishing comes with a price. Life is forever yin and yang, and you can't ask for one and not expect the other. Whatever you've demanded of the world will be delivered unto you, but usually in the least convenient way and often at the most inopportune time. If you're willing to deal with that, if you're quite certain, wish away. My first wish was delivered onto me, and in a strange and subtlely perverse sort of way. More than that I can't say. It was an emotional struggle, through which I endured, reminding myself that I'd gotten exactly what I'd asked for (and then some), and in the end it has brought me a lasting peace. For it, my life will never be the same. The second likewise found footing, this time in a more predictable but no less punishing way. This struggle was and continues to remain a more physical one, which I likewise endure while reminding myself I've gotten exactly what I asked. For it, my life moves forward with incredible opportunity. Today marks a year together for myself and Liza-Ann. Over the summer I will complete the third of the three miracles I set as objectives when I started this journal. And the future only continues from there: we have made plans together for this summer, this fall, and even into next summer. All I'm missing is the proverbial shades. I'll be making her dinner tonight, an elaborate one I actually started on last night. It will turn out ok, but not perfect, or at least not quite good enough in my eyes. At lunch I'll go shopping again for something small to go along with it, and again I may find (as I have when I tried before) that nothing I come across quite seems right, nothing quite good enough. There is no gift I can find or make, no scheme I can devise that will seem adequate to repay the gift she's unwittingly given me: to have cured once and for all my dark infection, to have reversed the misfortune of a life spent judging the present by benchmarks of the past, and to have filled me with a joyous longing for the future. How does one repay that? I have, I hope, the rest of my life to figure that out.
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naked and unbound |