July 3rd, 2011
Email from me to Stefan
[excerpt]
Why is it so hard to believe that you were different from the very very beginning? Why is it difficult to think that even that first night you spent at my house, I was thrown by how drawn to you I was? Why is it impossible to consider that… we might be more suited for one another, more well matched, more perfectly paired than anything I could possibly have even dreamt of? Do I need to break it down and quantify it? How many people will find an enjoyable evening in sitting quietly next to each other drawing and internet browsing while watching something educational? Will prefer doing that to spending a night out at a bar? Will watch <Cronenberg’s> Spider with me and know what I’m loving and seeing in very single shot of aesthetic perfection? Will understand the difficulty in just getting out of bed and facing life every day? Will understand the difficulty in making plans? Will understand how unnatural it is to wake at dawn instead of going to bed? Will find more joy and glee in someone drawing a picture for them than anything money could buy? Will understand why one clings to the small joys in life so desperately? Will understand that pride that strums a chord of childhood in seeing your dad play in front of others? Will understand that important relationship between dad and music appreciation? Will understand and see what makes things like Columbo, and The Prisoner, so much better than anything people fawn over now? Will think of each other in the myriad of small ways that we think of each other every day? Can understand and appreciate the perfection of childhood joy and purity, while fully understanding the dirty and unkind world that surrounds us? How many people will talk on the phone at 7am, til sleep feels close? How many people can pose each other about, covering each other in various substances and fabrics for the sake of taking a photograph at 4am? Understands how Chuck Jones is more amazing than everything CGI ever made put together? How many people understand that crushing pressure of needing to be better? How many people understand sitting quietly and listening for the footsteps of others to leave to finally feel comfortable leaving your room, not wanting to face another human? How many people would, or have, cast aside their own self-preservation for the sake of each other as we have? Each of us have spent the last of our funds for the sake of making the other happy (your amounts clearly eclipsing mine) in some trivial and brief way more often than most people would ever dare consider. How many people understand what it is to be damaged – are damaged in different enough ways to complement each other, but similar enough ways to understand the pain? I could go on and on and on and on.
Make a venn diagram of each of these traits. And more. And what kind of cross section of the population do you think you’ll come up with?
And then add to that… the fact that we are both chemically atypical. Both born with defects. And imagine what that’s done to our outlooks, our psychiatric selves. The effect of psychology on brain chemistry and brain chemistry on psychology. And there’s the very VERY real possibility that we are more properly chemically attuned to one another than anyone. Add to that the fact that…. you’ve been there for me in ways that nobody else has. You’ve extended your generosity beyond, and haven’t demanded tribute of demeaning appreciation the way most people do. That you understand the meaning of a quiet thank you. That you understand the awkwardness of being given a gift, and how hard it is to know how to react sometimes. Given all of this, why is it even slightly hard to believe that I might feel a connection with you that surpasses anything I ever felt possible? That I care for you more deeply and profoundly than I’ve ever felt? That when I touch you, every single appreciation that I can’t speak, or even write, comes pouring out of me physically? That for the first time, I can actually FEEL the experience of emotion for which sex is so often referred to as a metaphor?