On Life’s Meanders, And The Love That’s There For Them

You’re the girl who’s always there. I don’t know if that’s an insult or an endearing statement — but there you are, just always in my periphery. Always watching out for me, one eye trained on me, the other on your own life.

You’re there when I’m crying over my dog having blood cancer and passing away too young. You’re there when I’m having a panic attack over a boy not telling me he loves me after a 5th date. You are ceaselessly, inevitably, perfectly, there for me.

I appreciate you more than you could know. Because sometimes I feel I don’t let you know enough. So here you are, in writing:

I do appreciate you. Always. You’re incredible. As you describe of yourself, you are a rock. So you are my rock. Everyone has one in life — a friend who is their emotional rock, I mean — and you are mine. I want to — and you even know this because I voice it often enough — be your rock, too. It’s a different thing though. You are my rock, and act like it. I am your rock, and sometimes I don’t act like it. But my faltering only serves to make you a stronger friend to me; because you are always there.

I want you to know that I honestly want to try harder. But you know how I am. I love you. You are that girl because you accept me for this fault; and the many others I have. And you’re my that-girl because I can’t ever repay you for that. I miss you when we are apart — which is often these days — and I feel like a part of me has returned when you come back.

You are my that girl because you were the first person who I came out to (if memory serves us correctly, anyway). And you are even more perfectly perfect because every year you remember my “GayDay” and celebrate my coming out anniversary (except this year — but you had more than enough excuse to forget this year).

You are my that girl because you listen (and listen and listen and listen) to me complaining about anything and everything. And you offer genuine, intricately thought out advice. My problems, are your problems. We have both agreed to be there for each other for an eternity. And we will be. We will always be there. We have periods of flitting in and out of each other’s lives, and that’s just the way things work, but I know that when we are both 43 (pushed back from 40, if I remember correctly) and suffering from mild depression, lack of vision, and extreme singledom- we will be each other’s surrogates. And I say that in the sense that we will both give each other a gift; you and I both know that I have always wanted a child and companionship- we will give that to each other as the gift of our lives. Because what better way to celebrate life itself than to honour a pact made over an over-priced bottle of wine, two pizza’s (one yet to be vegan) and utterly good conversation in a Pizza Express that was in dire need of renovation.

You and I have a vernacular that is rare in this world. And that makes you my that girl.

And I say this knowing full well it is the truth (for such is the trust of our relationship):

I know that I am your that boy. Like the meanders in a great river, we are destined to come and go. Your trust in me will wane some times. And I to you, too. But like that great river with its great meanders, we will rejoin, whirl in an eddy for a short while and form an oxbow together. A great mass of water, trapped intwined, but instead of stagnating we will only grow more; locked into that lake, that friendship. And it will never die.

I love you, I miss you. See you soon, Marzipan.