There’ll never be another you, and I know it. And even though we both know this is the right thing, I want you to know I don’t bare you any ill will. I mean it. Regardless of what you said, I know you feel the same. I understand your position as clearly as I understand my own. You’ve taught me a lot- about myself and about people. I won’t ever be able to put a value to your presence or what it’s meant to me. That’s so trite, I hate even typing it. But I can’t think of any other words to say just that.
Except maybe thank you.
Thank you for informing me of the ‘proper way’ to clean snow from my car. You swept the handfuls of snow from my window and barraged me with powdery explosions. Normally awkward (it is afterall my most basic state), you made me decide ‘what the hell.’ You taught me to say ‘screw it’ when the time was right. To be a little looser. To throw more snow.
Thank you for coming deep into the ‘D’ with me for all my random video and photography projects. Thank you for counting the floors of the high rise with me from the street, and then sneaking inside, riding the elevator all eleven floors so I could get the perfect shot of the Mariner’s from the terrace. I won that competition, in no small part because of your insistence that I act a little more bravely, and go with my gut.
When I had the bubonic plague: thank you for dashing out to the drug store, random vegan organic squash soup, descending on my wood furniture and floors with a (gasp!) humidifier, and braving proximity to me. All this simply to fend off my misery.
Thank you for being as bewildered as I was when the swans wouldn’t touch the bread. I’ve still never seen that many swans on a pond before. It was incredible and beautiful and I wish I could remember the name of that park. It was also hysterical when we figured out why.
Not too many people can accept that no, I really, really don’t want to be cajoled into dancing. Let alone people who love to dance like you do. Thanks for accepting it, swallowing it, and moving on. Thanks for indulging the occasional awkward slow dance in the middle of the street . Thanks for protecting me from people who tried to make me.
Thank you for never once asking me not to go.
For all our differences, both you and I know that all you need for a good time is some music (self-supplied or otherwise) and a full tank of gas. Thank you for the adventures.
Thank you for braving my family, despite knowing how some of them feel.
Thank you for putting up with my borderline obsession with yanking open the window, and crawling out onto the tar roof. Drinking beer and looking at stars. Making pictures with the black, instead of with the light.
Not too many people know that sometimes quiet is the best intimacy. Thank you for holding your tongue, for just being. For mornings without words other than those on the newspaper, the bitter smell of your coffee drifting over us.
For St.Louis, and making a dream come true.
For your family, for letting me in.
For only ever once suggesting a regular old movie. For understanding 8-mile might not have class, and our drive-in certainly doesn’t, but that the very idea and essence of a drive-in does. Ha. Titanic.
For ridiculously rain-drenched affection.
“Did you know that God is having a party?”
Thank you.
