Some say, “Write what you know.” Well I don’t do enough of that. I write what I’m afraid of, what I imagine might happen to characters I create, when what’s happened to me warrants telling more than anything. Sure, I write about myself all the time, but too often my words are spiteful, bitter and biting, when really I have no reason to be any of these things. No, in a world of lonely people, I’m anything but. My anger’s a sham, my resentment a show. I'm as afraid of the future as anyone else, but I have no fear, because for two weeks and a few days shy of twelve years, I’ve been blessed to know my wife, my whiskey buddy, curly-headed cohort, and the only reason I'm still alive.
See, mine is the story of a boy who became a man in the arms of a woman, of a kid who did everything he could to fool himself into thinking he'd be dead by thirty, then met someone who made him hope he was wrong. And he was. Where once it was a curse, now I cherish time, because we share it no matter how fast it passes. Whether we're together or not, we always are.
In the way she's taught me to be selfless, to see beauty in the most decrepit, to embrace what happens as what's meant to be and love without regret, she's saved me from a life alone inside myself. What she's taught me is love is love, it's a prism and light refracted back to its source, the world, and everyone around, inside and out. I watch her with people, how she listens, how her spirit holds them in the mother's embrace of her eyes, and I'm inspired. I'm inspired to write words that do the same thing, about people who aren't as blessed as us. I'm inspired to love her a semblence as selflessly as she loves any random person on the street, not to mention me.
From meeting on ecstasy at nineteen over glow shows and Tide-painted walls, to doing partner yoga with a puppy and a house, from her parents' divorce to our all-weather wedding, not to mention the deaths of aunts and uncles, grandfathers, Grandma, and more friends than I care to count, from Tempe to Europe, Morocco to Brooklyn, Belize to Zimbabwe, from nightly bong hits to pre-noon shots, DSC to PLG, two-dog family picnics to talking about having a baby, we've built a foundation of memories to cherish, resurface and remember for the rest of our lives.
So to those who've lost it, I say, have faith. Love yourself to death, or in death you will part. Build love in your life so strong that when you're gone, it only grows stronger.
That's our goal, as older and older we grow closer, to the point each of us is just as much ourselves as the other. That's why I don't mind growing up. Death I've never had trouble with, it's what's in-between that's the problem. Now I don't mind living 'til I'm barely able to speak or swallow, long as I get to do it with her.
Life and time used to be as much a scam to me as writing. But that's changed, and so have I. Nicole, you've made a believer of me, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my ink-stained heart. The greatest words I've ever put to page are the vows we wrote and live to this day. Thank you for being my wife.
See, mine is the story of a boy who became a man in the arms of a woman, of a kid who did everything he could to fool himself into thinking he'd be dead by thirty, then met someone who made him hope he was wrong. And he was. Where once it was a curse, now I cherish time, because we share it no matter how fast it passes. Whether we're together or not, we always are.
In the way she's taught me to be selfless, to see beauty in the most decrepit, to embrace what happens as what's meant to be and love without regret, she's saved me from a life alone inside myself. What she's taught me is love is love, it's a prism and light refracted back to its source, the world, and everyone around, inside and out. I watch her with people, how she listens, how her spirit holds them in the mother's embrace of her eyes, and I'm inspired. I'm inspired to write words that do the same thing, about people who aren't as blessed as us. I'm inspired to love her a semblence as selflessly as she loves any random person on the street, not to mention me.
From meeting on ecstasy at nineteen over glow shows and Tide-painted walls, to doing partner yoga with a puppy and a house, from her parents' divorce to our all-weather wedding, not to mention the deaths of aunts and uncles, grandfathers, Grandma, and more friends than I care to count, from Tempe to Europe, Morocco to Brooklyn, Belize to Zimbabwe, from nightly bong hits to pre-noon shots, DSC to PLG, two-dog family picnics to talking about having a baby, we've built a foundation of memories to cherish, resurface and remember for the rest of our lives.
So to those who've lost it, I say, have faith. Love yourself to death, or in death you will part. Build love in your life so strong that when you're gone, it only grows stronger.
That's our goal, as older and older we grow closer, to the point each of us is just as much ourselves as the other. That's why I don't mind growing up. Death I've never had trouble with, it's what's in-between that's the problem. Now I don't mind living 'til I'm barely able to speak or swallow, long as I get to do it with her.
Life and time used to be as much a scam to me as writing. But that's changed, and so have I. Nicole, you've made a believer of me, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my ink-stained heart. The greatest words I've ever put to page are the vows we wrote and live to this day. Thank you for being my wife.
