keys on the countertop and toothbrush removed

I have not felt compelled to write in a long time.  This depth of emotion is something that I haven't sat with, or rather I have not allowed to sit beside me, in a long, long time.

I love you, Daniel.  

We all know that love is a mere four letter word.  That we can use it for a multitude of things and vacillating feelings.  For instance, "I love gum", or "I fucking love that song".  But you, you are more than this love.  The absence of you is pain.  Not a fleeting, brief bandaid-tearing-off-pain, but a lasting agony that is like when you bite the inside of your mouth--you need to eat and drink, you keep feeling that agony with every moment that you are doing things you need to stay alive.

I thought about moving to Pennsylvania for you.  And creating a family with you.  I started to be comfortable enabling myself to think about being with you.  

For me, that is quite the accomplishment.  Because I have serious trust issues.

I know you as a good person.  As a compassionate, loving one.  I do not understand this, or what is going on.  I am going to try and give you the things that you need.  If I only knew you briefly in this life, I wish you well.  I have already prayed for you, and will continue to do so.  I will keep on loving you, and will continue to do so, even if that love changes over time--again, therein lies that difficulty with the word...it is so tiny a word for so vast a concept.  So inadequate and so unprepared for all that we must burden it with.  

I love this life.  I love my patients.  They teach me every day what tenacity and bravery and strength in the face of all that is fucking shitty and damning and painful is.  And so I fucking roll up my sleeves, and bear this.  I can do this.  I can survive.  I am a survivor.  I can do this.

I can do this.

I can chew.  I can swallow.  I can lift one foot after the next.

Thank you God for this life.