Alone, Together

Everything and everyone's winding down. I said earlier how everything in 2009, for better and not, I don't know that I would change it:

"2009, you were really good to me. really you were. showed me so many things i am capable of and not; that i can be closer to the person i want to be; that i can have people around me who love and appreciate my cynical heart. over all, you were honest to me, 2009. honest about everything and everyone, especially, when it came down to me, you made me cry when i needed to, and fear, and work, and struggle and pay and learn and adapt and, yes, even suffer a little. because i needed to.

so, 2009, thank you for the laughs and tears and holding my hand, even though i probably didn’t know i needed it."

Of course, what I am taking the most from it all is what three people in my life have shown me about themselves and about me.

My older brother, Rene, has been with me through everything. EVERYTHING. Stout and resolute, he's never let me down. He's picked me up every single time I've fallen and scraped my shins. He loves me unlike anyone in the world. I know it, and I feel it to be true. And it's more than fraternal and familial love. He's concerned if I've taken my meds, if I've money, if I'm sad. We have an open relationship after a fashion, but we never verbalize everything. I tell him I'm going out on a date, he laughs and says, 'Did she lose a bet?' and I tell him, 'No, he didn't,' and he clams up, unsure and maybe a little bit put off. But he asks me the day after if I had a good night. Without him in my life I'd be a poorer example of being a man and being a part of my family. And, you know, as we get older, and he sees my hair loss and I see the way he plays with his little girl, I can't ever imagine him being any other sort of person. In 2009, he was the most stable of everyone I know in every way possible, always level-headed, never an asshole, always firm but caring. And at my lowest points over the last year, he stood up for me when I felt no one else would or could.

Golden is my best friend and she makes me laugh. This year, for us both, has been full of everything great and everything sad that makes up our lives, people like us: grown ups that are still forming. I spent an early morning in January on her balcony in Las Vegas and we smoked our cigarettes and talked heartache for a little while and laughed over vegan donuts. And when I came to see her and she came to see me, she showed me so much strength and so much heart, I can never compete with her. Because she's one of a kind. The only woman I know my age who is everything wonderful in the world and owns her femininity like a perfect dress. This year we cried lots together, and she showed me the true meaning of love and sentiment and passion and truth. I don't tell her nearly enough, but she is what I aspire to be as a human. And even when everything seems lost, when seemingly everything and everyone was not rooting for me, she was, because she always has. She's the little sister I never had and I can't ever imagine my life without her in it.

(How I hear things in my head and then set down in words feels like such babble and such cliche.)

Corey is my unexpected bonus this year. I rail on and on about hating people and along comes this beautiful man into my life. And this year he showed me love in every form I've known and not and I can't be more grateful for it. Through the hours and days and months of knowing him and getting to know him, I see a person so unlike me that something in my heart and brain unlocks open to everything new I don't know and wasn't even aware existed. At my worst, he stood by me unlike anyone else has whom I've been involved with. He listened to me and heard my stories and told me his. He held my hand in the dark movie theater and told me exactly what I needed to hear every time without fail, and I am thankful for it. Because I couldn't ask for anything else in a man than everything he is. Killer smile.

I'm not feeling my best right now: everywhere everyone I love, so far away from me and that lonesome feeling still stings a bit.

I wouldn't be me without these people. Because all of them know everything about me and I love them for it. For making me be better no matter how hard I try to tantrum away. They see something in me that makes them care about me in ways I know no one else does. A new year, a new decade with three people who I love and admire and can't see my life without.

Good night, future.