Wednesday, January 9, 2008

When I Was

I cried when she told me. I hadn’t cried out of happiness in so long, it felt good. In the fluorescent lighting of the kitschy 24 hour diner, with some woman in the booth behind us cursing about being old and not being fucking married, she blushed and looked down as she described how they’d been lying in bed. Her roommate was in the room too, so I didn’t get any other ideas, but still, they lay down together. She confessed to him, shyly and simply, that she was very in love with him. And he told her how how he’d wanted to say the same thing for a very long time. He really loved her too.

It was beautiful. It was something that she didn’t make a big deal out of, but it was painted in her eyes. My two best friends are in love and it made me cry out of joy.

Last year was hard. I can still remember every second, I can still hear every word of that phone call, and one phrase plays constantly. “Tu papa ya no esta con nosotros,” my uncle said. But that’s not something I’m ready to start writing about. As someone said about writing about moments that change your life and define you, you don’t want to end up sounding melodramatic. And it’s also not what this is about.

It’s about my two friends who are in love. It’s about the way she told him she loved him. It’s about how he has loved her for a long time. It’s about how even though fucking awful things happen in life, things that knock you to your knees, things that make you think you couldn’t possibly ever be okay, that despite all those things there are still tears of joy. It’s about how I was reminded that there is still good. It’s about how there is always hope.