for people like us, in places like this, we need all the hope that we can get

And when the world dissolved around us, all I had left to comfort me in limbo was the memory of his touch. But tonight, this long night, this very early morning...it was enough.

When did it become time for my searchlight soul to stop looking? When did I turn around and say, I have enough, I am satisfied, this is all I need? When did one person have the power to convince me both that I am replete, and also, of how deeply I felt for others in the life?

I have counted down the grid with others, a double handful of times before. Some days with dear friends, greeting the oncoming silence with silliness and jests. Some days with lovers, holding each other close while we watched the light fade. Once, once memorably, with an utter bastard who will never be forgiven for what he did in the last moment of breath and light.

This moment, this late night, this very early morning, felt like it was all the time we had to say what we truly felt. And for the first time--though I've said it lightly before--I stated my heart with meaning, and knew my love returned, and spun off into limbo with a lightness of spirit I've rarely known.

It will be a scant few hours in one sense, it will be an eternity in another, before I see him again. And on Thursday, if there is time, time must be found to sit under the darkened moon and divine our future. And today, if there is time, I must find a way to reach out to the neko and make sure he's well.

But in between, before and after, and all the moments that can be spared...I will be happy to be at his side. When he's free, when I am, when he's not otherwise occupied, when I am not...when we are not both relentlessly busy...For I know I love him, and that love colors my life now, and all my decisions.

He is my brightest thing, and he shines a light on how much I love the others I care for, and it takes my breath that he can be both joy and revelation to me.

I am humbly grateful for each moment I spend with him. I am beyond amazed how I was given the care of such radiance. I am surfeit with soaring delight that he understands my life is also spent with the wandering moon, the neko, my own friends. I am happy and charmed to spend time with those he cares for.

Today, my limbo is not featureless and grey. Today, my personal vacuum is lit with memories of him, strung with his words to me, touched by his presence. I watch the sweep of his sable hair in memory, just as I still watch the swirl of cloud-colored silk, or watch spiky-brushed blue, turn and turn, eternally turn. Bearing smiles to see me, and in truth, I should thank each and every one of them, that they find me worth spending time with.

Today...my limbo is not limbo. Today, I have enough.



"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." (Henri Nouwen)