Spending a forever with anyone is a gift.  Trying and arduous and tortuous and obscenely beautiful.

I see couples daily who waddle in together at ninety.  Who laugh at one another's hypochondria.  Who fill in the missing pieces of confused and dawdling medical histories.  Who hold one another's hands during procedures which seem so foreign and terrifying and confusing.

The intimacy of several decades is irreplaceable.  Astounding.  But truly a test of endurance. Dedication.  Commitment.

I used to be under the impression--and continue to be, on the odd Tuesday--that commitment makes things dull.  That some of the shine of life erodes with days and days stacked one upon the other with the same face, the same hands, the same sex.

And yet, perhaps, I judge too harshly.  Too quickly.  Perhaps the real art is the making of something lovely over the course of many monotonous days.  Of looking at the one you have chosen and consciously loving them every single day for as long as you both live.  In laughing as bodily functions become intimate and inside jokes become so layered that one intermingles with the others in a perfectly seamless manner.

Perhaps the true test, in the end, is not of unconscious and tortured dedication but of creativity.  Of waking each day to a new nuance of a partner's humor, a new gray hair, a new song that speaks to you both on such a deep level that you play it on EVERY juke box in every bar you happen to wander into in any midwestern city on any day.

Perhaps the beauty, as with so many other things, is in the choice.  Is in the finite, inordinately stunning moments of utter mundanity that, somehow, become rich because of the human beside you.

There are so many things I would tell you, were you right beside me snacking on a bowl of cereal at ten pm.

I would tell you how exhausting and utterly creatively deprived working forty hours can be.  The waking up, the commuting, the ten hour shift, followed by a quick dinner, and repeat for four more days.  I believe this whole system is bonkers and we have all lost our minds.  Money is, after all, a made up thing.  It means something only because we say it does.  But there is food and heat and comfort here and so we sell our lives to a job because it is easy.  Because it is comfortable.  I would tell you I see the insanity in these days, in these minutes that are racing by.  I see them but cannot change things for now.

I would tell you, immediately afterward, that while I say I cannot change this situation I am lying to you.  Any of us, at any given moment, can change every single thing about the current trajectory of our lives.  I believe now--as I did so many years ago--that our dreams are only a moment away.  An insane moment of bravery from existing.

So perhaps the startling truth is I am just lazy.  Or ready to be mindlessly numb for a bit.  Ready to pay off some loans.  To have some real paychecks.  To feel grown up for the first moment since we graduated so many years ago.  To wear my big kid panties (they are, still, endlessly childish).

I would tell you that I want my own children, despite my rantings and ravings about how selfish the decision is.  I would even soulfully admit that, if possible, I would like more than two.  I would like them all to be close in age so that at times my home is nearly erupting with insanity.  I want things, my time here, to be as wild and out of control as possible.  I want a home spewing with love and family and busyness and devotion to one another and the world. I want these things even though I would have denied it just a few years ago.

I want, most of all, to still believe in ideals and the beauty of human beings as I continue to walk on this planet.  I want to see a sunrise and the mountains in the west and find myself utterly breathless at the sheer beauty of the gift of being alive.  I don't want a single moment to lose its shimmer because I still ardently believe my child eyes were the most honest.  The least tired.  The least jaded.  And I hope I can always recognize just how much it matters to believe in something.  Anything, really.  So long as the belief is deeply rooted, pervasive, and eruptive into the fabric of every detail of one's life.

And of course, my dear friend, I would end in telling you how much I adore you.  How much I love you.  How much I miss our gallivanting but recognize its passing as I must the passing of so many other beautiful moments in life.  That time is complete and we served one another so well.  Continue to do so (as evidenced by these words).  But it is not our time to be together any longer.  You have gone and I have gone and all we have between us now is the change our meeting catalyzed.

I love you so dearly.  I hope you recall in each bowl of cereal and microbrew, each practical joke entailing the use of new car smell, and every book nailed to the wall of an apartment (has there ever been more than one?) that there is beauty in every action.  In every moment.

Be brave, my dear one, in moments of adversity.

Generous in the presence of need.

Hopeful in the company of skeptics.

Loving to those who are lost.

Joyful despite your darkest moments.

Sincere to all those you meet.

Be true to the voice which has been with you all these long, long days.

And if cornered, recall there are many, many escapes from a puzzle.

Know that you are surrounded by love.

And that you will find me, my dear one, not far from you.

Because my heart rests--it always has--nearest to yours.