This would be the day...

We met nine years ago today at a place called Hannah’s Lava Lounge in the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan. At the time I was the Corporate Communications and Marketing Officer for an international trade association and was preparing for a fashion show I was producing for New York Fashion Week (7th on Sixth, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, whatever you want to call it).

I went to Hannah’s on that beautiful Sunday because I noticed a sandwich board outside that was advertising BINGO. When I got inside, he was there and my life changed forever.

I have written before, and it’s still the same, that he was greatest love of my life. Through all the good and the bad, through all the hope and the heartache, he still remains the man I can’t live without.

Our relationship has changed. We are no longer husbands in any sense of the term but we remain constant. That was the promise I made to him. That is the promise I will not break.

There were great years.

Those years have passed.

The love I have for Ric transcends definition. It is not conventional but, of course, our relationship has defied convention from the start. It is, however, an unyielding love.

It’s no longer romantic, no longer erotic, no longer passionate. What it is is something that I cannot describe in words. It has caused me the greatest hope and the worst torment and it has, above all, taught me.

I ran rambunctious towards the illusion, foolishly believing its promise, mistaking the mirage for living water. I was running toward desperate anticipation. I anticipated happiness, glory, and whatever else in pursuit of the illusion.

That’s what it was….the illusion.

I learned, though, that love is messy, never perfect and often hurts. I learned that, despite my best laid plans, I am more flawed than I ever knew, more wounded than I ever felt and more cautious than I ever wished to be.

And on this day, an anniversary if you will, I want you to know this:

I don’t have much contact with people anymore. The details of life are beyond me. I simply understand that I reach for what I don’t know. And that’s ok.

Are people better for knowing me? Not likely.

Do I add value to people’s life? Not at all.

Perhaps, though, I can add something.

This is what I propose…

When I go, let me go.

I am prepared to go.

Do not leave me in the loving arms of Jesus. Just leave me.

Don’t believe the words of your side only

You can be an advocate for two things at once even if those two things seem antithetical of the other.

I love you.

God knows I love you!

Fight for the right and dignity of the poor and unknown and also me. Fight for the gay one, and the unsure one, and the one that doesn’t seem to belong. Fight for him. Fight for her. Simply fight,

Write your book. Sing your song. Dance your dance. Include me. I will always be here. I have always been here.

Let go of the things you can’t control. Let go of the things you can. Just let go.

Worry not. Period.

Forgive. Repeat.

Know where you stand and make your arguments coherent. Always coherent.

This is your destiny. This will be your destiny.

Learn.

Unfold.

Love

And most of all

Live!