“He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine.”
I’m sitting here, watching the Teddy Kennedy funeral, crying. I was, like, really upset when I heard the other morning, heard that he’d died, but… when someone close to you dies, it’s hardest when you first hear of it. When someone you don’t know dies, like a celebrity or an acquaintance, the funeral is the hardest part, because it hits you, the full extent of what you’ve lost, but more poignantly, exactly what the world has lost. I think that’s the way it goes.
“If I were in heaven, I should be extremely miserable… I dreamt once that I was there… I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.”
I’m really blessed. I’m not one to say things like that, because I think that if I’m being completely honest with myself, I don’t believe in such things as “blessed”, because I don’t believe in such things as gods and heavens and prayers and miracles. But if there were a God who decided randomly to bestow favor on certain people (and it couldn’t be other than random, or how would I have ever found myself a beneficiate), I would be blessed. If college has imparted one lesson on me so far, it’s that there’s a lot of mendacity and superficiality out there, I think particularly at the age we’re at now. Every guy’s facebook status that pops up on my news feed says something like “Crazy night last night!” or “Sick parties this weekend.” Every guy I pass on campus seems to be talking about where the next frat party’s gonna be at or how drunk he got a few nights ago. Even the girls are bad… last weekend, and I believe I already alluded to this, I went out with some girls from my hall, all of whom had boyfriends, and they were wearing dresses I’d feel indecent using as nightgowns and heels that a transvestite couldn’t walk a city block in, I swear. They have butterfly tattoos on their lower backs and whole wardrobes full of too-short shirts to show off said tattoos, and write things on one another’s dry erase boards, which, as I’m sure you’re all experiencing, everyone hangs on their dorm room door, like “Hey, you girls wanna meet up at Bible study tonight?” and it makes me so uneasy. It seems like if you’re not fake, your priorities are just horribly skewed… and I wonder how in the world I managed to find something real in all this mess. The more time I spend at college, the more I realize what a truly rare thing it is, what I have with Reed. It’s not easy, I’ll say that, but it’s… well, I don’t know anyone at all who’s had this sort of experience.
“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.”
I have real love in my life… and, you know, this is a different sort of thing than real love between family members or real love between friends (which, I hope you all know, I value immensely), because those kinds of love help you define and establish your identity, whereas this… subsumes it. You become less yourself, because you- your personality, your future plans, your desires, your sadness- are bounded solidly to those of another person. The words “sacrifice”, “commitment”, and “security” take on whole new meanings. Last night and this morning have been… a taste of what I want for the rest of my life. Last night I curled up in bed with Reed, we had sex, and then fell asleep in each other’s arms and slept through the night until morning, when we woke up in each other’s arms and had sex again. I don’t mean to be crude, because it was the most clean and beautiful thing, and I hope you all understand that there is a point I’m trying to make, that this isn’t just me telling you stuff you probably don’t want to know about my sex life… my point is that I’ve found something that isn’t just fun and relevant and satisfying to me now. I’ve found something that is going to be fun and relevant and satisfying to me every day for the rest of my life, and it deprives me of the drive to even want anything else. Reed once said to me “I love you and I’m always going to love you, I’m going to love you when I’m old and weak and I’m dying, and I’m going to die and you’re going to be right there next to me.” It makes me cry, to remember him saying that… it’s intense and morbid and frightening and breathtaking, and how many people get to hear that in their lifetimes? We have the sense of certainty that comes from our notable maturity as people, the passion that comes from our physical youth and naivety, the self-awareness that comes from our above-average intellect, and the tenderness that comes from our own surprise at this rare combination of features. I don’t think everyone gets to have all that in their lives, and so I say that I’m blessed, in a desperate attempt to explain or convey this strange and good thing that’s happened to me.
I think my parents know that I intend to marry Reed, though I’ve never said so to them. I learned, several days after my mom and dad dropped me off here at college, that my dad had spoken briefly to Reed, alone, before they left. It was mostly the usual father stuff- make sure she stays safe, keep her focused on her studies- but Reed mentioned one thing specifically that my dad had said that caught my attention: at the very end of the exchange, my father said to him “Be good to each to each other.” Walter is a sentimental man, and so I know that it wasn’t without purpose that he told Reed that… on the day of my mom and dad’s wedding, those were the exact words that my dad’s father, my Grandpop, said to my mother, as a sort of final and ultimate piece of advice. So I think my dad knows just how serious I am about this… and I think that’s his way of showing he approves.
So I’m happy, and sad, and thoughtful, and ready for the air to get colder and ready to further retreat into something intellectually and emotionally stimulating. I want to share more than just what I’m doing here at college… I want to share, like I always have, how I feel about it and what I think about it. I want to know what you feel and what you think about too. So share.
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