The man I almost married

Broadway and I have been casually emailing back and forth for the past month, sending each other links to interesting articles and pictures of cute animals.

Today, there was a huge Comcastic blackout of the internet in/around Boston, and he helped me to circumvent it and then to fix my router following it. After everything was working again, I sent a self-deprecating email about how the internet is too complicated for me. He replied with a harsh denouncement of his misspent youth messing around with computers, followed by:

"That's how cool I was as a kid. The man you almost married. Near miss."

Tears gushed out on the spot when I read that, and I cried for Broadway all over again. I cried that I couldn't be the one to make him happy. I cried for how solemnly he leads his life. I cried for how much weight he always has on his shoulders, mostly self-imposed and unnecessary. I cried for not knowing when he'll find his actual special someone who will be with him for the rest of his life. I cried for me not being able to make the sacrifice and just be happy with him. I cried for how much I still care and love him, and I cried for how much that love and care isn't the kind that makes me want to commit my whole life to him.

In the same way, I cry for HB too, but I kinda have to try a little to get the tears going. In the end, I know that HB will be okay. He'll do just fine for himself. He's got that right balance of slight cynicism with naive arrogance to get himself through, or at least to convince himself he's doing the best that he possibly can, and what he can ain't all that bad. He goes through life with no weight on his shoulders.

He loves me, but he'll do just fine without me.

in which he loves me

HB called me this afternoon, having come home completely drunk after a night of whiskey with his boys who want to say goodbye in Beijing.

We said "i love you" back in July when we first started officially dating, but then I didn't feel it anymore so I stopped. It's been a long time since either one of us has said the l-word.

In his drunken state, HB told me "I fucking love you." We were talking about very unrelated things.

And then some point later in the conversation, he said, "Never fucking doubt how much I love you. Never."

I still think we have a chance together, but not right now. Right now, I need to go out and be unconstrained in this world, no matter how much he loves me. I kinda do hope that whenever I manage to figure my stuff out, HB will still be there for me.

His cities

San Francisco will forever be his city. I won't be able to visit Dolores Park without thinking of him, canvas bag slung over his shoulders and hanging low below his waist, overlooking his city. Maybe he's thinking about his childhood home. Maybe he's thinking about me. Maybe he's thinking of which coffeeshop to visit for his afternoon espresso. Who knows? He just looks peaceful.

He already knows that I will leave two short months later for an internship in Beijing, but he's trying not to think about that. He is lost in the moment, in the city he loves, to celebrate his newly-acquired "doctor, but not the kind that helps people" status with his new(ish) fiancee. He doesn't yet know that Beijing will be the beginning of the end.

In a way, Boston is his city, too. He grew up here. His went to school here. Twice. He met and lost his love here. Twice. The second times, both times, were much more difficult than the firsts.

But Boston will never be San Francisco. Boston is where things are broken, where the world beats him, where he remembers the corners he retreated to because he had nowhere else to hide. San Francisco is where things heal, where the world embraces him, where he can hide from the pains in Boston without hiding from the world.

There are many other cities along the way, too. Some, he will always associate with me; others, he might only have the kinds of memories that fade easily because they struggled to imprint heavily on our minds in the first place. A gourmet burger place in downtown Hollywood might cause him to pause a second longer than usual, triggering a vague pang that he finds hard to pinpoint, but that which suddenly brings my image into his conscious thoughts. Or perhaps a dolphin's glide in the waters of a coastal city conjures up the sounds of uncontrollable laughter from a different time (and perhaps even a different city) as he pulls out his aviators to cover up the glint of the water. Similarly, a pickpocket in a foreign country might remind him of a story told on grassy fields amidst a group of giggling frisbee girls whom he tried hard to capture on camera.

Three years of cities. Three years of memories. Three years of promises of faraway places we will have to visit during the rest of our lives.

Three years became just three years, and three is not forever.

But San Francisco, San Francisco will forever be his city. To him, and more importantly, to me.

he's cute

Broadway is getting sick of his iPhone and wants to get the new Android when it comes out. This past weekend, he made this off-comment to me:

"I thought about it. I'm going to get the new Android when it comes out, and I'll give this iPhone to you so then you can always play your games."

Hahaha, I do always steal his iPhone to play games. And every once in a while, he'll poke me after getting home from work and tell me he found a new game I might like on his iPhone. I smiled inside.

Also ... we got engaged this weekend :)