You Don't Know What It's Like

Salvador Dali - Don Quijote

I want to tell ya'll about toe socks.

It all started in August - maybe September of 2000 with a pair of neon rainbow toe socks when I saw a sad eyed boy across the lunch room and decided that someone who looked that good had no business looking that sad.

I want you know that my love for you is abiding and unconditional. I get so mad at you at times, as I'm sure you do with me, but it's not for stupid and petty reasons. Selfish ones, maybe - but only because your pain is my pain. Your sorrow is my sorrow and your failure cuts me to the core. I can't stand to see you in pain, or to think that somehow something I could have done or said might have prevented some physical or emotional hurt.

I walk each and every day in this life with you not because I want to - though I do want to, and not because I choose to, though I would choose if given a choice. I walk each day in this life with you because I have to - I have no other choice. To divorce myself from the sound of your voice and the thought of your very existence would be the worst kind of slow death I can fathom. I would simply wither and fade from loneliness and despair. You complete me - before I knew you I think I was truly un-whole. You have brought forth the very best of me and you know me better than I know myself.

I am so thankful everyday for every minute we speak and every moment we have shared in what others might perceive as idle foolishness. What they didn't know is that these moments were pivotal in our young lives. We were hard at work pushing one another to our greater selves. We were deep in the act of becoming. We still are. We haven't yet become what it is that we are to be, but I know that me without you and you without me will never see the thing through to the end.

I need you more than I have every needed anyone or anything. You are my soul mate and the truest most selfish/selfless love I have ever known. You are the apple of my eye and the grain in my coffee. You are the knower of my thoughts and the finisher of my sentences. You are the brother I always wanted and should have had. You are the best friend I dreamed of. You knew me even before I knew myself. You have never failed me, forsaken me, forgotten me, or given up on me. You have never purposefully hurt me - a great distinction that few can claim. You are the keeper of memories and moments. Sharer of ice cream and divider of donuts. You are the stuffer of napkins who keeps me accountable for all my stupid schemes and dumb ideas. You are the Ethel to my Lucy. You are my Sancho Panza as I go tilting at windmills once more. You are the Louis de Contes to my Joan of Arc. You are the Stitch to my Lilo. Without you, I am halved. I am diminished.

You are the keeper of the secrets and the only one on earth who knows nearly as much of the truth (and maybe more) than I do myself. I love you dearly - madly. Though we may at any time be parted by land or sea, we are never apart, for I carry you with me in the stories we've built together. You live in my laughter, which I think is a rather nice place to be. Though I do not dwell on it, I dread the day when more than geography takes you from me and in that moment, I can only hope that you are wrong about eternity and that death comes for me in swift order because I can't bear the thought of walking this world without you.