An Honest Answer

On Wednesday morning, I was getting ready to leave Joey's house to pick up my aunt for Jessie's birthday extravaganza. I had just put my hair up, and I bent over to give him a goodbye kiss. With his typical sly look, he wrapped his arms around my legs and rolled over in the bed, pulling me in beside him. With his chin on my chest, his eyes switched over to their earnest look.

"Do you love me?" he said.

"Yes, baby. I love you very much."

"Do you promise?"

"Yes, baby. I promise."

"Are you happy?"

I looked at him and smiled. "Yes, darling. I'm very happy."

I am very happy. Everything feels so wonderful. Everything. Of course, life isn't perfect, and I could never expect it to be. But it's so close that it's scary.

It is hard to put into words why I am so happy. Right now, I'm home with my family. I am spending time with my siblings, with my parents, with my cousins and relatives I only get to see a few times a year. I'm home with my other family, with Joey's parents, who always have treated me like their most precious daughter.

I'm home with my Joey. I've been sleeping in his bed, tossing and throwing blankets around, rolling back and forth. In the night, we trade pillows, spots in the bed, and our sleeping becomes a war for territory, with advances and retreats the entire night through. In the morning, there's always a truce.

I've been able to see my friends from home. On Tuesday night, eight of the Tenacious Ten were able to convene at House of Pizza, then to Sonic, then to Waffle House. I've been hanging out with these boys who are like my brothers, who always greet with huge hugs and kisses on the top of the head, who make fun of me as much as my real brothers. Last night, we went to Joey's house and had a raucous time, and ended up passed out on all flat surfaces after drinking beer and eating pretzels and playing way too much Guitar Hero.

But I'm not just happy when I'm at home. I'm happy all the time. Even with all the work I have to do at school, I am happy there. I have new friends who are as silly, fun, and weird as I am. Friends who will skip out on Biochem so we can go eat pancakes. Friends who send me text messages informing me about the smell in the cafeteria when I wasn't there to experience it for myself. Friends who will commiserate about bad grades on the phone or over Indian food before gelato and The Big Lebowski. Friends who want to be with me, who make an effort to meet for sushi or ice cream or coffee or cupcakes. Friends who are there, no matter what, who pay attention to my mental health, who always provide a listening ear.

The idea of "friends" is a nebulous one, one that I plan to explore at some later time, probably before NaBloPoMo ends. It is no secret that I have lost a lot of friends in the past year, that I kicked some of them out, that I pushed some of them away, that some of those friendships eroded and I couldn't catch them from crumbling in my fumbling hands. I am very lucky for the friendships that have survived. I'm lucky to have friends to visit, to call on the phone, to email silly, insignificant things to. I'm lucky that some people worked with me to keep our friendships strong, that they didn't give up on me, that we were able to take something that could be broken and fix it up to be beautiful again.

Again, I'm so lucky to have Joey, to have this boy who worked so hard because he was so convicted about our love. Sometimes, still, I don't know what to do with it, because it feels so heavy and all-important, and because it amazes me so much.

So I wrap myself up in it, and go to sleep. Perfectly warm. And so happy.