I've finally made it. I sit here typing this in the apartment complex where I now live with Lalita and her husband, precisely 1,298 miles from my former home in Georgia.
My, the places I where I find myself. And the insane life I lead. Now the difference between dreaming and actually living those dreams has coalesced out of the theoretical ether.
It's funny how the little things stick
Make you seasick
Sweep you off your feet
Sweep me off my feet
How does it feel?
I played a game last December that unfortunately flew under most people's radar: Xenoblade Chronicles: X by Monolithsoft and Nintendo.
In Xenoblade Chronicles: X, I explored the bizarre and wonderfully alien world of Mira, where a handful of the last humans escaping from the wreckage of Earth land and face survival against thousands of dangerous species and extreme environments. On the five continents of Mira, looming fairy towers dwarfed me as immense, bioluminescent flying creatures sailed serenely between them. From that game I truly felt the vertiginous rush of encountering the frontier. I spent more than 170 hours just gaping at the stupefying wonders that marched toward me in seemingly endless succession. I felt giddy, beside myself at realizing that (diegetically, of course) I was likely the first human to witness those elusive lands and their secrets. Mira pulled me along inexorably, but I had no desire to remain still. My own curiosity and wonder propelled me onward, higher and deeper. I was exploring myself as much as the world around me. Not even in Skyrim did I feel so happily lost in a virtual world. Playing Xenoblade Chronicles: X is an experience I'm not likely to forget.
Just by looking out the window to my left, I feel all of those things I just described. The Rocky Mountains loom in the misty distance, towering above absolutely everything in their ominous majesty. They remind me of the ultimate authority of nature and of the fact that I'm no longer anywhere near my childhood home. When the ground beneath me is shifting, all I have to do is reach out and touch Lalita and her reassuring physical presence steadies me. But then she fixes me with her deep, brown, loving, and intensely heartfelt gaze and then I explode again with more happiness than I've ever known in my entire life.
It feels unlike anything up to this chapter of my story. All the books and poetry and songs that touched my heart, all the triumphs at band contests in the past, both my graduations, all the daunting college projects, seeing Mammoth Cave when I was fifteen, experiencing my first kiss that same year, all the road trips to Florida and Kentucky, the time I first experienced sex, and every single time I have contemplated all the intense moments of my life--
None of it comes close to the transcendent rapture I experience daily. It almost sounds like a religious experience. It's kind of creepy to realize how a virulent fiction can cause a person to feel similarly. For me, however, these feelings arise from reality.
I like it when you look at me like I'm an alien
Lure me with a lock of your hair
Taking that dare is a fire under my feet
Now I see I got to let go if I want to know
Got to let it steal my face
Now I embrace
So what's in front of me
Right in front of me
Lalita and I traveled together over the changing landscape and blew through St. Louis, Kansas City, and Topeka like the winds that buffeted us as we climbed up to the plateau leading up to the mountains. Because we were practically drunk on our love for each other, every moment radiated a shimmering aura that burned itself indelibly into my memory. Two I can think of right this moment are when we held each other in a vegan restaurant in St. Louis and when I played Permanent Waves for Lalita as we passed under a bruised thunderhead over Topeka. Every single time I took a breath and caught myself, I thought, this is the best time of my life. This is a great time to be alive.
The future disappears into memory
With only a moment between
Forever dwells in that moment
Hope is what remains to be seen
From the night she and I spoke again for the first time in more than a year, my life shifted increasingly into a new direction every day. The more I heard her voice, read her words, and felt her love, the image of my future grew clearer. Now I am waking up with her, laughing and reading with her, talking endlessly, cooking meals, driving places, joking, crying, clinging to and singing with her almost every day. It's all I ever wanted and so much more. Far more than I could possibly have imagined.
We've arrived in these times
But somehow things move on
So somehow we're standing here
And we're living through today
I've arrived in these times
But I met you
I've arrived in this kind of world
So I was able to meet you
Coming out here has proved to me that love makes anything possible. I trusted in love and I lived the songs that always swept my heart and mind away, like "Available Light," "Dreamline," "Time Stand Still," "No Line on the Horizon," and of course, "Trust Fall."
I trusted in love and found myself reunited with my best friend and greatest lover. All these years of opening myself up to the people in my life--even those who took advantage of me and ran roughshod over my heart--have finally paid off. I took a huge chance and now life overwhelms me in the best possible way.
I trusted myself and achieved the escape velocity I needed to tear myself away from stagnation and aimlessness. I loved myself enough to trust my feelings to guide me to this totally new plane of happiness.
In the last few entries I professed that with the love Lalita and I have, we could face any challenge. We're proving it every single day.
Love is the last and first
Lets you sail across the known universe
It's only a trust fall.
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