when i cry for her
2004-12-22 5:03 p.m.

today i went to christine's grave, and it made me really tired, as crying often does.

but it felt good to "see" her, and remember her. I talked to her (at her?) for a while. I updated her on what was new in my life, and I said sorry for not seeing the Ithacans while I was in London, and also if Jesus was a Messiah tell him I was sorry and no hard feelings and all but Christianity is just not my thing. And also I told her I loved her.

Which is not new to me. I knew I loved her when, in the hospital, when she couldn't hear me, I said "I love you," and my chest kept expanding and filling with something; and the feeling was so intense it ran up the sides of my neck to my ear and crawled across my face and made my eyes close involuntarily, this feeling of love and hope and just, love, that I would do anything for her.

That's when I knew I loved her. (And if you think I'm lesbian because I said I loved a woman, you can just stop reading right now and go back to whatever it was you were doing with your life before you wasted my time.) It was that moment in the hospital when she couldn't hear me, and the feeling hasn't really gone away since.

I thought I knew what love was; I've said it before to people. I once asked my friend David whether what I felt was love (not for him, for someone else I think) and he said that love is rare enough in this world that we might as well declare it when we think we are feeling it, even if we aren't sure. So with that, I've been "in love" many times. I said "I love you" to Jason and was pretty sure I felt it. And maybe it was love, I don't know, but not like what I feel for Christine.

And I told her that today in the memorial park, on a little bench. I told her I hope that I would someday feel that love again, the love I feel for her, because even though it hurts sometimes--mostly when it is filling you, and there's no release except to keep repeating "I love you so much, I love you so much," and even the words don't do enough to ease the pain, but it's a great, wonderful pain--I want to feel that love again. And it would be really nice, I told her, if someone could feel that way about me, for once, in the same way, and at the same time, that I feel it for then. If we both had that feeling I felt in the hospital, I think, I would be eternally happy.

And when I cry for her, it is partially becuase I miss her and partially because I know how much her family misses her, but also because she never got to feel that love. Maybe she did, I don't know, but I wanted her to feel it with a really good man. I wanted her to meet someone and have that love and I wanted to see them together. That would make me happy, too, just about as happy as me finding that sort of relationship for myself. That's why I cry.