I am not good at shorthand

but it feels important that I put a stamp on what I've just been living.

I want to make sure it's all real to me: the sinus infection that took me to a fever and the passing of time and love that brought me back. And the trip to the north that followed.
I think I have always told myself that I am capable of one day having Big love. Well. I am feeling it every day. I am feeling it in the old friends who have in them a lifetime of stories I share. When I am with them I always wish I had another day or two to spare to let my me out and to catch a little bit more of their them. And I was feeling Big love at the wedding by the river last weekend. By far, my favorite. The bride and groom walked down to meet each other in the middle of a circle of green to the beat of the music coming from my horn and from the mind and body of the man at my side. We do that well. I loved so much the bride, the bride who found treasure deep inside me long before I could see the reflection of worth in my own eyes. I was there to lace up her wedding dress and fasten the pearl necklace and settle it down on her strong collarbone. I could cry picturing it because she was that beautiful and I was that close to it all when she was opening her hands and heart and taking her lover inside. I know that look, because I have it, too. I have it, too. I am hilariously loved. And for a year I have been in three minds about how I should be and how I will be but now I know. I know by the way he brought me painkillers and kissed me even when I was sick and I know by the tone of his voice when we sat on the rocks watching the river run past us talking about our futures and I know by the way the sunset reflected off of his cheek and I know by the way much later into the night we snuck away from the party to dance alone, just the two of us and the stars. I know: you are the one.
I don't understand and have no way to pay for this gift, but my life has been just given to me like this and it's not only mine, it's ours and I can't wait.
I have been full and humming with I-like-you. We kept celebrating this weekend: birthdays and Holy Shit, One Year and bonfires and jello shots and red velvet cake, and yesterday before finding our way back to the highway four of us had lunch together at a place I'd like to take along home with me with a waitress who said 'yous' and made me smile because that sounds right. I wish I could always let it be written in my face and coming from my mouth how much I love your welcome and your time and your lifetime friendship. When I say thank you and I'll miss you what I mean is: y'all are like little pieces of my heart.
S and I drove home in a car that smelled like spilled wine and pasta sauce down a highway with potholes and traffic jams and I am sure again that he is real because there's no one I'd rather be stuck in traffic with and lost in Frackville with and nose to nose and toe to toe with once we're finally home.