Love

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What Is It Good For?

Absolutely everything! I heard the "War" song on my way to CVS to pick up my prescription this morning and having just watched this film, "Love Actually," I'm reminded that love is what keeps me so alive.

There's Pat-love and cat-love and love for our nephew who will be 16 in less than two hours, and our niece who'll be 16 in a few weeks, and our twin-nephews, who are 10, and for my mom and Pat's, and for the memory of my dad, z"l, and for my dear sisters, brothers-in-law, my friends and myself.

And there's love for the sound of the rain outside, and the daylight lengthening lately, and for relief the that comes with exercise and laughter and intimacy. The movie was full of schlocky moments, but it charmed me anyhow. Spoiler alert:

It showed the love of a mentally-ill sibling, of a childhood crush, of a dead spouse and others. As I'm writing about the movie, I'm thinking about a loving response from earlier today that I received from a girl (she was then) who I knew in high school and reunited with electronically via Facebook.

It turns out that now, she identifies as bisexual, but she was not self-aware back then. And it was lovely to hear her celebrate my life and love: "I'm very happy that you found happiness in your life. I think life is far too short to hide what we are and to not grasp the happiness we all so totally deserve," she wrote.

If I had self-destructed in the face of feeling like the only one of my kind in high school, rather than hanging on, I would have missed the comfort that this simple note gave me a quarter of a century later. Sometimes, things take a quarter of a century to feel all right.