Sunday, Mar. 23, 2003 - 11:19 p.m.
I thought I knew what pain was, when I lived through years of my parents fighting loudly upstairs while I was in my room trying to escape in books and television. I thought I knew pain when I left high school and knew in my heart that I would most likely never see the people whom I called friends again. I thought I knew pain when the same thing happened when I transferred to a new university after my sophomore year in college. When I dealt with living away from home for the first time in my life, when I felt like I had no friends around me, when I felt completely alone, when I struggled with coming to grips with being gay, when I told the first of my friends about that, I thought I felt pain.
All of those combined seem inconsequential when the one you love is hurting and all you can do is offer words over a cell phone connection peppered with static. Times like these require face-to-face conversation, a comforting touch, a shoulder to cry on, which are all impossible when roughly two hundred fifty miles lie between the two of you.
Send him some comforting thoughts and guestbook love his way. It may not be much, but it's the best I can do for the time being.
