And I suck at life.

So here I am, back where I met you, that one in a million, one a billion, no, seems like one in a trillion chance or more (what are the odds we’d pick the same interests, the same summer, the same place, be at the same skill level, wind up in the same group... they have to be impossible, I can’t understand how it ever happened, how I ever even saw you. It terrifies me, sometimes, how close I came to missing you. One rejected application, one missed flight, so many thousands of things could have left us apart forever). And they keep saying this thing, all the teachers and coordinators and interns, they all keep saying this thing to us about how this place is going to change our lives. And it takes everything I have not to burst out laughing, hysterically, uncontrollably, because they have no idea. They don’t know, they can’t know, there’s no way they could no, I don’t think I could explain it to them even if I wanted to. Because yeah, they’re right, the things I learned here, the time I spent, the work I did, it did change my life. And I did meet wonderful friends here. But none of that compares to the way it changed my life when I looked into your eyes and they captured me and kept me and I’m pretty sure they aren’t ever going to let me go. You, you, you changed my life beyond measure, beyond belief. I didn’t used to think I believed in love at first sight. I probably still don’t, not really. I wasn’t in love with you from the moment I saw you (or was I? I don’t know when I fell in love with you. I couldn’t describe the process, couldn’t break it down, couldn’t tell you anything about it really, except that it must have happened, because here I am, in love with you). But I can remember with frightening clarity the first time we spoke. I can remember seeing you approach and the panic that rose in my chest because dear God I did not understand why but never in my life have I so desperately wanted to tell someone that I thought they were beautiful. Never have I so desperately wanted someone else to know that I thought they were an exceptional human being. Never have I ever been so afraid to scare someone off before I even spoke to them. I couldn’t, didn’t dare, to say anything but the smallest, tiniest piece of what was there. Within a goddamn week I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to hug you close to me but I was so scared because we only had three weeks and I couldn’t bear it if I scared you away (I still can’t, I’m still afraid, I’m still so afraid one day you’ll just leave me behind, K, that I’ll be too much or you’ll just find you love someone else and we’ll be done). And they tell me this place will change my life. How can I not laugh? Change my life? You changed me, my very essence, my very soul, it felt like you shifted every cell of my body down to the marrow of my bones. How else do you describe falling in love?

Woops?

❤️