So every Friday I work at a gallery downtown and take the bus to get there. Every Friday I get an iced coffee and wait in a long line of dozy customers. Every Friday I walk to this tiny market around the corner of the gallery, buy a bottle water and chat with Vena.
Vena is this small Hispanic woman in, like, her mid thirties. She’s got this long black curly hair, chubby cheeks and when she asks about my morning (like every Friday) she always says: “How the morning goes?” in an accent that reminds me almost of Penelope Cruz’s.
She works the check-out line and we haven’t missed a date. You know those people you see in your every day routine that you don’t really knowbut pretty much know? That’s Vena and I. I’m half asleep and dreading going to work for a ten hour day. She’s always chipper and gives me change back telling me to smile. It’s a routine that I’ve admitted to myself as getting old and stale.
Until today.
“How the morning goes?” Vena asks quietly. No smile like usual.
“You know, it’s going to be a long day,” I say while finding a crumpled dollar and smile. She doesn’t smile back, “How are you…?”
“My husband has cancer.” She says without a blink.
We both stand in silence with only a Michael Bolton song awkwardly hanging as background music playing over a small stereo behind the counter.
This does not happen every Friday.
“It’s in his throat.” She stutters. She says ‘throat’ like ‘troat’.
“I’m so… so… sorry, Vena.” I respond softly. No one is in line behind, but I feel this urge to get out of the line as quickly as I can. Mostly because it’s one of those moments where you just don’t know what to say to someone that is so clearly wanting something said to them.
“Thank you.” Vena says back with watery eyes.
I want to hug her, but I don’t know if that’s the thing to do. I want to tell her everything is going to be OK but I don’t know if that’s the thing to do.
I tell her I’ll see her soon and say “Sorry” again.
I step outside and put my aviators back on. That’s the thing about living in the city where you interact with so many people daily. Your routine is never really a routine because there are so many factors that can affect any daily pattern. It’s a beautifully terrifying thing.
I text Nate and tell him I love him. And instead of thinking about how long of a day I’ve got ahead of me, I start thinking about how each of these days are flying faster the older I get. I shouldn’t take take things for granted. That’s a bad habit the majority of us are guilty of.
That’s the one routine the majority of us need to break.

And to shave.

“You have to use your cape to take him down!” Nate screams to me while jumping up and down on the couch.
I’ve been beating the bad guys with my boyfriend lately.
Boyfriend.
It’s a word I haven’t used in years, two to be exact. It’s a word that means a lot more to me than a few week relationship. It’s a word that means commitment. It’s a word that means partner. It’s a word that means “team.”
Which is exactly what we are when we play Nintendo… Super Mario World to be exact. You have to know it, right? Mario and Luigi are brothers trying to battle the evil dinosaur/reptile thing through cute levels of moving mushrooms and flying turtles. It’s a game we both admitted we adored while kids and have been playing it devotedly together for a month now.
“Ok! You’re gonna jump that pit there and then kill that flapping turtle-looking thing and then you have to get that star.” I say biting my nails at his next attempt at the level.
We’ve totally developed a language while playing Nintendo and while dating. See, it goes like this: I met Nate this past winter and quite literally fell in love with him the instant he quoted a Saved By the Bell line (without knowing I liked Save by the Bell) and when we got ice cream and margaritas on the same night (agreeing that mint Oreo ice cream might be the ultimate flavor). ” He’s like my dream guy!” I tell my friend Megan in the car after taking her son to the doctors, ” I mean, is this what it’s supposed to feel like? It all makes sense!” After weeks and then months, Nate and I understand each other. Literally, we can speak with toothpaste in our mouths and know what we’re saying. It’s funny, too. I wasn’t looking for him and he wasn’t looking for anyone. It just quite literally came out of nowhere.
“Jump!! See that troopa thingy pop out of nowhere!” I yelp at Nate while trying to beat a level on Super Mario that’s been beating us for the last half our. Nate screams as one of the flying google-eyed fish takes his life.
We had our our initial struggles as we were both at very different places in our lives in the beginning of dating. He was quite literally here (imagine my index finger pointing really far left) and I was here (imagine my other index finger pointing really far right). And there was one point where I thought it was going to fall to the waste-side as many of my previous attempts at dating had. Except we jumped over the pits in our situation together and we killed the flying turtles in our situation together and we ran to the finish line, collected our coins, gathered our points and proceeded to the next level in our game together. The next level: Boyfriends.
That’s the thing about getting older and living through experiences. We think we only have one life and one chance, but just like 1-ups in video games, we get other chances. And just like how we learn after “dying” in the same places or getting lost in tube mazes, we take that next chance with new knowledge to really go in the right direction.
“Babe! You did it!” Nate screams at our fiftieth attempt at wrangling a crazy bad guy on the video game and progressing to the new level. “We are totally going to win this game!” Nate screams as we high-five and kiss… yes, high-five and kiss.
See, I’ve never really been friends with someone I was in love with. Never. I feel bad for saying that so bluntly. To be honest, I always thought that it never existed. Like Mario and Luigi and the bad guys of the video game, I thought maybe that it was a place that some people were good at mastering while others struggled to make it level after level. In my past relationship, I gave in thinking that I was going to be one of those people who was just not that good at playing the game. I wasn’t in it to win it.
“I love playing this game with you!” Nate says to me while going to the freezer to get ice cream for us both(Seriously, how amazing is he?).
I can’t help but wonder if he’s talking about Mario or if he’s talking about us.

I just wanted you to know that I still believe in you.
Best,
Byron
P.S. But I have some things we need to talk about.
I just wish you would, you know, stick to what you said. I was reading an article about you the other day in The Advocate while sitting outside on a coffee shop patio. It was warm and sunny and I had my aviators on and was sipping on an iced Americano and I was trying to write, you know, how writers have that problem where they say they’re going to write and then get distracted by things– like articles about you in gay magazines? I was all optimistic about things until I read that article and then all of the sudden that sunny day turned in to a dark and stormy night.
Anyway, during the entire article I made that “tsk” sound I make when I’m just disappointed by something. I make the same sound when my Netflix is a day late or if I forget my CTA pass at home. It’s also not the best sound to make on a patio where other people are around you because the “tsking” while solo makes you seem a little crazy.
Here’s the deal: people are kind of mad at you. When I say people, I’m mostly talking about gay people. I mean, I know you’re busy and stuff. That’s understandable. You totally have a huge mess to clean up after you know who was bunking in your office, but, Dude, signing off a “federal employee same-sex benefit sharing” isn’t really doing anything new. And that whole “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” concept you promised to work on and haven’t… well that’s almost as popular as Lindsay Lohan. Ouch. I know.
What I’m saying is that I’d like to get married without it being only “sort-a” legal. What I’m saying is that I’d like it if my gay army friend wouldn’t have to be worried about someone finding the letters his boyfriend writes him because it would break a really really stupid code. What I’m saying is that I’d like to really believe in the words I use to defend you at my family functions where there’s usually big discussion (and gestures) about your mistakes over bottles of wine. I hate having to defend someone who really could be doing more. I hate it.
I do still believe in you, I just want to believe in you more than I am right now.
I know I’m just another person with another opinion, but I do have a promise of my own:
I would like to say that if you start doing some of this stuff you promised, I would most definitely forgive you for those dad jeans you wore to that Sox game you pitched at.
And, Obama-man, forgiving you for those is dang forgiving.

Lists. I’m totally addicted to them. There’s just something about seeing a map of what you should/could/would do totally hanging out in front of you in the physical sense. It’ a Virgo thing. We like checking off accomplishments. We like being busy. We like be organized. Fine, call it obsessive.
Anyway, with the most incredible people I’ve ever met in my life (Friends!) and the most awesomeness boyfriend a guy could ever ask for (Nate! Everyone say hi, Nate! Did I mention he’s my boyfriend and he’s, like, the awesomeness(not to mention the sexiest) guy int he world? You’d love it to meet him. You’d also love for him to make his fajitas for you. Trust me.) I celebrated twenty-seven years of doing this whole living thing.
There’s just something incredible discovering that life keeps getting better the older you get. Sure there’s the whole “why does one Mojito kill me after I used to be able to drink, like, ten” thing. There’s also the whole “I should really get on that Roth I.R.A” shtick everyone keeps harping about. But realizing the fear that things suck as an adult is just what some people preach when, well, they are lame, is a realization that changes the way you look at turning thirty… forty… eighty.
Wait, where was I? Lists. Yeah, Byron. Lists. Inspired by the many lists I like to create in accomplishments, I’ve been inspired to create a list of things to work on/do each age I turn. Like, I’m twenty-seven… so this year I have twenty- seven things to make. Make sense right?
“Wait, you can’t start that tradition!” Nate says to me last night while curling up on the couch, “When you’re eighty you’ll have a ton more to do and you’re already super busy!”
See, that’s the point. Focus. I need focus. I need to remind myself that every year (let alone every day) is another year to better myself… another year to realize that those ten more wrinkles are better than when I didn’t have them( OK, that’s a metaphor. Wrinkles are great in the metaphor sense… but not in the crows feet sense). I need that focus to remind me that I still have a lot to work on when sometimes it seems like there’s nothing to work on at all. It’s a Virgo thing. Fine, call it obsessive.
I’d totally share that list with you, but I feel,you know, somethings are just better in private. Especially number twenty one on the list… totally number twenty one is, like, just for, ahem, two of us(NATE!).
But, I will share my top five:
5) Say “no” more
4) Choose your battles
3) Blog More (I promise!)
2) Start the big project (Secret project!)
1) Travel to another continent, again

In case you were wondering.