Albertinho

Jen and I spent a very rare night out from hospital (read: four hours, exactly, being timed on a stopwatch) at a Could Control’s Vivid Live concert in the Opera House on Friday night. It was probably the happiest I’d felt during my entire stay so far. It was night of escape to do the two things I love the most: see live music and spend quality time with the most important person in my world.

Things have been getting me down of late. Tomorrow I am going under for intensive surgery. I’m getting a colostomy bag put in, as well as an electronic vacuum installed into my back end. I’ll have to carry around this vacuum everywhere for a month, like my own little Beemo, as well as poop through a bag.

But every day, even when she can’t visit, Jen has made me feel better in the best way possible, albeit through bringing food, cracking jokes, telling me stories from her placement or just holding me as I cry out the pain. We met three years ago at a Cloud Control show, after meeting on Tumblr (sidenote: if anyone tells you tumblr gives you nothing, direct them to me) and seeing them play the songs that first brought us together that night again drew us closer, both figuratively and physically (in that we gripped each other tighter, ha). For us to see them again at a time when agony had brought us closer than ever was probably the most poignant and amazing experience I’ve had this year.

The more this rolls on, the more I find myself reflecting the characters in The Fault In Our Stars. I am dying of a strange illness, now with a box to carry everywhere, but carried by the strength of love towards an infinite that may not be greater than others, but is still an infinite worth valuing.

I really love this woman. As much as I hate everything about my disease, she gives me a reason to stay around. Not just for her, but because I am valuable to her. I am worth something to the world. To her world. And that matters.