Dearest:

Do you recall the time we spent in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, PA at 5:40 AM on July 14, 2014? I remember trying desperately to shake the sleep from my eyes, recall you asking me, eyes gazing up at the brightening sky, how I felt about you amid this sudden turn of events that suddenly made you mine again.

“I sometimes wonder how I make you feel,” you told me. “These feelings can’t be forced, can’t be feigned, can’t be stemmed by words…”

Hearing “force”, I thought back to the time when you introduced me to Newton’s Second Law of Motion. I remember feeling enraptured not just by the beautiful cause-and-effect that the second law presented, but also by its unassuming power. Right then and there, as you excitedly differentiated the momentum function with respect to time, I saw before my eyes an equation that could provide the safest speed a car can travel around a bend, elucidate movements on a string-and-pulley system, and shed light on the way planets orbited in the annals of space.

And it was easy to notice that in moments when you and I reveled in the life of the mind, it was as if anything and everything were possible. We ignited priceless feelings of invincibility and enlightenment, fanned the flames of learning just for learning’s sake. Sporadically exiting our lips were comments that would sound out of place in every other context, one-liners like “What a gorgeous function!” and “I wish I could sit down and compliment the variables on how their multiplying has birthed such attractive offspring.” It was always so wonderful to have that closeted streak in me liberated, even if it were just in front of you, and it will forever be a mystery to me why this latent side of me was never unveiled until you came into my life.

“… It’s just like an identity element, you know, in math… I don’t want to be like that with you. I want your feelings about yourself to be positive. I want to tear away those doubts…”

The first time I read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, it was 2014 and we had just begun communicating again after one and a half years of silence and soul-searching. I remember prodding you into reading this movement-triggering text; reminisce about questioning you on your unwavering feminist ideologies, which I found most disarming. In our conversations, you always had that spark in your eye when you spoke of how the solidarity of women should and will triumph, even in the face of widespread inequality posed by geography, race, culture, and socioeconomics. You possessed an idealistic charm when you explained to me your take on why it mattered to “be something” beyond the antiquated identities prevailing social mores tended to assign an individual.

In my attempts to describe what we have to others, I frequently mention the identity of interests that we have secured, feminism being only one of these interests. The ebb and flow of our late night and early morning conversations, the undercurrent of shared affinities that buoys it, anchors me to a new brand of happiness that I hope to experience for a long time.

You once confided in me your fears about losing your identities in the zenith of our bliss – a fear that I too experienced – but I will conclude that in willingly discarding parts of our old selves, we inadvertently develop newer, more distinct identities that we feel more comfortable inhabiting. With you, it was never about giving up individuality; it was always about fortifying it. And unlike the American housewives depicted in The Feminine Mystique, the way by which we developed these identities was predicated neither on society nor on irritating mystiques, but on our own capacities for self-determination.

“… Anyway, that is beside the point. I always veer off on odd tangents when we talk…”

I’ve always been impressed by the stream-of-consciousness narrative mode. I remember you telling me you found it overwhelmingly abstruse and unnecessarily complicated, making for an indigestible narrative frame that evoked feelings of dizziness and nausea, an opinion I strongly disagree with. As essayed in novels like Mrs. Dalloway and The Sound and the Fury, and shorts like The Snows of Kilimanjaro, the stream-of-consciousness technique interprets the complex machinery within the human mind with more astonishing accuracy than any empirical brain scan could. My only criticism of stream-of-consciousness lies in its name: “Stream” implies a succession moving continuously in one direction, but in factuality human thought, with all its tangents and darting, does not follow the singular thread that “stream” connotes.

If anyone were to undertake the arduous challenge of mapping out my thoughts stream-of-consciousness style, they would be appalled by my short attention spans. Individual words and phrases tend to send me spiraling back to a different time and place, to an altogether disparate thought. They will find that my mind, when provoked by the strangest of stimuli, will constantly go off at a tangent. And they will also find, among other “mindless” oddities, that most (if not all) of these tangents are centered on you.

Right now, as you read this, you probably feel insulted, and justifiably so. The tangent you are familiar with, such as that used in calculus, after all, “just touches” the functional curve at a single point; the tangent plane in differential geometry, “just touches” the surface once.

But let me tell you that these digressions from the original thought do not deserve the thoroughly deceptive “tangent” designation, because admittedly, it’s not as if these thoughts “just touch” the skin-deep subject of you. My deviations from original thought manifest in a series of mulling over common passions, challenging viewpoints, dissecting conversations, questioning histories, reminiscing about moments when I felt like the luckiest person alive, over-thinking “I love yous”, over-analyzing physical details, and so much more. They overtake the original thought, inundate it, make me forget it completely, until I find myself veering off on another “tangent”, (which will more likely than not, also be about you).

These streams of thought cannot be called tangents, also because “tangential” signifies that which is peripheral, a mere supporting role, and I assure you that you in no way are relegated to an ancillary position in my thought life. It makes me feel frightened and uneasy, but the way the thought of you abounds in my mind, renders every other thought secondary and tangential in comparison.

And I suppose that somewhere in between your constant recurrence in my mind, the many arguments that assailed us, the labyrinthine discussions on esoteric theories, and moments when we watched sunrises and sunsets in awe, I found within you and within us an unchecked, unrivaled, unheralded source of vitality that has in so absurd a manner succeeded in inspiring and empowering me. Like the blood that courses through my veins, this dynamism and passion that you embodied sustains me through the worst of times, but also arms me with the strength and ardor to embrace the best of times. Just like the sunrise, you brighten my day, continuing to be the light driving out the darkness and disillusionment that I thought would always consume me.

For this, my dearest, I will be eternally grateful. You are the only person in the world who makes me so full of life, yet so breathless, at the same time.

“Alive,” I interrupted, as I looked into your eyes. Deep-set and sparkling, your eyes had a magnetic effect on me, undoubtedly setting me on a ballistic trajectory away from self-loathing and insecurity, and catalyzing my smooth-sailing journey to a humble oasis where I knew, irretrievably, that I belonged.

“What?” You asked.

“That’s just how you make me feel, to answer your earlier question.” I could feel my face flaring as if it had been grilled beneath a complex of ultraviolet rays, as I said words that failed to capture the immensity of the feelings that tugged relentlessly at my heart. “You make me feel alive.”