I've got terrible hair and an old car. Hollywood is 3,000 miles away.

In the movie version of my life, I am driving down the interstate steeped in thought with tears streaming down my face, that conversation replaying in my head. Smiling though -- these are tears of gratitude and appreciation, not misunderstanding. They're the sweat of healing as it exerts old barbs of hurt from embedded places.

It's hard work, healing.

Some very appropriate song would be playing, perhaps one made specifically for me, right now. But this is no movie and all I've got is the radio streaming Adele, and so I listen to "Someone like you" and discard the bits that don't count. I'm left with:

Nevermind that I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you

Don't forget me, I begged, I remember you said

Sometimes it lasts in love, sometimes it hurts instead

Aqua-eyed boy is home. He made it through deployment safely.

We didn't need to catch up because we were already caught up. We needed the inexpressible. To be understood. Not just to understand our ties together, but the kind of understanding that should have come from home delivered to young psyches by healthy parents and happy homes. Not homes struggling with fires and pain and loss and shame.

We sat on a park bench overlooking a small canal and held hearts, not hands. It was our deepest, most honest conversation yet. He reached into the darkest parts of my soul and gently picked out shards of glass. Monkeys pick nits from eachother's bodies, allowing themselves to be vulnerable for their own good. Evolved species we are, modern-day lice infest the cerebrum and can best be reached through the loving gestures of another.

In the movie version of my life, this scene marks a turning point. Scenes of friendship where the characters dance in the kitchen wielding spray cleaner and sponges, nap like kittens,  read quietly from opposite sides of the room, make specialized chai and bristle over the discovery of raucous billing mistakes, and ends with the outpouring on the park bench. Fluidity that speaks of togetherness, where you can simply be because the sense of comfort is so great; how is unimportant. The turning point isn't all this, though. These things were there before. It's the peace with what will be.

If this were a movie, we'd maybe fall in love. But go with what you've got, right? I've got terrible hair, an old car, a long drive down a boring interstate, and Adele on the radio. Absolutely NOT Hollywood material... but it is real life. We fall, yes. But instead into a deeper friendship. We acknowledge that one day there will be others and we will rejoice in each other's happiness. We hug. And we laugh.

I wish nothing but the best for you.