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I love him. Trust him. But above all I can count on my best friend, and that is truly something unique that I have never experienced with another person.

When I was young and my mother or some other adult asked me who my best friend was I thought of the question ever so literally. Who, out of those I call friend, would be the best candidate for best friend? It was not a matter of feeling or the bond between myself and another, it was an expectation that everyone has a best friend so then who do I say is mine.

Now, I could say that I am older and thus wiser to know and identify my best friend, but that is not the case. Instead, through the years of building a relationship with my best friend, did I have to learn (or was shown as you’ll read) to notice and then finally listen to my own feelings about those around me. Intuition some might call it, but that illogical intuition has proved to know more than any sort of logical reasoning I could muster up.

My best friend helped me become myself because by trusting me, counting on me, and loving me…though not necessarily in that order. We meet years ago in High School. Second period English class, just as the bell rung he dodged from the hallway into the room and then sat in the only left-handed desk. This caught my attention because I purposely had rejected the one and only holy left-handed desk in the class because it was too close to the clock (and I was too shy to want people looking in my general direction). So I had to wonder if he was a lefty or just dived into the first seat he could so as not to be late.

But, but it was enough that I looked because then I was doomed. Destined to become closer to him, for he saw me looking. And I can guess that for a High School boy having a girl looking at you is a memorable event…especially if the looking might be for a good reason!

We spent the last two years in High School slowly becoming friends, almost not seeing each other outside of the school grounds until after High School. And thank goodness. After High School I had the worst year of my entire life. Whatever your most painful life experience think of the pain you felt, whether it was for a day or for ten years there is nothing comparable to your worst life experience. The name of my experience was college. Everyone EVERYONE I ever thought I could count on deserted me or sabotaged me. I was the victim of a B movie script, because my life was too unreal. Were people really out to sabotage me?, desert me?, or did I somehow imagine it all?

But my best friend was there. He saved me from everyone and myself. I never had to ask. Unconditionally he gave me his love and let me count on him. Absolutely I have never done anything to deserve someone so wonderful in my life. And I have hurt him, I may have hurt him more than anyone else alive but he never retracted any of his support to me. I had never experienced such illogical selflessness before. Now I know it feels right and that feeling matters, but I was once so cruel to think that no one could be so selfless. It must be something dark because no one is so kind.

Since 2001 we have known each other but it was only this summer that I would say I finally was able to comprehend just how important he is to me. How he has helped to be me. There is nothing so great as that. He saved me from my stupidity. He loved me when I sent nothing but hatred to him. If I had never seen or experienced how much trust he gave me I would not be myself. My own actions of hate never brought hate back at me with him, he always showed me his own self and any hope I had to aggravate anything else was hopeless. I cannot say why I acted as I did, but can anyone say why they act in anger or hate? Usually what you put out into the universe is reflected back to you. Put out hate and receive hate. Find evil in others and you become an evil yourself. Maybe, his will to put out love was greater than mine to put out anger and hate, so he won. I'm so glad he won.

My best friend, my lover, my dearest Ice Heart here on Gaia.