And then, out of no where, there are moments of unadulterated joy.

I had told Tony mere minutes before walking in here that he had to keep hope. Hope that there was much honest and true love coming to him. Hope that he would be happy not only for a minute or a month, but for an extended length in his life. I heard his broken heart through the phone as I crouched in a corner on Madison Avenue, huddled from the wet cold of New York City in March. As he spilled out his anguish, his pride and confusion and shock resonating in his choked sobs, I recognized myself not two years ago, when everything I knew to be true about love was destroyed in one phone call, and I ran to Great Jones Spa and French wine bars by the dozen to drown out my … yes… despair.

I promised him that there was joy to come. Even though my own heart is still crackled, and I accept that in a way I may never be as consistently happy as I was in my younger years when Tony and I drank until dawn and took another bow and fought like on the side of the road… there are moments of joy.

And, now, here I am.

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