There is nothing she can do to me that a man cannot. Then why with her do the possibilities seem so endless and exciting, while with a man the possibilities have always reduced to the one thing he can do that she cannot?

 

This is purgatory, but I am accompanied by a valiant angel, who wrestles with me and blesses me and purges me of my sins, who forgives seventy times seven. Through your love I am purified. May I be worthy.

I wanted to believe that my trial by fire had been visited upon me and that I had prevailed. What I am still acknowledging is that the worst pain is that which I inflict on myself and this craving has not yet been burned out of me. When I see my sins creep up, I blame you. I blame you for not saving me from myself. I am responsible, Angel. I am responsible for my health, for my words, for the feelings I have and the ones I hurt, for the trust I pierce.

Some say that hell is not something God subjects us to. Hell is turning our faces away from God. God is love. Love is God. You do the math.

Thursday night we went out to dinner, impromptu and late. On the coolest of the recently very warm nights, we sat on the porch of a local Mexican restaurant while local musicians took turns on stage. In public (and private, too) we are normally affectionate and attentive to each other, out of both our natural demonstrative tendencies and our naturally rebellious ones.

This night was different. Both of us, exhausted: me, from "the worst headache I've ever had"; N, from too many late nights and preparations for work this weekend. I brought in a book and she picked up a paper. There we sat in the corner, reading to ourselves among the din of music and more gregarious tables, occasionally commenting to each other about something we'd read, heard, or seen.

She caught a table of young dykes casting glances at us. I wondered casually what people thought, seeing us sitting there in silence. That we'd run out of things to say to each other? That the romance was gone? They would be wrong, though. We barely touched, we barely spoke, yet we were present together in a world others couldn't even dream of hoping for.

After dinner, we walked up the block to peer in the window of a relocated lesbian bar. "I hate lesbians, " she said. I knew what she meant. There aren't many people like us, certainly not among the younger crowds. "The pettiness and dishonesty and immaturity," she said. We thought of going in and just sitting in the corner together, see what happened. We remembered a night in April, in Mobile, in a bar full of locals, playing darts (don't let her tell you she won) and sitting at a table alone while they took turns on stage. "Alone in a crowd is a great way to be," I thought.

We went home instead. Me, to bed. Her, to work at the computer for awhile. But we never left each other's arms.

How does one start a journal? I fight the urge to begin telling you about my life from the beginning. But I am neither my past or my future. I am right now.

I am LiLi. This journal is about me, and about my life with N, who has changed everything.