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Eleven years. :) I love you, boo. So, so much. :)

Speaker 1 (00:01): Go.

Speaker 2 (00:08): The first person that I reciprocally fell in love with, not just a one-way crush but the first properly requited crush that I had, was in I guess it must've been high school. Her name was Sam Brown. I remember the not quite electric, but the feeling inside of me of being like, "I don't really understand who this is or what they ... all I know is how I'm feeling. I recognize that this is a person that I'm cuddling with right now. I recognize this person who is looking me back in the eyes, but I don't really have a complete model of them in my mind. They're a very new quantity." I imagine maybe that's always how having a crush on someone is, but I don't know about other people.

(01:16): You and I have been together for 11 years, and at this point we have very detailed models of each other in our minds. Not fixed models, not calcified models. The models keep changing. We keep changing, and the models are constantly being updated to reflect what's actually happening. We do that specifically really well. I've seen a lot of people develop models and then have a relationship with the model instead of with the person. I have a relationship with you, not with my model of you. It's a delight to see the places where my model slips out of date and I have to update it.

(02:09): Today, on the other side of this last December's intensely profound consciousness shift for me, and on this occasion of, gosh, you're exploring everything and you're proceeding without knowing where you're going in a way that feels new to you, or so you've told me, on this occasion of our 11-year anniversary of being together, I'm holding all of this transconscious reimagining of what it means to exist at all, for me to ... I don't even know if I can use the word me ... what it is to perceive, period, and what it means to make out a face in what you perceive and what it means to have a relationship with that face, and to see recognition in the eyes of that face when that face looks at you.

(03:25): I'm wondering very honestly to myself, like, "Okay, as I fundamentally loosen my definition of reality, what do I feel on this 11-year anniversary with this man I know is my Lopez, who I know as my husband?" What is it when you're fully reconceptualizing, not forgetting the previous concept, but when you're allowing your concept of ...

Speaker 1 (04:04): Self.

Speaker 2 (04:05): ... of self and perception and of other, and perception of other and perception of self, when you're allowing all of that to become weightless and float and take a new shape if it wants to? What do I feel? I'm asking myself very honestly, and not like an interrogation, but just like I'm stepping back and I'm examining my emotions and I'm saying, "Okay, what does this feel like right now?" It feels like falling in love.

Speaker 1 (04:45): That's sweet.

Speaker 2 (04:46): My memory goes back to holding Sam Brown, not knowing exactly who I'm holding, not knowing exactly what it means to be holding, but knowing that I feel alive and undefined, and there's something. There's something here. There's a heart beating in my arms, a heart that's outside of me, a heart that's connected to arms that are holding me back, and I don't really know a whole lot more than that. As I sit with that recognition, allowing myself ... let me start over.

(05:35): I'm autistic. It's important to not prescribe myself emotions that I'm supposed to feel. I'm aware of how ... you know, roses and shit ... of how an anniversary is supposed to feel, and you and I are way beyond prescribed emotions. I don't feel any tension around that, but still it's a portal to pass through. I'm like, "All right, cool." It's an anniversary. That's a word with associations like ... all right, cool. Let me step through the invitation of the word anniversary without feeling any friction around what that's supposed to be, and treat that as a prompt to be like, "Okay, what am I actually experiencing right now? What do I actually discern?"

(06:30): It's, I mean, wordless, I guess, right? It's not just falling in love. It's falling in love for the first time, because you don't know what it even means yet. The first time you fall in love, you've got no reference points. You've got some body signals that tell you this is good, or at least it's worth continuing on. Maybe that's what I can say. You've got the feeling of someone's head on your chest and feeling their exhale on you as they breathe, and the pressure of someone's fingertips as they have their hand holding yours. It's unclear what that means, what that is, I guess. Teresa used to say one plus one is eleven. I think that's how I feel.