thank you

i just might be getting this whole programming thing. then again, it’s probably just that i was so horribly scarred by linked lists in pascal that it was burned very deeply into my brain. regardless, i was the first one finished the lab last night and i did it both the easy and the hard way. go me.
meghan has gotten me addicted to watching starting over, a daytime reality tv show which has women living together in a house while trying to rebuild their lives through life coaching and personal empowerment exercises. it’s like any other stupid reality tv show, but with a more noble intent. honestly, it’s gotten me thinking a lot more about how i live and react to things. there are a couple of women in the house who are struggling with many of the same issues i am in their lives. the only difference being, i haven’t reached out for help to resolve them.
this leads to my talking about the best thing which has happened in my life in a long time: jeremy. while watching the show and reading an exerpt of a book one of the life coaches on the show had written, i realized that jeremy is like my own personal life coach. he’s the most supportive, caring, generous person i have ever known. he calls me on my bullshit and will not tolerate my patented self-deprication. he cheers me on when i succeed and supports me when i’m struggling. he inspires me to be a better, more open and communicative person. when i think about him i just get this overwhelming feeling of appreciation and gratitude that he’s part of my life.
i’ve known jeremy for somewhere near the vicinity of eight years now, but we’ve never met. i don’t think we’ve even talked on the phone more than half a dozen times, but we talk almost every day. i’m generally not fond of the human race as a whole, so finding someone with whom i actually want to talk to every day is la little bit like a miracle.
back when we were both younger and stupider and we’d only known each other a short while, we had a big fight and stopped talking to each other for several years. i don’t even remember what the fight was about or even how we reconnected. it feels like i’ve known him forever though. i can’t seem to imagine not having him as part of my life.
the thing about my relationship with jeremy is that, in the past, because of the strength of my respect, regard and affection for him, i’d start to convince myself that i was falling in love with him. that if i felt this much for someone who very obviously felt just as much for me, that it must mean that we should be together romantically, ignoring completely the fact that he’s very happily married and he’d never even consider jeopardizing that relationship. what i’m realizing is that i can love the stuffing out of him without it being heartbreaking-longing-yearning-romance-novel love. that i don’t have to dampen the strength of my feelings for him just because he’ll never be my boyfriend.
it’s just another thing he’s helped me learn.