“I know it doesn’t!”
“She thinks that I’ll benefit by learning about my feelings and thoughts towards my dad. I told her that when he'd died of the pneumonia, the night after I’d collapsed. I wasn’t upset, but relieved and she said that psychotherapy would help me learn how to deal with feelings like that, to take control of my life and respond to ‘challenging situations’ as she called them. Honestly I had to kind of smile. Who talks like that about death? Anyway…yeah, apparently it should help to teach me healthy coping skills, and how to process all the negative thoughts I have in association with him.”
“Ethan, that’s amazing,” I tell him and watch the apprehension drain from his face.
“Yeah, you think so? You’re not worried that your boyfriend needs therapy?”
I move and straddle his lap and cradle his face with my hands.
“I am so proud of you; you have no idea. The fact that you’ve decided to get help with this astounds me. Your strength astounds me. So, no baby, I’m not in any way, shape, or form worried about my boyfriend being in therapy.” I kiss his forehead and then lean back and watch his dimples pop as he gives me a genuine, beautiful smile. “You’re kind of amazing,” I tell him.
“Yeah, most chicks think that.”
I narrow my gaze and he winks.
“Okay, I’ve changed my mind; you’re a jackass!”
“Maybe, but I’m all yours,” he tells me, before flipping me over and pushing me down into the sand as he kisses me breathless.
“I’m yours, too,” I murmur against the softness of his lips.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“HELLO AND WELCOME to the commencement ceremony for West Point’s graduating class of 2014.”
I pause and look out over the sea of purple caps. My palms are sweating and I realize that although I’ve been leading up to this point for my whole high school career, being up here now is slightly terrifying. Especially since the speech I’ve had ready for the best part of ten months is sitting in the trash can in my bedroom, and the one I’m looking at now was written last night.
“Can you believe that we actually made it? Or most of us, at least. Before I get started I’d just like to ask the guys who are busy posting random graduation selfies to kindly let me steal your attention and please listen to this speech. It won’t take long. I hopefully have some insightful words of wisdom to impart. Although, don't feel like you have to switch off your cells—I’m more than happy for you to upload this speech onto YouTube. I’m sure anyone who knows me will confirm that it’s highly plausible I’ll mess up and say something inappropriate, or fall getting down from this podium, and you wouldn’t want to miss it. Be sure to hashtag my name. It’s Blair without an E.” I let out a nervous laugh as the auditorium is deathly silent. I’m half-expecting a tumbleweed to materialize and blow across the stage.
“Anyway, moving on. I want to take a second and ask you all to think of how much it’s taken for you to even be here right now. There are a few people I know who would have loved to be sitting and experiencing this day with the rest of us. My best friend Emily Wilson, you’ve no doubt heard of her, wanted to make it to this day badly. It was her goal and one that she fought hard to achieve. But fate had a different plan.
I want to share something that Em once wrote in her journal, and I think it’s pretty apt for today.
I once heard someone say that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, but what they didn’t take into account was people like me. I’m completely out of my comfort zone. I take seven different types of medication every single day, I’m slowly killing my body, poisoning it with chemicals in a bid to save it. I’m eating myself from the inside out, so I think that qualifies as being out of my comfort zone. But life isn’t guaranteed to begin just beyond this…Life is now, right this second while I’m sitting here breathing, my lungs inflating and my heart beating—this is my life.
People shouldn’t constantly strive to do things that scare them in a bid to live, otherwise their lives will be filled with fear. Similarly, they shouldn’t sit around waiting for something epic that sparks their realization that their life has just begun.