I have written out the story of how Charlie and I met so many times that I could probably lay them over each other and have them be near identical. It’s one of my favorites. Which is why I tell it so much. It sounds trite but sometimes it just feels fated. Like it was meant to happen. I’m sure most people do that to romantic stories, or we wouldn’t have a term coined when “romanticizing” them.

Charlie coming into my life was an accident. He messaged me, thinking I was someone else, and because I was young and dumb I pretended to be that friend until the joke lost it’s power. Then when I told him who I really was I saved his username into my AOL buddy list and would subsequently talk to him every time he came online.

It’s funny to think of the context of his first ever words to me, “Yeah, Diego and I are still together.” In my mind I use the same cadence in an imaginary conversation he may have had with someone else about me. “Yeah, Josh and I are still together.” The truth of the matter is I did not make our “romantic accident” easy to maintain.

The last time I did a project of this magnitude (writing weekly about my life to a collection of songs) I wound up having an epiphany that finally put all of my trauma into perspective and I was able to finally move on. Too bad it took me 18 years to step past it. That’s the biggest issue with me. I tend to procrastinate everything, especially when it comes to emotional healing. Because of that, I wound up ruining what could have been a perfect relationship.

That probably isn’t the best way to put it. It almost sounds like it wasn’t wonderful and it was. Despite all of the broken and rough bits. In reality, that was our entire time together. It existed when it shouldn’t have, and stayed there even with all of the terrible things that happened.

So, how did I ruin it? Why was it so bad? Me, of course. Not dealing with my emotional trauma in a healthy way I ended up cheating on my husband more times than I can count. We broke up twice, but never for very long or even at all. We would continue to talk and work through our problems and with grace, that I did not deserve, he would forgive me and take me back. Why? I still have no idea. I didn’t deserve it. There were three big events where he caught me cheating in ways that led to some of the worst moments of my life. And when I was caught, I was honest. I had already lied so much in the effort, that to continue doing so, when the facts were very clear, was ridiculous to me. Sometimes I think that’s why most people keep me around, because I’m honest and earnest.

My cynical side says it was because ‘he couldn’t do any better’ (he had really bad self esteem) but that still, in some fucked up way, praises myself. As if I’m some kind of fucking prize. When I say that, that’s not my intention. What I mean is that I was a mildly attractive person with a kind heart, and the gay world is filled with cruel assholes who will not hesitate in messaging you on some silly app to say “Your ugly. Kill yourself.” Which is something my husband literally had messaged to him. (The typo kept to maintain authenticity.)

So, why did he stay with me? I’m going to go with that he loved me. That man showed it to me every day and because I was so broken, with such a shitty self image, I was unwilling to accept that fact. I told myself every lie that I didn’t deserve it, so I tried to break it. I tested it’s boundaries every time, and what I found is that love is breakable but easily repaired. It’s magnetic. At the same time, it isn’t. The magnetism comes from our persistence and unwillingness to give up. When I look back at all of his examples, that is how love is meant to look: unyielding, unrelenting, persistent. It’s communication and honesty. Grace! Of which we had copious amounts of because of my constant state of pushing the limits.

In the end our marriage morphed into something completely new and totally our own. To most of society it isn’t what it’s supposed to be: a man and a woman. Hell we couldn’t even bother with monogamy. Our relationship flourished the most when we stopped confining ourselves into the boundaries of typical stereotypes. Genuinely. Our final test was when we dropped our taught perspective of monogamy and embraced polyamory.