I Can't Be Happy If You're Not

I realised about a year ago how much my happiness was tied up with yours. 2011 had been, in many ways, an awful year for you. It was a culmination of several years worth of shit piling up to the point where you just couldn't take any more. Something had to give. You either had to let it all out, talk, finally open up to someone, or you would lose it completely. Maybe end up an alcoholic like your dad, maybe not. But your increasingly self-destructive behaviour was a testament to the fact you really weren't dealing with your issues. Drinking isn't dealing with them.

You realised on New Years Eve 2011 that you hadn't dealt with Hannah leaving you. It's understandable. You ask her to marry you, she breaks up with you. I don't know how you begin to get over that. I tried to be there for you, I did, but it was something only time and space could heal. So you wrote it all down, the bad and good from the past few years, and how you felt. That was when you let me in, finally, after four months of friendship. You emailed me, clearly drunk, with the account of your self-proclaimed 'worst year of my life' attached. You asked me to read it. You made me promise not to judge you. You said you'd never consider letting anyone else read it.

It was brutally honest, painful and simply heart-wrenching to read. I cried for you, for your pain and loss, for all you'd been through. It was then that I promised I'd always be there for you, no matter what. It was a year ago that I realised just how much I cared about you; crazy, juvenile, immature you. In four short months you had become my closest friend and I felt your pain like it was my own. If something bad happened, you were who I turned to, despite being in a relationship myself. You were my ally through everything, you understood me like no one else and I confided in you about everything, knowing you'd listen without judging and you'd actually care. And with this email you had finally done the same in return.

I told you, back in January 2012, that you never had to be alone or lonely again. I meant it. I still mean it. People make all kinds of promises they don't mean to keep, but as long as I draw breath, I will love you and I will be there, as a friend and a lover. At the dawn of 2013 you were the only thing on my mind. You and your wild hair, your thoughtful green eyes and your smile that could reignite a dead sun, if you wished it. As the clock turned 00:01 I wished for you to be happy and finally free from the demons of the last two years. Because I've found that I can't be happy if you're not; it's a physical impossibility. But most of all because you deserve it.

Lets make 2013 what we both deserve.