I'm not a very happy person," I told him."But sometimes I can trick myself into thinking I am.

I've always known I was gay, but it wasn't confirmed until I was in kindergarten. It was my teacher who said so. It was right there on my kindergarten report card: PAUL IS DEFINITELY GAY AND HAS VERY GOOD SENSE OF SELF.

I find I very rarely live up to my words. And since you know me primarily through my words, there are oh so many ways I can disappoint.

There is certainty in a ring. The non-ending, the non-beginning. The ongoing. The way it holds on to you not because it's fastened or stretched or adhered. It holds on because it fits.

Is that all we need? Can the way we say each other's names encompass all our history, all our love, all our fear, all our fights, all our reunions, all of what we know about each other, all of what we don't know?

It was one of those moments when you feel the future so much that it humbles the present.

It's the way you say thank you like you're genuinely thankful. I have never met anyone else who does that on a regular basis.