Rome Alone

Today it is one of my best friends’ birthday. Actually, we call each other “wife” or “twin”, but without any sexual connotation…She has taught me many, many lessons, even though she is so young (she is turning 22 today). I hate classifying people, but she is the kind that is so simple that becomes complex, if anyone knows what I mean. She is also very, very smart - the fascinating kind of smart person, who doesn't know everything, but is broadminded and interested in the world more than in her own belly-button.
She would always listen when I uttered my unusual opinions about the American people and government (unusual there). She would even laugh at my cussing at George W. Bush! She is definitely not an average American. And how could I have possibly survived without my editor? I could never send my articles and stories to the university’s newspaper or even turn them in to the professors without having her read everything before.
I feel like it is possible for anyone to live a situation like in the movie “Hable con ella”: friendship and love can be the same, and there is no gender when we talk about such things. It is not gay to love someone that much, no matter if the person is a man or a woman. I love my true friends in an unconditional way, just like Marco and Benigno, in the movie, did. It is called an Agape love, the noblest form of love...
Kathleen is on my top 'about 5' list…and don’t even think about asking me who are the others. Once, when she was traveling around Europe, visiting Pompeii and Monte Carlo happily on her flip-flops, she took a break and wrote to me one of the thousands of great e-mails we have been exchanging since I left San Diego. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever read. This excerpt is a bit pessimistic, but it is so true that I want to transcribe it here, because I have felt like this so many times in my life…Even though I know I have good friends here and in other parts of the world.
I miss her every single day.

At the train station in Rome waiting for my connecting train
I was just sitting there all by myself and it felt like
I was being given a glimpse of my eternity.
No matter how many people we meet in life,
no matter how many friends,
we always end up alone
sitting on a bench somewhere.