I did something that might be considered creepy.

Okay, super creepy. I traveled 1,700 miles to another country, in a desperate attempt to win back someone who had already expressed intent to change her phone number so she would no longer be contacted by me. I had other reasons that compelled me to travel, but I could have gotten that done somewhere else, if not for this.

I was humiliated and failed miserably.

I expected that. I hoped for a different outcome, but I really couldn't have expected something other than what I got. I did it anyway, because to do otherwise would be to betray what I value most.

I believe emotion gives meaning to life. Most people try to control it, repress it, make it tame. I think emotion is to be experienced, and an opportunity to experience it should be cherished. It should be cherished like a unique opportunity to taste a new and mesmerizing dish - but more so, because emotions are much harder to come by.

Many people think emotions should be restrained, so that reason can prevail. I think this is a waste of life. Reason ultimately needs to serve what we feel. I see no other purpose for it. The only thing to avoid is lasting damage. Otherwise, emotion should be experienced unrestrained.

Why do we watch movies and TV, and play games, and read stories, if not for the emotions they make us feel? We don't do it just for the nice feelings. We watch comedies, tragedies, dramas, even horror, because we enjoy the entire spectrum of experience. We watch it because without these experiences, our lives would be poor.

I don't know if it's age, or it's just me, but I have reached a plateau where few things in the world are new to me, and storytelling gimmicks are having less and less of an impact. I've almost finished reading the trilogy His Dark Materials, and I find it boring. I read Machiavelli's The Prince, which some people consider abominable and shocking; I found it an insightful booklet by a candid writer pointing out obvious things that few dared say. Amusing for its frankness, but not shocking. If you're shocked to learn that politics, in the Middle Ages or today, involves murder and betrayal, you have things to see.

Blood doesn't move me. Gore doesn't move me. Death doesn't move me. I've traveled the world, and seen it. I sometimes feel like I'm 90 years old, and I've seen it all. It is hard for me to pick up a newspaper, or watch news, or see a movie, and feel something powerful. I'm rarely surprised. The events of the world unfold according to my cynical expectations. Most news and stories laid out for our consumption are forgettable crap.

You can imagine, then, how much I would value something that genuinely made me feel. And she did. For the first time in a decade, someone - something - made me feel so intensely, I could hardly work, or think about anything else. For the past 146 days, and counting, she has been on my mind every day. She made my days giddy with expectation, trembling with uncertainty, beset by despair. We fantasized, we talked, she broke off contact. I won her back, we talked again, we fantasized, we fought, she broke off contact. I could not believe she would do it for good, based on what seemed like a petty principle. She did.

I knew what I felt was infatuation. I knew it was irrational. That wasn't any reason for me not to feel, or make it go away. If you're going to discard the one thing in the world that makes you feel like this, why do you live? For the unchanging routine of daily life? To go to work every day in the morning?

So I did this, for a 5% chance, nay, a 1% chance, that it might have ended differently. Because I could continue to feel so strongly. Because we both could feel.

In the last few days, I was hit by the full pain of irrevocable loss. This was almost too hard to bear. I always knew it was going to be; that's why I tried so hard to avoid it. If it wasn't for Jana, I could have done something to myself. Thanks to her, I didn't.

Honey - you've been there all along. Thank you for supporting me, and standing next to me. Most any other partner would not have let me experience this. But I was able to share everything with you. You were happy for me when I was giddy from the adventure. You lit my way when my despair was at the most dense. You did not stand between me and where I wanted to go, even when you were worried about the ending.

You are wonderful, and the most perfect life companion I can imagine. I owe you so much. I love you.