Devin

A lot of things change over the years.
Styles change. Tastes change. Feelings change. Lives change.
I was thinking back to when I was in high school. How raw everything felt, how desperate. My life was so...complicated. And yet, in retrospect, it seems the opposite, it seems simple.
I was a lifeguard at the local pool in the summer. The long day hours dragged out, the sun kissing me with drops of life. Just to reach the nighttime I had to endure hours of this sweltering, life-giving sun.
Then when the night came, I was strangely energized by the hours of daylight.
The heat didn't dissipate, the nights were warm even much later. I was able to be comfortable in a bathing suit and short shorts that became my daily uniform. For years of my life I never needed real clothes in the summer. I simply didn't wear them. Such was the endless swimsuit summers.
I was so young; too young to realize much about myself or the people I knew. From the beginning, I always felt like an outsider in grade school. But summer was my time; my time to be someone else entirely. To shed the skin of self-esteem and sadness. To embrace possibility.
I guess I should have realized then that being different wasn't so bad. Maybe I didn't get along with people my age, and maybe my coworkers were pitying me, but I always got along better with the college students that worked at the pool in the summer. Or even just the older lifeguards.
This was how I met Devin.
Devin was an older, cooler, cuter lifeguard. Well, head lifeguard. And from the moment I started at the pool, he was always nice to me. I might never know why he was so nice, but it was important. It was important to me not to feel like an outsider. In a very vulnerable time in my life, he provided me with some comfort that it was ok for me to be who I was. Maybe that's what friends are; people who show you it's ok to be you just by being nice to you. People who show you some humanity.
I remember his boyfriend bringing him lunch during break, and Devin picked an eyelash from his face. Asking him to make a wish, just had my parents had done so many times. This was maybe the cutest, most intimate thing I had ever seen.
I remember sorting through the lost and found because a watch was beeping somewhere in the mass of lost t-shirts and odd socks. Devin was counting the till, so naturally I threw the beeping watch in front of him and yelled "Bomb!"
I remember how he didn't have a bike helmet for his first triathlon. He borrowed my dad's, having met my dad at the coffee shop on the USU campus. Us Hugentoblers have very large noggins, so it was strangely comical watching him put it on, slightly lopsided. And then how sweet it was that he asked me what coffee my dad liked so he could bring a large bag of Starbucks beans in thanks.
I remember coming home from college, thrown into a new and strange world. Calling him outside my house in the dark because I didn't want my parents to hear. Telling him my new best friend was coming out, and I had no idea what to do. I was scared I would say something wrong, then going through one of the most difficult periods of my life, trying to figure out myself. Why did he talk to me on the phone for an hour as my insignificant life was seemingly falling apart?
I remember a couple years later, going to breakfast at what was formerly The Bayleaf Café. Breakfast was slowly becoming my favorite meal out. Eating the softest, most pillow-like pancakes imaginable and sipping water out of mason jars, he let me talk endlessly about my life. He heard my troubles through sips of coffee in mismatched mugs.
We may not be close now, years of our own lives keeping us busy and apart. But I'm grateful for someone who cared about my life. It's important to realize that we can't be where we are without the people who helped us along the way.
All this is how I know Devin will beat cancer. He is strong and he is kind. My thoughts are with him in this difficult time. I love you Devin, and the things you have done for me are important. Stay strong. Beat this. Because you make a difference in people's lives, including mine.