In Which Katz Declares His Love

“I love you, Don. I am in love with you.”

This is how it begins. Finally. When Katz accepts and declares his love. Finally.

And so it has begun.

Thanks to a recent channel flip landing (yet again) upon 10 Things I Hate About You, this time on Don’s very own hometown Chicago superstation, and hearing Heath Ledger assert, “Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.”

And realizing, yes, he had been doing that; being, in fact, that jerky anyone to his very own self, and projecting it onto others, onto circumstances, onto the universal organizing principle. All the while a foolishness, an undeserved weariness growing inside of him, imploring him to move on, get over it, finalize the ill-conceived self-denial – tear down, rebuild.

He tried but could not. Not without her help. He couldn’t do anything without her help. All that he had accomplished these two years past, he could not have done without her help. She was too much a part of him, somehow intimately entwined with his essential self, deep inside. She was his fuel, his motivation.

His attempts at avoiding this because of the past, because of her physical distance, because of her silence, because of fear led only to immobility, the onset of withering, confusion and acute despair. But with her help, when he accepted himself and his own love’s direction, went with it, he became something extraordinary, more like how he always knew he could be than ever before. And Life seemed to stand up and applaud, throwing the most wonderful & exciting moments before him as if in tribute.

But now a culmination point had been reached. The time for becoming, the internal journey, was done. It had become the time for being. This was to require more of her, her actual physical presence, interaction at least. He could not carry her along within himself as he’d done before – he hadn’t the strength. She would have to become something else to him – lover, companion, friend, face from the past – or he would have to make her into something else for himself.

Whatever was to come, as before, he needed her help to get started.

“Though I could (and you know I’d love to) use thousands more words describing the incredible intricacies of this reality, the reality of my enormous heart, instead I ask, ask only for help from your own heart, Donny, your spectacularly singular heart,” Katz said. “But please-please let’s not be adults about this.”

“I must be going,” he continued, “expanding out into the world in whatever phenomenal capacity Life has planned for me. My greatest wish is that you’ll accompany me, and let me accompany you on your own fascinating expansion. Even if that is not to be, I will still flourish, as I know you will as well – I believe in you completely.

“And without help from you, I’m not going anywhere.”