I have had three great loves in my life (and countless small ones). Funnily enough for anyone who observes the apparent hetero-focus of my current life, two of them have been other women. I really am one of the most bisexual people you’d ever meet - I not only don’t have a preference for one or the other set of genitalia, I find little actual difference between men and women as lovers. Obviously, I have had both. But that’s beside the point today.

I went googling for one of those loves last night, a woman I was involved with in college. It ended badly, which was my fault, and I have long been pained by the knowledge that I was not good enough for her. I don’t say that as a complaint but as an honest summation of our capabilities. She’s the type who’s driven to save the world, and knowing her, she’ll do it. I flirted with world-saving in my youth, but really I am content to tend my own tiny life-garden, and hope that my small everyday efforts will aggregate with those of others. I’ve tried to console myself for the loss of her love with the knowledge that we really weren’t suited in a million ways, but it still hurt.

I learnt last night that my former lover is now a doctor, as she’d planned, and has traveled the world doing important work bringing health services and especially AIDS prevention resources to poor rural communities. It’s still not exactly a happy thing, this memory of love, but I am so damn proud of her that all the rest dwindles into shadow, serving only to emphasize the depth and brightness of my joy at having known her.

You go, DWK.