I keep thinking about the time we ate strawberries.

He was the most alive person I had ever met, yet he acted like he was dying all the time.  And maybe he was.  To him, life was a litany of lost love, addictions, therapies, chord progressions and failed ambitions.  Everything was extreme.  What would have been a decent life for anyone else, was failure to him.  What would have been misery to anyone else, seemed to intrigue him.  I figured that’s why he enjoyed my company.  He was as bad as I had ever dreamed of being.  And he was better for me than anyone I’d ever known.  I had never had more fun or more insight into myself.  Nor had I ever met anyone who was so troubled or thoughtful, so quick to anger or so quick to laugh. Being with him, every moment felt like I was entirely in it.  It felt the way that I had always imagined being alive would feel.  It was all-consuming but it nothing had ever been easier.  And in that, there was a kind of peace.