I soon reached the limitations of the English language, and struggled to find descriptive words for the things I saw in her. How do I describe the sensuality in the curve of her collarbone? Are there words to describe how I feel when I see her love in the form of a sparkle in those beautiful hazel eyes? How do you write about the feeling of home?

The writing has not stopped since the day she unleashed it — nor has my struggle to find the perfect phrase. Though I don’t speak French, I have grown to have an appreciation for the language, and the depths to which it can capture a phrase.

A term of greeting in English, relegated to a casual pleasantry — it’s nice to meet you. More literally, it means charmed. But in English, the only time we ever use the French is when we’re trying to impress a beautiful woman, or we want to sound pompous. Enchanté. The meaning has been lost in translation, and it’s so much richer than a common pleasantry.

From the root incantare — in, meaning upon, and cantare, to sing — enchanted has taken on a mystical, magical connotation. To enchant: sing a spell into me.

The imagery brings me to the lore of the siren, whose sweet song, upon being heard, would compel a sailor to follow it even to his death. I named her a siren. I accused her of being a witch on many occasions, for there is no doubt that she sang a spell into my soul. You have bewitched me, body and soul. A Mr. Darcy fan, she immediately recognized the line from the film — and I began to sing my spell into her.

Clear evidence that the song was sung into my heart was the ease — the natural comfort — with which I could talk to her about anything. In the grander scheme of things, one of the earliest conversations we had was about how we fall in love. In our culture, we have romanticized the idea of love at first sight — the notion that our soul instantly responds, at a glance, to its counterpart in another. But my soul says otherwise. Love at first sight is safe. It is warm, intimate, the quiet knowledge of your counterpart.

But is that love?

Love is loud. It knocks you on your back. It changes your world. It is violent. Explosive. You are never the same again. I told her that falling in love was like being struck by lightning.

Instant. Powerful. Life-changing.

Years later, long after being struck by that lightning, I began to study French — and one phrase immediately spoke to my soul. The English renders it love at first sight. But the French says something else. Coup — a blow, a strike. De foudre — of lightning. Literally: a strike of lightning.

The next phrase comes when the heart tries to find words for love after the lightning strikes. Toujours à toi. It translates simply as always yours, but the French is so much richer than our succinct equivalent.

Toujours takes always to another level, like being outside time, perpetually in that state for all eternity — past, present, and future. It is a state of being. And à toi elevates yours to mean something closer to belonging to you. Ownership is imposed; belonging is chosen. I am yours is possession. I belong with you is home. So, poetically, toujours à toi is better translated: eternally, I belong with you.

Always yours is something you write in a greeting card that is then — eventually — thrown away. Eternally, I belong with you is a vow — a declaration on how you will live your life. I made that vow when I etched toujours à toi on the handles of my cookware — she always said she could taste the secret ingredient in all that I cooked. I lived that vow in everything I did, even the act of cooking her a meal.

In everything I did — this is how I love. Total attention, directed outward. The French have a term for this, too: amour fou.

Worn smooth by overuse, the English idioms are mild. Casual. Madly in love. Head over heels. I’m crazy about her — something you say about a person you’ve been dating three weeks. You can translate the words: mad love. But in our language, it has lost all meaning.

And since Breton’s 1937 L’Amour fou, modern French culture has largely lost the original meaning as well. It has become less about love and more about toxic obsession. But in the author’s original work, love consumes him absolutely — and in doing so, allows him to reach the sublime in the everyday, in the commonplace, in the mundane. Mad love is the highest form of love. It defies convention and rationality. It puts the lover in touch with the marvelous. It is unbridled joy, and in its totality, it never erodes.

It has become foundational in everything I do. It resonates with my soul — because that is exactly how I love. Since 1937, the French have had a phrase for it: amour fou. I just had to find it.

In the past, where four footsteps tread, now there are only two. Decorated for Christmas, I walk the museum, because that is what we did. In the pre-dawn hour, I stir awake and turn to pull her close and fall back asleep with her in my arms — and find only the pillow. Like her ghost, taunting me, the photographs on my wall take me to places we have been. And in the frying pan, with toujours à toi engraved on the handle, I cook eggs for one.

In English, we say I miss you. The French say tu me manques. Literally: you are missing from me.

The lightning strike fused our two souls into one. And so, just as scorched earth and burnt trees are the evidence left behind, everywhere I look, I see her. In all that I am. In everything that I do. She is missing from me.

Now, I stand outside once more — face pressed against the glass looking into warmth only she was able to show me — wanting, more than anything, to once again hold her in my arms. The park where we walked is empty without her. By the end of a short walk, my body aches to hold her hand. The joy of discovering new restaurants together and the many happy memories we shared are always right below the surface. In every new restaurant, I still turn to ask what she thinks. And every interesting thing I see or do produces an unquenchable yearning in my soul to tell her about it. The cold is colder without her warmth. Dessert is not as sweet without her to share it with. My hand does not feel right without hers to hold. The French have a phrase for the precise pain of wanting what you cannot have.

La douleur exquise.

We are old friends, for without her, I know the exquisite pain well.

It is all I have.

Six phrases. A language I do not speak. They told the story of my love.

I wrote an entire piece on how I love.

When I love, the first thing I do is listen.

I don’t wait for my turn to speak. I don’t listen until I hear an opportunity to turn the conversation back to me. I am not half committed to the conversation while my real focus is my phone. I don’t nod in acquiescence while secretly watching the game. No, I do something quite novel — listen to what she says. I give her my undivided attention. In the culture of eight second attention spans and constant absorption in some type of device, that level of focus — of attention — can be… intense. Because she is the most important thing in the world, I treat her so. And I listen.

If it were only words, listening would almost be easy. The tone in her voice when she’s irritated. The pause in her speech when she doesn’t want to talk about something. Sound of joy when she talks about someone she loves. Her speech gets faster when she’s excited about a topic — as if she can’t wait to get out all the words. The exasperated sigh that comes from her exhaustion. When my passion overwhelms her, if you listen closely, you can hear it — the slight gasp of her breath being taken away. She talks with her body — her hands an equal tool with her mouth. As if, with an imaginary friend as a child, she created her own form of sign language, she moves her hands freely and in cadence with her speech. Her posture changes based upon her mood. And her eyes. If she were completely silent, her eyes would tell the story she wants to portray. In those hazel eyes, I see frustration, exuberance, bliss, joy, and overwhelming love. She’s a beautiful, complex, fiercely intelligent woman. I want to give her the attention she deserves and honor her with it, regardless of the cost. Because she is that important to me, having every channel running simultaneously can be exhausting, and the toll it takes on me real — depleting. But it never feels that way — not with her. The exhaustion is the devotion made visible — the shape love takes when it’s this complete.

This type of listening produces an intimate knowing. I’ve listened to her tone, so I understand her mood. I know when she is exhausted, frustrated, or happy. I can tell when I have said or done something right because I can see the love in her eyes. I ask questions about my favorite subject — her. I know her favorite place to play when she was a kid. The time she got in trouble for lying to her mother. Her boyfriend’s name in high school. Every hope, every dream she’s ever had. In high school, she wanted to be a teacher. She knew from an early age that she wanted to be a mother. As a reaction to family health scares, she values exercise and overall physical and mental health more than most people. She’s a Ginger and a Mary Ann. Elegant and graceful when she’s dressed up — she stops traffic. When she’s comfortable and relaxed, she’s someone you can snuggle with on the couch and watch a movie — infinitely approachable. In either scenario, gorgeous.

I know that no one’s ever cooked her a meal — until I did. Dish after dish of culinary delight, all made with the secret ingredient, specifically for her. She has this full body reaction to food that is delicious. She takes a single bite — this overwhelming joy comes across her face. In this moment, it is as if she can’t believe she is tasting something so good — like it’s some sort of fantasy or a dream — she laughs.

I know every muscle in her jawline — in her neck — that moves as she eats. The curve of her cheekbone. The cupid’s bow of her lips. The exact starburst pattern of her hazel eyes. I know every curve, every line, and every shadow of her face so well that I drew her portrait, and gave it to her on Valentine’s Day. She was so overwhelmed that she wept.

This level of attention applies to her entire body — not as it applies to sensuality or the primal, visceral desire of a man as he looks upon a woman — like a patron at a museum who spends hours admiring a fine work of art. Every curve, line, and shadow has been committed to memory, and when she moves, it sets my soul afire as those lines, curves, and shadows constantly change. I know her body in motion, and it takes my breath away. Her hands as she types on a keyboard like graceful hands playing a piano. The hem of her skirt is just high enough to allow me to see the muscle above her knee fire as she walks — like strings playing the melody. When she talks with her hands — like a conductor — her forearms, biceps, shoulders, and collarbone sing — I am mesmerized by her beauty. I know the way the light produces shadows on her body, and when she moves, like a coda, I turn in anticipation. Her body in motion is a sweet symphony that resonates with my soul.

I know she loves talking to me. So many nights were spent past midnight doing just that — baring our soul to the other. She loves my thoughts and I want to give them to her. I write her notes — pages and pages in a letter. A goal or deadline was never set, but in the process of letting the interior out, I write her over a million words.

She has her mother’s piano and has always wanted to learn how to play. So I research online teachers, and I find the best free teacher the internet has to offer so she can get a feel for it, and see if it’s something she wants to pursue. She marvels over the intricate chocolates in the case of a patisserie. So I make her chocolates to rival them. She laughs as she takes the first bite and cries as she calls the hands that made such a wonderful gift beautiful. She complains that her beloved weighted blanket has an unrepairable hole in it. She laments its loss and talks of how much she loved that blanket. I got her another one for Christmas. She marvels at how I always find the perfect gift for her. Every gift is made manifest by what I have learned by listening — how I know her. Total attention directed outward — in the form of a gift.

Intimacy of her knowledge has produced inside of me a joy I did not know existed, and the realization that I have found the greatest treasure. In Matthew 13 there is a parable about treasure. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of Heaven as the treasure, but the logic always rang true for me about my love. If I have found the greatest treasure — if she truly is the one — in my joy of finding her — would I not sell everything I had to buy the field? Would I not give my all for her?

This is how I love. I listen. I know her. And I put her before me. In my joy, I sell all I own to buy the field. To the uninitiated this may seem selfless, or perhaps sacrificial. Those who have experienced this love understand — the treasure is worth more than everything I’m giving up. Her before me is the fullest expression of what I want, not the denial of it.

In life, this manifests itself in many ways, but an oath I gave her long ago captures the essence.

My sweat before your sweat.

My tears before your tears.

My blood before your blood.

My life before your life.

Long forgotten in our age, oaths such as these were proclamations given — with honor — stating how a man would live his life. It is something that speaks directly to my heart, and when I hold the oath up as a mirror, I see myself. When I spoke these words into existence, she wept.

A line from Walt Whitman’s Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City has taken residence in my soul.

“Day by day and night by night we were together — all else has long been forgotten by me.”

To be a sojourner in a new city — the odd customs, the strange foods, the unfamiliar architecture, all the magic a new place conjures. And he remembers none of it, but being with her. The words Whitman wrote about his own experience tell me he had found the greatest treasure too. All else has long been forgotten by me — the greatest treasure — the entire oath makes manifest just how precious she is.

With that framework, the first of the oath is simple. My sweat before your sweat. When we are trying to decide between Chinese and Italian — I like both — and she really wants Italian, that is where we go. Being with her is what I truly desire, the food is secondary. If there are groceries that need to be carried into the house, I will carry them. If she needs something on the top shelf, I am happy to get it for her. If there is one chair left, I will stand. When I have had the worst day, and bitter exhaustion set in hours ago, I will still cook dinner so it is ready when she gets home from the gym.

There are people that would condemn me for this and claim I am taking away her power — like she can be diminished by opening the door for her or standing when she enters the room. If you opened the door for your queen, is she somehow less of a queen? You would be disrespecting her by not doing so. This dichotomy is what I do not understand. I know she can open her own door and carry her own groceries. I honor her by doing so, just as I honor a queen by bowing in reverence. If I could take her power so easily, it was never hers.

Tears, here, is about the weight of the world, worry, and provision. It doesn’t mean that she can no longer grieve. But that I take the burden so she may be free of the weight.

My tears before her tears.

Sometimes you must fight — let me be the one to fight. Sometimes life is draining — let it drain me first.

My blood before her blood.

She is the greatest treasure and my life would be nothing without her. If this world demands one of our lives, it would be my honor to give it so she may live.

My life before her life.

This is how I love. I listen. I know her. I put her before me. This can be one-directional. A man can listen to someone who never reciprocates. He can know someone who never asks who he is. He can sell the field for a treasure that would not do the same for him. That is still love — unrequited — it is love through glass.

And then something happened I had no language for, until I found it in an ancient word.

Often, the Biblical picture of marriage has been the example I have used for love. This is such a complex and beautiful image, let me paint it for you. The English translates the Hebrew word yada as “to know”, and it has a depth that is not captured by the translation. Yada denotes intimate, experiential knowing — not merely intellectual knowledge about a person, but knowledge gained through sustained, embodied presence and shared experience. It is comprehensive personal knowledge — knowing someone’s interior life: their fears, longings, patterns, wounds, and joys — not as a static profile, but as an ongoing, ever-deepening acquaintance. But it also carries within it mutual vulnerability. Yada in its fullest sense implies a bidirectional exposure: to be known is to be seen without concealment, and to know is to accept the full weight of another’s reality. Yada is being seen completely by your partner, accepting what you see in them, and living with that intimate knowledge. She did not feel my one-directional love through the glass and ignore it. She opened the door and showed me into the warmth. She showed me the meaning of an ancient word through her love.

The Bible then builds upon this concept by telling us of what this looks like in practice. Women are commanded to submit themselves to their husbands. And husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved his bride, the Church, and gave himself up for her. The man is called to give everything he is, has, or will be, to redeem his bride. He must give his everything to her. He puts her first, always, her before him. And the wife is called to do the same. By submitting to her man, she puts him before her. This is the beauty that most don’t see and why this is the picture of a true partnership. The mutual self-giving is so complete that both partners are simultaneously the giver and the receiver. They give everything their partner needs, while receiving everything they need from their partner.

The English translation “to know” was never going to hold the listening, knowing, her before me, and the bidirectional completion. I didn’t have language for it before this word. This is how I love.

Yada.

For most of my life, I equated yada to a unicorn or Minotaur — magic in a world that refused to believe. Until, that is, I experienced it. As my understanding of this word increased, so did my knowledge of what it means to be in a true partnership, my capacity to love, and what it really means to love a woman. Through her, I discovered me.

For the first time in my life, she opened the door, and let me into the warmth.

And now…she’s gone.

Once again, I find myself at the glass — looking in.

A panic ensued when I realized there was no handle for the door. A great amount of effort and time was exhausted trying to find entry into the warmth I saw on the other side of the glass. Counting the hours turned to days, which extended to years and eventually decades. I stood at that glass until I questioned the warmth’s existence. An oasis of warmth and light as a much needed respite from the bone chilling absolutism of the darkness. It seemed an illusion born of longing and desperate need. In my despair, she looked up — saw me —and then I knew warmth was real.

It was always oasis and not illusion. I’m still unsure which would have been kinder. I have felt the warmth on my skin — her warmth. Now, the cold seems self-aware — it enters, searches, systematically, and absorbs any warmth it finds in me. A chill has entered my bones and I cannot get warm again. Unforgiving, the cold has become complete, and I begin to question the existence of heat — could it have been a dream?

She was real and her warmth was everything I ever wanted. I felt it and I saw her light — it blinded me. Her light rivaled the sunrise itself. Now, the darkness is a black hole. Its gravity annihilating anything until its presence is undeniable — palpable — it tears you apart from the inside out.

Everything in the house is something she either purchased, or we did together. In every restaurant, there is a table in which we sat. The park where we walked with our hands entwined. The museum that we went to for the first time together. The drugstore we liked to go to the day after Valentine’s Day to shop the discount candy. The bench next to the Koi pond where I took so many photographs of her. The spot on my sofa, where I held her in my arms and read her a book whose main character shared her name.

My arms still ache to hold her. In the morning, I wake, realize my arms are empty and turn to embrace her. How does the left hand miss the right? How does half go on without its other? Every place I go, everything I do, and all of who I am, she is missing from me.

I stand at the glass — the absence of heat — it is colder than I remember it when I thought it was an illusion. The absence of light is absolute — it is alive — like a monster in my nightmares in the darkest part of the night. And now, I stand here in the cold darkness, knowing exactly how warm and bright it truly is inside. Everything I see reminds me of her.

It is unbearable.

Standing at the glass, the lure to allow regret and pain to consume you is real and tempting – it’s the easiest thing you can do, for all you have to do is nothing. “No, what happened, happened and couldn’t have happened any other way” — it amazes me the number of ways The Matrix resonates with my soul. Morpheus aims to free us from the prison of what if— and it is a prison. Shivering, alone in the dark, I endlessly play over every scenario and torture myself with what if. But the quote is doing something much deeper — it speaks to the events in one’s life that leads them to this moment, right here, right now. It is like a mathematical equation in which each event produces character that adds up to me. If you change but one of the variables, we no longer get the same answer. I am the collective sum of all my experiences, and the fire that’s refined them — which includes her.

Falling in love is a lot like being struck by lightning. Through suddenness and helplessness, a surge reorganizes everything and leaves you dazed. There will forever be a clear demarcation of your life before and after you were struck by lightning. Visceral in its intensity, it is instantaneous and overwhelming. Falling in love is something that happens to you, not something you do. If not for being struck by lightning, I would not know the joy of sitting and holding her hand in mine. I would not know her in my arms and what home truly feels like. Nor the delight in my soul at the sparkle in her eye when she looks at me. A laugh that can actually lower my blood pressure. Gift after gift that moved her soul enough to bring her to tears. Seeing countless others, like moths, be drawn to her incredible light. I wouldn’t know warmth. Without her, I wouldn’t know my capacity to love.

I wouldn’t know yada.

The journey has led me to here — now — standing at this glass. These experiences were not something given to me and then taken away. My path was one of self-discovery. These experiences are me. I have an incredible capacity to love. And how I love, is yada.

So, I write. And I continue to write. Let my words be a lightning rod — one in which I will stand tall and hold proudly. Not to increase my chances of being struck by lightning again — that will or will not happen independent of my efforts. No, I write to let the interior out. I write to let you know yada does exist. I write because maybe the words will find you standing at your own glass.

And I stand in the open, because it is the only honest refusal of the dark.

Charlie knows everything will change. All his friends are graduating and moving on to a new chapter of the book of their lives — he is painstakingly aware of the number of days until he can join them. With just moments before Sam leaves Charlie gives her one last gift — not flowers, or jewelry, nor a stuffed bear for her dorm room — his books. The tools Bill gave him so he would realize he is not small and deserves more, Charlie now gives Sam so her interior might become visible to her, and she will know she is not small.

This legibility of self is the inheritance of the writing. Each author wrote the novels from their experiences — their pain — and in doing so discovered themselves. Bill, standing at his own glass, read these novels and his interior became known to him. He grew up to write his own discovery of self. Charlie received the inheritance from Bill, and through the reading, learned who he is — a writer. He completes the cycle by passing the inheritance to Sam, as he begins to write himself. Through his writing, and the movie adaptation, I now have more legibility of my interior.

At every stage, the giver has not been completed by the work. Bill never finished writing, and was unsure teaching was his future. Charlie has only just begun claiming his place. None of that stops the inheritance. The work moves forward regardless of whether the giver has been completed by it.

This is what Face Against the Glass is.

These essays are diagnostic instruments produced from my own writing-into-legibility. The inheritance is for the reader standing at their own glass, even if you don’t yet have language to describe what you see. The inheritance is for you.

The film is about being seen. Bill sees Charlie first, then Patrick and Sam. The people at the party. Secret Santa. And Charlie sees himself. This facilitates the doctor seeing Charlie, and then finally, his parents. How many will it take for you? The film ends with the convergence of being seen, the inheritance, and the writer made legible through the writing.

“But right now, these moments are not stories. This is happening. I am here. And I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful.”

For the entire film, Charlie has been writing about his life. Observing it from a slight distance. Making it legible to himself by putting it on the page. Practicing being seen by someone who cannot see him. The writing has been the apparatus by which he survives a life he cannot quite enter. But here, at the end, the writing stops. He is not narrating. He is not observing from outside. He is in the moment. The writing has done its work. The inheritance has reached him. And he is here.

This is what the writing is finally for. Not the writing itself. The moment when the writing brings the writer to a place where he can stop writing and simply be present.

I write because this world doesn’t make sense if I don’t. So the writer may be discovered through the writing. Standing at the glass for so long, I write so an inheritance may be passed to someone familiar with the view from outside. I see you standing outside — in darkness and cold — looking through the glass. You are standing in the footprints of those that came before you. I can pass along the inheritance while I wait for the writing to bring me to the moment I can stop writing. I write so that she will read my words — look up — and open the door for me. I write for the moment when we are together — in the warmth only she can provide — and I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful.

But Bill Anderson is not a finished character. Deciding between a return to writing, or to continue his pursuit of teaching, he is at a crossroads. On the last day of class he asks whom among his students will read for pleasure during summer break. He sees the transformation in Charlie as he is the only student to raise his hand, a reversal from the shy boy who refused to participate on the first day of class. Sometimes getting through to just one student is all the substance a teacher needs to see a calling through to the end. Bill decides to continue teaching, and not wanting to lose what he has with Charlie, asks if he can continue to give him books next year, even though Charlie will no longer be in his class. Even as a work in progress himself, Bill is able to give Charlie the framework needed to begin his own journey of self-discovery as a type of inheritance that is passed down from one to another. Charlie reaches a point in which he begins to pass along this inheritance to others, and we bear witness to the inception of this in Patrick.

From the very beginning, Charlie sees Patrick and Brad. Patrick had befriended him first — the football game, the toast, the wallflower line — but what grows between them becomes the first relationship in which Charlie does the seeing too. Charlie leans on Patrick to help him become a better person, and in time becomes the one Patrick leans on for the same reason. It is a reciprocity that defines their relationship.

That reciprocity first shows itself at Secret Santa. Patrick truly sees Charlie — every good writer needs a suit, and his gift was like a crucial puzzle piece added, so that what was once fuzzy is now a clear picture of Charlie as a writer. Charlie had pulled Patrick’s name too, and the delight in Patrick’s eyes at how much Charlie understood him was the beginning of what they would become. Then Charlie gives everyone a gift, and each in turn marvels at how well Charlie knows them — he has been paying everyone the quality of attention no one pays him — and at the perfectness of the gift. Each recipient feels seen. This is Charlie as giver, the inheritance flowing gently out of him.

The costly version comes later. When Brad’s cruelty puts Patrick in danger, Charlie is the one who saves him. And when the breakup breaks Patrick, Charlie becomes the crutch — the late-night driving, the drinking, the kiss that isn’t romantic but is a man in collapse reaching for the nearest stable presence, and Charlie letting him. Patrick sees Charlie as someone strong enough to be leaned on. That is its own kind of being seen — being trusted with another person’s collapse.

Charlie has become extraordinary at seeing and giving — and at never once claiming a place in the room for himself. He gives perfect gifts and asks for nothing. He holds Patrick up and disappears into the holding. And that — the giving that erases the giver — is exactly what Sam will refuse to accept.

Sam begins classes immediately after graduation, and there is one last gathering on the night before her departure. Alone after all have left, Sam tells Charlie — in her bedroom — about the conversation with the man who cheated on her. Driving away, she just felt so small — Patrick’s words. She shows the bond she has built with her stepbrother. Over and over, he has tried to make her see the pattern of men in her life. They make her small. Patrick has been trying to give her a mirror. “Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we’re nothing?” She finally sees the pattern. Sober, and without judgment, Charlie tells her the answer.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

Sometimes the thing we need most is elusive, especially if it shows us a truth we are not ready to receive. We fight it — sometimes without knowing we’re fighting, sometimes openly. Showing our true selves, the mirror is the most elusive. When we refuse to pick it up and look at it, we need someone to hold it where it can be seen. Patrick has been trying to show her. Don’t let them make you small. For Sam, it takes Charlie — she instantly sees.

Charlie thinks the wisdom he has learned is to help the ones he loves. He didn’t see Bill try to show him his own mirror. But Sam sees more than just her reflection — she sees that the giving erases the giver. And she turns the mirror back on Charlie. “Then why didn’t you ever ask me out?” He can no longer be elusive. “I didn’t think you wanted that.” Sam presses and asks, “Well, what did you want?” Still fighting the mirror, he says that he just wants her to be happy. Sam knows Charlie — she sees him. The incredible attention to detail. Giving without asking for anything in return. Holding up Patrick when he fell. Performing care without ever claiming a place in the room. She refuses to allow this to continue and applies the final weight to crumble the wall Charlie has been building in front of the mirror. “You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. I don’t want to be somebody’s crush. I want people to like the real me.”

“I know I’m quiet, and I know I should speak more, but if you knew the things that were in my head most of the time, you’d know what it really meant. How much we are alike. And how we’ve been through the same things. And you’re not small. You’re beautiful.”

Having access to Charlie’s writing, we see the interior. This is the first time he speaks his interior into existence. Instead of standing on the outside looking in, Charlie claims his place in the room — next to Sam. The work that Bill began finally bore fruit. Bill gave it to Charlie, who then gave it to Sam. She needed Charlie to see it, and then gave it back to Charlie. And he needed Sam.

I am no stranger to mirrors — the glass reflects the face pressed against it. Standing at the glass for so long, I know why they needed each other — the door opens from the inside.

A good line is instantly recognizable. A great line has a way of lingering — it sits with you long after the film has ended — it becomes a part of you. It became part of Bill Anderson.

Charlie witnessed something disturbing — his sister being hit by her boyfriend. Then at a party, he sees the girl he likes, Sam, with a boyfriend who is obviously wrong for her. The next day, just before English class, he sees his sister and Derek kissing like nothing had happened. He had built a level of trust with his English teacher, Bill Anderson, so, puzzled, he asks him why nice people choose the wrong people to date. At a very young age, Charlie sees something that has perplexed me my entire life. He loves his sister and cannot comprehend her choices. Why would she choose to stay with someone who hits her? Then he sees the woman he loves, Sam, choosing someone who is wrong for her when someone amazing, like Charlie, would treat her the way she deserves to be treated. Why do nice people choose partners who are terrible for them — to the point of abuse — and never see the person standing right in front of them that will love them more than they could even comprehend?

Mr. Anderson, not preaching, but coming from a history of personal experience and pain, gives him the answer.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

Mr. Anderson has sat with this truth for a long time. Through personal experience and pain, this wisdom has given Bill something unexpected — legibility of himself. Being a true teacher — a mentor — he now gives Charlie the same framework of discovery. Charlie, not understanding that the statement is really a mirror, deflects it outward onto the women in his life. He asks, “Can we make them know they deserve more?” Bill answers simply, “We can try.”

In his own way, Charlie spends the rest of the film trying to show everyone around him this truth. As Charlie truly sees Sam, the line finds its way to her, who then turns the mirror back on Charlie — and he finally sees himself.

The film is The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Stephen Chbosky’s adaptation of his own novel, released in 2012. Everyone who has seen The Perks of Being a Wallflower knows it is a film about being seen. What I want to do here is show what being seen actually is.

In many ways this film saw me before I saw it, in the way precise art speaks to the reader before the reader is ready to recognize themselves. The first such scene was an invitation received, and Charlie’s first party. Recognizing Charlie, Patrick toasts him saying, “You see things. And you understand. You’re a wallflower.” Thus far, the film has been about Charlie’s determination to turn it around this year, and, in spite of his intentions, cemented his position as an outsider. This is the genesis of Face Against the Glass — the view from the outside looking in. A lifetime of looking through the glass gives plenty of time for the astute to observe people. I see things and understand.

The architecture I live inside — the one that keeps me at the glass looking in — is the continuous, involuntary cognitive process running beneath every social interaction — the mechanism that converts the raw data of human exchange into something navigable. I call it the translation program. The bidirectional attunement, emotional mirroring, nonverbal reading, tonal calibration, the thousand micro-adjustments that constitute natural connection are observed and catalogued in a library of human interaction that is built over a lifetime. In every encounter my counterpart must be observed, a pattern matched against the library, interpreted, and then a response must be generated, evaluated for social acceptability, timed correctly, and delivered. All of this happens in the window between stimulus and response that most people never notice because they don’t have to occupy it. The costly translation program creates a degree of social performance.

Being trauma-based, Charlie does not have the same architecture as me, but this party scene is about what happens when the social performance is removed. Getting high may have removed the social performance of Charlie’s architecture, or it may have been an in vino veritas moment — either way, what we are left with is a Charlie without the social performance filter, in a moment of pure truth. Until this moment Charlie had just been an awkward teenager at a party. He didn’t have anyone to talk to and inadvertently offended them when he asked why one of the popular kids was at the party. It speaks to human nature that when the filter was removed, everyone circled around Charlie and were drawn to him the way humans are drawn to anything exceedingly rare. He observes the people around him and describes what he sees with unguarded precision. It was the first time any of them truly saw Charlie, and he was added as a member of the Island of Misfit Toys as a result.

This scene also gives Charlie and Sam time alone, as she makes him a milkshake. Absent from the previous scene, the woman who will eventually return Charlie’s diagnosis as a mirror, is beginning to see who he is underneath the performance. Her connection with him allows her to see something the others missed. Charlie’s best friend killed himself and he was alone — friendless. The people at the party, and now Sam, have seen what it is when the architecture, or the social performance overhead stops. Not broken. Brilliant.

As if self-fulfilling prophecy, many of the things Charlie has been writing all along — to someone he chose because they listen and understand — are starting to happen. But the first person to read what Charlie wrote — and to see the writer in the writing — was his English teacher. Bill Anderson is the most quietly important character in the film.

His story has been written — the writer becoming legible through the writing and his personal experiences and pain. He has been called to teach, and by so, he is using what the writing produced to bring the possibility of legibility to students who have not yet done the work themselves. Bill sees Charlie on the very first day — sees a mirror — and recognizes him from his own story. They used to tease Bill. They called him Spaz.

Bill has spent his own time standing at the window looking in.

Seeing Charlie standing at the same window, he puts him on the same path of clarity that produced the wisdom of we accept the love we think we deserve. Charlie — after asking if we can make them see they deserve more — immediately sets forth to make those around him see that elusive truth. What Charlie doesn’t see, is that when Bill says, “We can try,” he is talking about Charlie. Everything Mr. Anderson does is so that Charlie might realize he deserves more than the reality he has accepted.

Long before the mirror of his own question is reflected back on Charlie, Mr. Anderson has been handing Charlie mirror after mirror, in the form of hand picked novels, and then asking Charlie to write about what he sees in the mirror with each essay he turns in. The film barely lingers on the books. Most of them appear only as spines accumulating on Charlie’s shelf. But line them up, and a pattern surfaces that the film never names aloud. Each novel fits one of three themes. Bill is assigning Charlie a curriculum on himself. The first is seeing clearly when the world would rather you didn’t. To Kill a Mockingbird is the entry point. Charlie recognizes himself in Scout before he knows he’s being shown himself. Next is the cost of the architecture — the cost of being a wallflower. Bill points at the danger in Hamlet. A mind that sees too clearly, surrounded by performances it cannot enter, paralyzed by what it knows. And in books like The Fountainhead — the answer. The self, intact against every pressure to compromise it.

So that we may see Bill’s heart, he steps outside of this curriculum and gives Charlie one last book. For Christmas, Bill gave Charlie his own copy of The Catcher in the Rye — his favorite novel from when he was Charlie’s age. His personal copy. In doing so we see something much deeper — much more profound — than a teacher trying to help a student. Bill tells Charlie you are standing in my footprints at the window. This is the book that helped me when I had no one.

I was you, Charlie.

It is what I am made of.

I want you to understand the difference, because it matters. Values are things you choose, prioritize, occasionally trade against other values when circumstances require. I cannot trade truth. It is not a preference I developed or a principle I adopted after careful consideration. It is the foundation beneath every other thing I am — the load-bearing material of my entire architecture. Remove it and nothing above it stands. When I say something, I mean it. Completely. Not approximately, not socially, not with the soft asterisk of it seemed like the right thing to say. When I tell you something is true I have assessed it honestly and I am reporting accurately. When I tell you I love you, it is not performance. When I tell you I will be there, I will be there. My words are not social instruments. They are honest reports of my actual interior. You can build on them the way you build on solid ground — without checking first whether they’ll hold.

The word I use for lying is distasteful. I chose that word carefully because it captures something physical in how dishonesty registers for me. Not merely wrong in the abstract moral sense. Distasteful in the way something rotten is distasteful — an immediate, visceral response that bypasses the reasoning mind and arrives as revulsion. I have never been able to lie comfortably. Not because I lack the intelligence to construct a convincing false narrative. I could. But maintaining it requires holding two versions of reality simultaneously — the true one and the performed one — and the part of my mind that is constitutionally oriented toward what is actually real keeps finding the seam. Keeps flagging the inconsistency. Keeps returning to the foreign object lodged in the system. It is not worth what it costs. It was never worth what it costs.

The world is full of things that are genuinely absurd, genuinely inconsistent, genuinely worth naming — but naming them directly, at full honest force, costs more socially than most situations will bear. For these situations, I have built a sharp, darkly sarcastic wit. Sarcasm lets the truth into the room. It wraps the accurate observation in enough ironic distance that the social contract remains technically intact while the thing that needed saying gets said. It is, in its way, a precision instrument — the gap between the literal statement and the intended meaning calibrated exactly to illuminate the truth it’s carrying. When it works well it is honest and funny simultaneously. When it lands it is because the other person recognized the truth in it. That is always where the best sarcasm lives. In the truth.

This doesn’t make me easy to be around, I know that. The same architecture that cannot produce comfortable dishonesty also cannot receive it gracefully. I notice the small distortions that most people extend and absorb without much thought — the story adjusted for a better ending, the feeling reported as less than it is, the commitment offered without full intention behind it. I notice because the pattern recognition that lives beneath everything I do is always running, always comparing what is said to what is real, always flagging the gap. I am then faced with a choice to reveal what I learned, or not. But either way, I cannot unlearn what I know, which continues to add evidence to the conclusion I have already made about these people.

Truth is a double-edged sword.

The same quality that makes me trustworthy makes me, sometimes, hard to be close to. I don’t say this as apology or as false modesty. I say it because it is accurate, and accuracy is the only register I know how to operate in for very long.

Here is what I mean. When you ask me what I think, I will tell you. Not a managed version calibrated to protect your feelings while technically answering the question. Not the response that maintains harmony while quietly avoiding the thing that actually needed saying. What I actually think, assessed honestly, reported accurately.

Most of the time people say they want this. Fewer actually do when it arrives. Because the truth, delivered without the social softening that most people apply automatically, lands differently. It has more weight. It carries no cushioning. And when it lands on something real — something the other person already suspected but hadn’t fully let themselves know — it doesn’t just inform. It confirms. And confirmation of something painful is its own specific category of hurt.

The hurt that comes from comfortable illusion being shattered is one thing. That hurt contains anger at the person who shattered it, which provides somewhere to direct the pain. But the hurt that comes from hearing something true — something you already knew underneath but had been successfully not-quite-knowing — that hurt has nowhere to go except inward. Because you cannot be angry at the truth. You cannot argue with it. You cannot dismiss the person delivering it as wrong without confronting the fact that some part of you already knew they were right. That is the sharpest edge of the sword.

Not that I say things that are wrong. After processing all evidence, I come to an understanding of the topic I am pondering. And then I think about it some more, toiling for days or weeks, to think about what I could have missed. When I am satisfied, I settle in with what my mind believes is the “right” of a situation. My life experience has been that this process produces conclusions that hold up under scrutiny. After all, it is the very mechanism that my brain runs off of. But often, I say things that are the “right” of it before the other person was ready to receive them. I have watched this happen. Said the accurate thing with genuine care behind it and watched the person receive it, process it, and direct the resulting pain at me — not because I was wrong but because I was right and being right at that moment was its own kind of intrusion.

My architecture processes truth as neutral.

A fact is a fact regardless of when it’s delivered. What I sometimes underestimate is that the person receiving it is not processing it neutrally. They are processing it through everything they are, everything they hoped, everything they’ve invested.

The sarcasm I developed was partly an answer to this problem. When the truth is wrapped in wit, it arrives with a small distance built in. The irony creates a buffer — the other person can laugh first, which gives them a moment to metabolize what’s underneath before it fully lands. The truth still arrives. But the delivery allows the receiver to meet it on slightly better terms. It is not dishonesty. It is timing. It is the closest I can get to the social softening that comes naturally to others — without compromising the thing I cannot compromise. The accuracy itself. Because that is the edge I cannot dull. The truth is the truth whether or not the moment is convenient. Whether or not the relationship can comfortably hold it. Whether or not I am liked more or less for having said it. It is not a choice I make each time. It is what I am. And that is the sword. The same blade that makes me trustworthy makes me, occasionally, difficult. The same quality that means my love is real means my honest assessment is also real. You cannot have one without the other. I am not a curated experience. I am a complete one.

In the movie Roadhouse, our protagonist is Dalton, who is a cooler. In the context of bar security, a cooler is a highly skilled, experienced head bouncer responsible for de-escalating conflicts without violence. Unlike standard bouncers who may focus on force, a cooler uses interpersonal skills to “cool down” tense situations, maintaining a safe environment. He is training his staff on the finer points of customer service by instructing them to, in all things, be nice. One of the bouncers thinks he has a solid argument that will bring down the new boss a notch or two. He asks what if someone calls his mother a whore. Dalton, who has a philosophy degree in the movie (because why not), counters by asking, “Is she?”

Dalton’s response is disarming precisely because it’s not a deflection — it’s an epistemological challenge. He’s asking the bouncer to examine the truth value of the claim before reacting to it. If the answer is no, your mother is not a whore, then the insult is simply false, and a false statement has no real power over you. It’s noise. Your brain can categorize it and dismiss it. But if there’s even a grain of truth — or worse, if the claim is entirely accurate — the words become a mirror, and mirrors can be unbearable.

The Stoics argued that external events have no inherent power over us — only our judgments about them do. But that framework quietly assumed the insult was false. When it’s true, something different happens: the judgment is already made, internally, before anyone speaks. The words don’t create the wound. They expose one that was already there. This is why Shakespeare’s most devastating lines are almost never pure fabrications. Iago doesn’t invent Othello’s insecurity — he finds it and presses on it. The truth functions like a key that was already fitted to a lock.

Dostoevsky explored this brilliantly in Notes from Underground. His narrator is consumed not by the false things people think about him, but by the truths he suspects they perceive. He’d rather be insulted with a lie — something he could reject cleanly — than acknowledged with accuracy, because accuracy means being seen, and being seen means being known, and being known means having nowhere to hide. This is why the most cutting insults in real life are usually not outrageous fabrications. They’re small, precise observations that the target already knows are true and has been hoping no one would notice.

Dalton’s answer is genuinely therapeutic in the philosophical sense. He’s teaching his bouncers a form of cognitive immunity: interrogate the truth value of an insult before you let it move you. If it’s false, you’re free. If it’s true — well, then the conversation you need to have is with yourself, not with the drunk who said it. A bar fight is a very poor substitute for self-examination. That’s a fairly sophisticated application of Stoic and Socratic method in a movie where he later rips out a man’s throat with his fingers, thereby making it a brilliant reference in a discussion on truth.

The epistemology is one thing. The lived experience is something else.

Most of my life, I have been punished for telling the truth.

My childhood was riddled with experiences that were difficult, to the point that I still remember them. Before I recognized you weren’t supposed to tattle, I would tell when other kids were breaking the rules. I didn’t understand why. Honestly, it didn’t make sense, but I learned, painfully, through repeated observations, that kids did not like it, and did not like me for doing it.

I’ve never been uncomfortable talking about the attractiveness of women. To pretend a woman is not beautiful is really the same as lying. My friend in high school didn’t appreciate it when I used that same logic in reference to his mother. To be fair, she was a very beautiful woman. More so than any other parent I had ever met. He asked me who I thought was pretty and I told him the truth. That did not go over well.

While in college, I had two roommates. One of them I had known since the eighth grade. He started dating a girl and before we knew it, she was always there. The problem was that my other roommate and I didn’t like her. She was not respectful of others in the house and the two of them together were gross. The details no longer matter, but we were not happy. She never left and was always there. One day I asked if there was mold growing at her place from neglect. He informed me that she had moved in a while ago. My roommate did not want to confront him. I thought we had been friends for a long time and I could tell him the truth and he would respect me for it. I was wrong. They moved out just about as fast as they could pack their stuff and leave. I still to this day have not spoken to him since. It was the first time I realized that truth and logic were no match for regular sex.

But relationships are where the double-edged sword shows itself the most. I recognized the pattern of my college girlfriend cheating on me and I told her. She was relieved. She didn’t know how to end it with me, and I did her a favor.

The face at the glass sees clearly. That is what the position produces. Decades of watching from outside, of having no choice but to watch, of being unable to participate without first translating — it makes a person into something. Pattern recognition runs constantly because it has had nowhere else to go. The fictions everyone inside agrees to never tell each other are visible from out here. The seam in every comfortable performance is the first thing the eye finds.

Truth, for me, is not a virtue. It is the residue of a lifetime spent unable to look away.

If you have stood at this window too — if you have wondered why you could not stop seeing what everyone else has agreed to ignore — you may already know that what I am describing is not a moral position. It is the shape your mind has taken.

You are not alone in being made this way.

I stand, outside, looking at the warmth through the window. Long ago, the sun set. Darkness permeates, and the chill in the air cuts deep. There is nowhere I would rather be than at one of those tables — any of those tables. Ready for the warmth, I reach for the door only to find no handle. Where, only moments ago, there was a door, now there is none. Confused, I return to the window and begin waving my arms, desperate to alert someone of my plight. When no one looks up, I begin to beat on the glass. And still, no one sees me. I look for another door, a window, a rear entrance — any way into the restaurant — and I can find none. So I return to the window, and wait. The next day, the tables have changed and new patrons inhabit them. But the connections are just as real, the laughter just as boisterous, and the warmth just as inviting. Yet I still cannot find an entrance. Day after day I try, endlessly denied what I desire most. The repetitive cycle takes a toll on me, I grow weary, and the chill feels all the colder.

Darkness and cold.

And loneliness.

This is all there is and all that I know. The loneliness, unbearable. The cold, biting. The darkness, absolute. The oubliette of despair awaits if not but for one thing.

Hope.

Hope that the day will finally come. And on that day — Someone inside will look up. See the face at the glass. And come to open the door themselves.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Long ago, the weariness turned to cynicism, which then became depression. And just when I thought hope abandoned me too, someone looked up.

And she opened the door.

After so long in darkness, her light was blinding. Disoriented and convinced I was in a fever dream, I tried to make sense of the bizarre and surreal. My eyes slowly grew accustomed to the light as I began to make out shapes. Soon, I could see her clearly. Immediately, I memorized everything about her and stood dazed at the realization of her surpassing beauty. I don’t remember speaking, but perhaps I said something silly. Or, she was struck by the look on my face, for she laughed. The sound was a sweet melody that resonated with my very soul, and a peace washed over me like none I have felt before. The constant observation of the patrons of the restaurant, the analysis of their conversation, the pattern recognition that interpreted their body language, and the constant scanning for an entry point taxed the resources of my brain in perpetuity. As her laugh rang free, it all...stopped.

Years passed and she received something she had searched her entire life for — intimate, experiential knowing. I saw her completely, accepted what I saw, and spent years showing her that what I saw, was beautiful. And she gave me something I did not know existed. Reciprocity. My love for her manifested itself in many ways. For years our laughter filled the room and I marveled at the sparkle in her eye when she looked at me. Her acceptance of me freed me to be myself, and as I opened my heart to her something unexpected happened. I began to write. A quick note. A message. A long letter. Letter after letter, I wrote my heart upon the page. Easily a million words later, writing became the vehicle that carried my love forward.

Now, she is gone and once again, I stand at the glass, looking in. The view from the window carried a new element. Pain. I can no longer tell myself the warmth isn’t real. After feeling the warmth of inside, the window doesn’t just feel cold. It feels like the absence of heat. A place devoid of movement or energy, frozen in time. Her light was a private sun that bent the gravity of my world around itself. Even the silence glowed. With the setting of that sun, the darkness is totalitarian. Night stretches endlessly, not black but dense, as if the air itself has thickened into ash and velvet and ruin. As I look upon the connection and warmth of the restaurant, I am left with one irrefutable fact — an absolute truth.

I am alone.

The weight I carry now seems unbearable. But I have been left with something more than when I could convince myself the warmth wasn’t real. My words. They continue to flow and I scurry to jot them down before they too are lost to the darkness. The need to be witnessed does not stop because the witness is unavailable. I keep writing anyway, but, now, I am practicing being seen by someone who can no longer see me. I keep trying to make the interior legible, even to no one. It must be so. This life doesn’t make sense if I don’t write.

Perhaps those at the table will read my words...

and look up.