Validation 3:05 PM

When you really, really like someone, it really doesn't matter what everyone else thinks about your relationship. The mutual feelings between you should be enough to keep everything strong.

That said, it doesn't hurt when everyone and their brother tells you how cute you are together.

I have never, ever, once gotten a compliment about the way a girlfriend and myself look as a couple.

But in the past month and a half, we've had at least a half of a dozen people call us cute or adorable or a great couple. And it feels good.

It takes that feeling that I have, the one that tells me that she is the perfect girl for me, and it multiplies it. It takes that feeling and strengthens it and emboldens it and makes me love her even more.

It's really weird being in a relationship where everything seems to be pointed in the right direction. There have been times in the past where it was like "yeah, okay, things are going well but there's this that I don't like, or I have to worry about that." Blah blah blah.

But with my current girlfriend, there are no "little things." There are no little details about her that I have to ignore to be happy. She doesn't do anything that pisses me off or gets under my skin. She doesn't say dumb things that embarrass me in front of my friends.

It's quite the opposite. Almost every day I see her she amazes me just a little bit more. She'll drop some obscure reference or say something super cute or even use one of my little catchphrases and it just makes me fall that much more in love. And every time I look at her, every freaking time I look at her, all I can think about is how beautiful she is. I am so incredibly attracted to this girl that it's ridiculous.

If we both had a whole free day and it was rainy outside and we were stuck in my bedroom I would... well, I'm going to stop there.

But my god... I get that feeling deep in my chest every time I see her for the first time each day. And every night when she shuts the door and looks at me through the window I capture that image of her in my mind. I freeze it and look at it over and over for as long as I'm awake.

She is beautiful.

Secret garden.. 8:52 AM

We went for a walk the other day and found the most amazing, pretty little patch of flowers nestled deep in a hillside on the Northern bank of the Erie Canal. The colors were a stunning mix of purple, white, and the most natural green I think I've ever seen.

What makes this patch of heaven even more special is the fact that probably nobody else has taken the time to notice it, and nobody else besides my girlfriend and I can understand just how perfect it is.

I think that our secret garden is a very fitting allegory for our relationship.

There have been, and there continue to be, problems with people who just don't get us.

I had to give a strong lecture to several of my cousins because they chided me for entering a new relationship so quickly after an old one ended, and for spending so much time with my new love.

Similarly, I faced some initial problems with friends due to the fact that I was single for only four days and now I spend a significant amount of time with my new girlfriend.

Now, it seems like cutie is facing the same problem.

People on the outside just don't get our relationship. We are remarkably close. It's almost like we complete each other. We are puzzle pieces designed to fit together.

At the same time, we're fine to spend some time apart, but people just assume that we can't be split up for a few hours so they don't even bother to ask.

The song "Such Great Heights" by the band Postal Service seems 100 percent suitable for life right now.

They will see us waving from such great heights,
"come down now", they'll say.
But everything looks perfect from far away,
"come down now", but we'll stay...

I think it was Dwayne in Little Miss Sunshine who said; "you do what you love and fuck the rest."