You know that point in a relationship at which you realize that you cannot live without your other person, and then your mind instantly conjures a horror story in which life shook out a little differently and you never met each other at all? (For example, had I not agreed to help a girl I went on one failed OkCupid date with to move a futon, I would never have met the woman with whom I now share a blissful life.)
Well, that’s where I’m at with Supergirl right now. I don’t know what I would be doing without it, and I can only imagine it in horrific “darkest timeline” terms. However bad the world is right now, imagine how much worse it would be if we had to get through it without Melissa Benoist’s face beaming benevolently down at us.
But these days, Benoist has some competition for “face most radiant with joy” from Chyler Leigh, whose radiance is so exquisite it is very nearly unbearable.
Last night’s episode featured the continued evolution of Leigh’s Alex Danvers, as she finally moves into girlfriend territory with Maggie Sawyer. Alex’s whole coming out story has rung very true for me, but never more so than this first ecstatic morning when the two of them are just drinking coffee, wearing each other’s t-shirts.
My first morning with my first girlfriend was when I really knew I was irrevocably gay. I mean, I knew starting with a kiss from a different girl a couple of years before, and I knew some more when I had sex with a girl, just to be sure. But that first morning, with the first woman I really loved, watching her put on a dress and drift around her kitchen, I knew in the sense that I knew my gayness was not merely true, but right. Happiness flowed down as simply and undeniably as sunshine through a window, and like Alex Danvers, I began a new knowing of myself in its light.
I can’t imagine any feeling more precious, more necessary right now. I can’t imagine what I’d be doing without it.