r, the one from college

2004-2007*
Where to begin with this one, I just don't know. I think I cried the most over R. He changed my perspective on life. He was in all of my art classes freshman year. He got on my nerves, with his highlights and popped collar polos. R was the kind of boy I wanted to get away from when I finished high school. R was obsessed with this one girl from our class, she was really good at painting, but really mouse-y looking. For some reason all the boys went crazy over her. It was probably the fact that she was tiny, but had huge boobs. Every time we would have a critique in art class, her paintings would be the best, she was so good at realism and painting faces. The part that annoyed me about her so much was how she would complain about her paintings and how they were terrible. I'm not sure when R and I started our friendship. One day I said something funny and it was like he noticed I was there all of a sudden. Before I knew it, he was putting his number in my phone and wanting to hang out. R was, and still is one of the funniest people I have ever met. He has this infectious personality that made me forget that I had other friends at school. He's the one person that could make me do things that I normally wouldn't do. I wanted to do them because he would get so genuinely excited for me to experience them. Once he convinced me to try and learn how to ride a bike. He would put me on the bike and steer me down the path so it felt like I was really riding it, another time he held my hands so I could try the hopscotch he had drawn on the sidewalk in front of my dorm.

I don't know how we ever got anything done, we were always getting in trouble. Once, in astronomy class we started laughing so hard about something and couldn't stop, R had to leave the room. We were quite a pair, everyone asked us if we were together, it seemed like we were, but I knew better. They were always talked about how cute you were, but I was never attracted to you. I gave myself the title of being his 'life coach' it just meant I would hold his shirt underneath down while you took off your sweatshirt. He would call me every morning saying, "wakey wakey, eggs and bakey." I always pretended to be super annoyed by his constant phone calls, and how he could never seem to remember our homework assignments, but at the same time, I liked how much he came to rely on me. It made me feel needed.

We had our signature move we always did at our college dances, I would stand in front of him and he would lift me up as I jumped in the air, while he rotated in a circle. It looked hilarious, everyone would stare. Oh man alive could R dance. I made him take my sister to her prom, they cleared the dance floor for them. He was such a slacker, but when he was passionate about something, he would work so hard at it. He was a new Christian, and was in every club and organization on campus. He would always be in the front row at chapel, eyes closed, hands raised in worship. One thing I began to notice about him, was the way he burned bridges. He would be obsessed with someone, or something, then pour everything into that person until they couldn't stand each other. R was always full of energy, and off the wall. My friends didn't really understand what I saw in him, or why we got along so well. We always had identical schedules since we were the same major, he would throw me over his shoulder and carry me down the sidewalk while sharing ipod headphones, people got used to our weird antics. R demanded so much attention, that my other friends would get mad. He was demanding, I know I dropped things that I shouldn't have for him. I was always making him my priority.

I have this one memory of him that really stands out, I was really sick and sneezing everywhere, I looked like a hott mess. R offered to take me to the store to buy me some orange juice (the good kind.) I don't even think he bought it for me, I just appreciated that he cared and drove me there. He was always so selfish though, and I knew he only liked me when I was funny. It was hard to always keep that up all the time. We got so close, that the lines between friendship and dating started to blur. I got confused about how I felt, our closeness was all the time, we were so comfortable together. He was always laying on me or carrying me around. It started to confuse me. We both signed up to go on a trip to Paris and London with our art class. (Confession#5 I had all these elaborate dreams where I told him how I felt about him under the Eiffel tower at night. I was wearing a red beret and an amazing dress, in my fantasy, he would tell me that he liked me back, then he would kiss me and my foot would pop.)

I was at my older sister's house one night and she she informed me that she heard from a friend of a friend that R was gay and had a boyfriend, he was just too scared to come out because our college was so strict. I was so angry with her for telling me something about my best friend. I knew him way better than her, I would know if he had two lives. The thought of this whole idea made me so upset. One night in astronomy class, he confessed to me that it was true. He wrote me a note, I saw it coming and I had my hood up so  he couldn't see my face. I almost started crying. He had no idea how much I cared about him, and how terrified I was for him that he was heading down this path.

Paris and London came around, we were so excited. I felt the weight of everything he told me, it was always there in the back of my mind. I felt this need to convince him that his lifestyle change was a mistake, and to remind him of what he already knew was true, that it wasn't how God wanted us to live, it wasn't how he created us to be. I felt so responsible to tell him this, since we were so close. Our first night there, we couldn't sleep, it was so fun having our bedrooms were right next door to each other and we knocked to each other on the wall, from our beds. We met on our tiny twin balconies and giggled about how we were in Paris. He offered me his ipod so I could fall asleep. I fell asleep listening to his music, dreaming that he wasn't gay, that my Eiffel tower dream was so close. I kept gearing myself up for it, hoping I would be brave enough when the moment came, and that our friendship and how he felt about me would mean more to him than his new found sexuality. Since R was my only real friend on the trip, he felt responsible for me. Everyone was always walking too fast and leaving us behind while we were on our tours and trips to the museums. He got so frustrated with me and stressed with his new role. He started to resent me, and distance himself from me. He joined up with other people and tried to push me off on a different group. I cried myself to sleep most nights. I hated that I was such an inconvenience to him, I tried so hard to keep up with everyone. Every night in Paris, when I we would get back to our room, I would collapse on my bed in exhaustion. My legs would ache so badly, but I wouldn't be able to sleep a wink. My mind wouldn't shut off. I felt so much pressure to fix everything, to make him love me, to make him see that his new lifestyle would only bring him so much pain, to pick me instead.

Our trip ended, I didn't feel like telling him how I felt about him anymore, he wasn't worth the effort. I could see how selfish he was, how he was and always would be chasing after the funniest, or the most exciting thing. I didn't get my picture exactly how I wanted it. He kissed me on the cheek, but it was all staged. Someday I wouldn't have to ask a boy to kiss me at night under the eiffel tower. He would just want to, so he would. We barely talk anymore, we have nothing in common, besides our old memories and stories. We got together once and went to visit our old college. We went to the old "cubbies" (where couples would cuddle and makeout.) We had once carved our initials inside one of them with a pen. We wanted to see if we could find it again. We walked around campus, he threw me over your shoulder, just like old times. This time all the students who passed us on the sidewalk were new, they stared at us, so confused by everything. We just laughed. We got to my dorm, only to find they had taken the cubbies out. Our initials were lost forever. R always comes up on my facebook newsfeed. He's always running around in his underwear with another guy. It makes me upset, I feel like I should have tried harder. I found a letter I wrote him, but never sent. I guess it's never too late to show someone that you care. It's just that sometimes so much time passes that our priorities shift, and what used to mean the world to you, suddenly disappears into the haze of everything else that runs through your mind in a day. It just turns into another one of those things you cannot control, one of the things you slowly give up on. I wish I could have been a better friend. Maybe I just gave up when I realized he would never love me. I'm sorry R.

on pretending & judgements

I must confess I have been very judgmental my whole life. I tend to draw conclusions before hearing the whole story, and sometimes even after I hear the story, I still think I know best, but that's the thing about life, we can never really understand someone till we've lived what they've lived and looked at things through their lens. Since that's impossible, I often find myself judging first, listening second. It's something that I've been working on for a long time now. I think it has a little to do with the fact that I grew up so sheltered. My parents were really strict, I was home schooled from 1st-8th grade. When I was younger, the only thing we would talk about was what happened at the Sunday night service at church, or what new contemporary christian cassette tape was coming out that week, so when I heard about anything else, it seemed scandalous. I know my parents meant well, they were trying to protect us. I appreciate the measures they took and how much they loved us. I feel like they built a strong foundation for us, so when I went to public high school later, I was confident in my beliefs, but my worldview was small. It would take me a while to realize that I had to develop my own opinions and thoughts on God and life, and that there is a huge difference between legalism and holiness.

I have three sisters, they are 28, 21, and 17, and an older half brother. who is 33. I fall right in the middle of everything. The middle child, I'm sure I have all the complexes associated with middle child syndrome. Our family appeared perfect on the outside. My dad lead the kids programs at church, played the organ, and did everything that a man who had been divorced could do without actually preaching. We were in church at least three times a week. My dad is Native American, and his whole family lives on the reservation and that was where we attended church. Most the kids that would come out to church were wild and unkempt. I was the well behaved, overachiever whose dad was in charge. I memorized all my verses above and beyond what was expected, I sat super still during the mini sermon, in hopes that I would get the 'hot seat' or candybar prize at the end of the night. I remember wanting so badly to fit in with those wild native kids, that I practicing this one sentence that had borderline profanities in it, I wanted this one girl to think I was super bad, so she would want to be my friend. I said my slang one liner, she was impressed. Our friendship was short-lived, she figured out I wasn't as bad as I pretended to be. I don't even remember her name.

How my family was in church, and how we were at home, were two different things. Over the years, things started to fall apart. I think we forgot what it meant to be a family. It seemed like we got so caught up in what we were supposed to be, that we forgot what really mattered. Tuesday nights at church became the only times we would see my dad. He was always seemed to be too busy for us when he was home. I started resenting the time he spent with those kids, he would pour more into them than he would with us at home. I didn't like that I had to share him. My whole family started to go through the motions, we thought that it would carry us through. And that is what is so wrong with pretending, it's only a temporary fix, something to hold you over till the real storm hits.

e, the identical twin

 She said "I've gotta be honest,

You're wasting your time if you're fishing round here."

And I said "you must be mistaken,

I'm not fooling... this feeling is real"

-D.C.

2005*

E, he was different, I think he actually liked me back, our timing was just all off. My older sister was dating his twin brother. When they first started dating, she confused the two of them and accidentally paid the wrong brother a compliment. Awkward. The twins started coming to our new church. They were both obsessed with history, poker, and fast cars. Every Sunday E and I would pass notes through the entire church service. These notes, along with my senior picture would become bookmarks in his Bible. I loved the nickname he gave me, and how every time he would see me, his whole face would light up.

I was ridiculous and made him a CD and put one song at the end that secretly said how I felt about him. We were always talking about going fishing together, but never did. I remember when he came to my house the night before I left for college. He brought me a farewell gift. It was this metal Curious George lunch box. He had filled it with sour patch kids. I can't remember why, it was probably some long running joke we had going. He was the first boy to ever give me one of his sweatshirts. It was black, and huge on me, but I loved it. I think he had sprayed it with his cologne before he gave it to me. I wasn't mad.

One Sunday we were passing notes, I can remember how the sun was coming in through the window and hitting my legs, making me wish I had shaved them a little better and hoping he wouldn't notice. (Confessional#4 sometimes I think that having darker skin allows me to have a free pass on not shaving my legs.) E had a girlfriend at the time and he had been complaining about her to me a lot. I remember this one monumental note he passed me, it said, "I want my next girlfriend to be funnier, like you..." I remember freaking out and not being able to look at him. Sometimes this is what happens when you were homeschooled and never really got a chance to interact with boys, so you turn into this little weirdo who reads into everything. My only redeeming quality was, when I would start to think like this, I would never outwardly respond or verbalizing my thoughts. I would just freak out internally. Looking back on it now, his comment wasn't that flattering, but at the time I was just thinking, "oh my gosh, what if he wants me to be his next girlfriend?" 

I remember going back to college after that weekend and still freaking out. I was taking a 3D class and we were building these shacks out of wood scraps. I was talking to my roommate, who's actually still my roommate now. I was sawing wood and whining about a situation that wasn't even real, I was making it seem like I had this huge decision to make, when in reality, he was still with his girlfriend. I think it was just the first time it seemed like someone could possibly be into me. I immediately stopped talking to him, and dodged him for the next couple weeks at church. When the possibility that someone could like me was there, I clammed up. I would question whether I actually liked him or not. I think what I was actually doing, was wondering why he would want to be with me. My whole life boys had always treated me like I was just another one of the guys, and when one actually showed interest in me, it would freak me out. I would immediately assume there was something wrong with them if they liked me. I guess my older sister wasn't the only one guilty of letting a boy define her. The next time I saw him, the weirdness was gone, the moment had passed. I knew I had missed my opportunity. I was back to being one of the guys.

I can remember how badly I always wanted to be in pictures with E. He was over at my mom's house one day after church, so I had my younger sister casually take a few pictures, I remember not wanting him to know what I was doing, but I wasn't as subtle as I thought I was. I tried getting my youngest sister to be in them with us, but she wouldn't. In all pictures (which are printed) I'm yelling at her, with my arm outstretched trying to get her to be in the photo. E broke up with his girlfriend not too long after the note incident. He would spend hours on the phone with me, talking about life and love, he even came to visit me at school one weekend. It felt safe to like him again, I was back in my comfortable role of giving him girl advice. I kept hoping he would hint at something again, hoping our conversations would come back to us. I didn't really know where it was going, but that following summer he started dating a new girl. I remember being so devastated, and sitting in my blazer (that I couldn't drive because it didn't have hand controls, so it just sat in the driveway) and crying on the phone to my best friend. A month later E showed up to my sisters (the who was dating his brother) college graduation party with his new girl. She was sweet and bubbly, I remember feeling bad for her because of how excited E got when he saw me, and how he kept her out of our conversation the entire time. I felt so bad, that I found ways to include her and let her in on our jokes. When he left I wondered why they were together, and I hate to say this, a little bit excited that he still cared about me. I decided to wait for him just a little bit longer.

I would feel so left out whenever my sister would show me pictures of their double dates. I couldn't help but think that it should have been me in all those pictures with him. Twins dating sisters, it made for such a good story. I never could admit to my oldest sister that I liked E. I'm sure she knew though, she had to have known. A couple years later, my family and I attended his grandmother's funeral. A lot had changed, our siblings broke up, and E was engaged to that sweet, bubbly girl. I remember putting on my cutest black dress and being unsure of how I would feel when I saw him again. We did our usual greetings, and caught each other up on life. Later on I would observe how they stood next to each other as they talked to family and friends. It was a sad night, but everyone would smile when she showed off the ring. I remember realizing that if I had been with E, I would be the one who was engaged. I realized that I didn't want to be in her shoes for anything. I saw what my life would be like with E. He would always want to stay in his tiny town, ten minutes away from his parents, playing poker with the same guys every weekend. I didn't want the comfort of always knowing what was coming next.

Last year my mom and sister ran into E at a restaurant, they said he was a mess, that he had just broken off his engagement and was drowning his sorrows in a beer. I remember how every time I was home visiting my mom and I would pass his parents house, I would always look for his big truck, or hope to catch a glimpse of him outside. I had bought E these race car pencils with his name on them, but I waited too long to give them to him, and I would always find them in odd places around my room. They served as a reminder to me of our forgotten friendship. This summer I ran into a mutual friend of ours, she said E had just gotten married and was off somewhere in the Caribbean on his honeymoon. Both of the twins got married, I haven't heard from either one of them in years. I hope E is happy. I wish we had gone fishing together, at least once. Here's part of the song, the one I put at the end his CD. Looking back on all of it now, I realize that my feelings for him probably weren't real. When you're younger, it's just so hard to figure out who you are, so you try to figure out who you are in terms of someone else. Problem is, that usually leaves you feeling even more lost. Everything just feels so extreme and raw when you're a teen, like you're feeling everything all at once, and it always seems like the end of the world. Here's to being thankful that I wasn't included in those double date pictures after all.

r, the one from church

1999*
Next on the list is R from church. Out of all the boys on my list, I have liked him the longest. I tried to figure it out the other day, and I think it was something crazy, like four years. I was probably thirteen when I first liked him. We went to Japan together on a missions trip with our church, we roller skated on Tuesday nights with our youth group (Tuesday nights were Christian music night), and we were both in the living nativity together (naturally, we were both shepherds.) My church went all out every year with the living nativity. There was always a real person on the roof, posing as an angel, and real animals in a pen around the tiny nativity. (Confessional#3 I remember one particular night of the living nativity, my shepherd's headdress went awry and I went up to R and asked him to fix it, he gently arranged it around my face. I remember getting so nervous that I was so close to a boy and as a defense mechanism, I closed my eyes, and pulled the I can't see him, so he obviously can't see me trick, you know, the one that a three year old would use. Lord knows what he thought I was trying to pull. I tried to block that out of my mind, but so much time has past, that I just find it funny now.)

Every girl at youth group liked R. He was tall, had dark hair, was musical, and had these amazing blue eyes. We were real friends, he thought I was funny, and everywhere I went he was always one step ahead of me, with his hand out, waiting to escort me down the stairs, or bending down so I could climb on his back when I was too tired to walk. He would have done anything for me and I knew it. While we were on our missions trip in Japan, we went to the ocean. There was this huge, plastic floating island pretty far out on the water, I knew I couldn't swim that far, especially against the waves, so I sat on the shore, watching everyone. I was used to this, and didn't complain, I knew there would always be things I couldn't do, I just had to wait them out. I can't remember who it was, but someone took pity on me, and swam me out there. R promised he would bring me back, but for some reason, it was a lot harder swimming back to the shore. I can still remember him struggling, but pretending not to, so I wouldn't get nervous. I remember barely holding onto him and trying to utilize my floating abilities as much as possible, so I wouldn't weigh him down too much. He was scared to put his feet down to see if he could touch the bottom. He thought that if he stopped kicking long enough to see how deep it was and never felt the bottom, we would sink. By the time he put his feet down, the water was up to his knees. We both laughed nervously about what had happened, and he never spoke of it again. I didn't realize how scared he was until a couple years later, when his sister confessed that he had told her it was one of the scariest moment of his whole life, and that he thought we were going to die out there on the ocean that day. I couldn't believe he had been that terrified. The fact that he had waited so long to finally put his feet down, made me feel so loved.

I remember the day I stopped liking him. We were at youth group, and he had just lost at a game of basketball. He got so mad and started yelling, he threw the ball at these metal chairs and stomped off. It was so loud, I remember being scared of him, and thinking that I never wanted to be with anyone like that. I saw firsthand what living with someone who had a temper was like, and I didn't want to travel down that road again and deliberately choose that life for myself. When I was seventeen my family started going to a new church. I wouldn't see R again till I was a sophomore in college. When he visited me at school, all I could think about was how much I had changed, and how much he had stayed the same. I cringed when he loyally bent down for me to get on his back, for old time's sake. I told him I was fine, that I could walk, but he was persistent, I remember telling myself, this was the boy who saved you in the ocean, so I got on his back. I remember how horrible I felt after he left, knowing that I had outgrown him. His nervous laugh bothered me, he wasn't confident anymore, he was awkward and only talked about himself. I started to mean too much to him, so I pulled away.

And this is always how it goes, these boys always choose to like me when I finally get over them. I tried to keep in touch out of obligation, but there was nothing holding us together anymore. He got married last week, but didn't invite me to the wedding. I was a little hurt, but I realized that I couldn't always expect him to be there, offering his hand to me, or his arms to carry me. He's putting his feet down for another girl now, and I'm genuinely happy for him.

k, the boy from India

1996*
Almost every girl I know has a list, you know, that long list of guys they've dated and been in love with. My list is hilarious, there are only five boys on it, and from that list, I've only dated one of them. I will put them in order of how much they've meant to me.

1. You
2. J (from north carolina)
3. R (from college)
4. E (the identical twin)
5. R (from church)

because I can
5 and a half. K (from India)

When I start to like someone, it usually goes like this, I observe their character, I get to know them as a friend, then I'm secretly in love with them for years. I watch them date other girls, and give them good advice on their relationships, but the whole time I'm just waiting, wishing they would figure out that I'm the girl they want. I'm always the funny girl, the one who makes every guy laugh, but no one actually wants to be with. I know looks are important to guys, it's just how God made them. I don't have a perfect body, my brace is plastic and hard, I get it. I think about how I would be so different if I could wear whatever I wanted and had a "perfect body." It is so hard to be a modest girl these days, I don't give my sisters enough credit for how trendy, yet classy they are. God knows what we can and cannot handle, he doesn't give us anything we cannot bear. I feel like I've been so protected from things that could be bad. So what I think I'm trying to say is, I'm thankful for my disability. It keeps me humble and modest.

K, he really shouldn't make the list, but he was the first boy who really meant something to me, so I count him. He was born in India and had a twin sister who was best friends with my oldest sister. I think they were adopted as babies and lived here their whole lives. They were in our home school group, his mom was close friends with my mom, so I usually saw him at least once a week. We would get lost in the woods for hours. He was in my life for these fleeting, amazing years when you're not old enough to be self conscious yet, but you can run around by yourself and have the kind of fun that leaves you going to bed dirty and exhausted, but with a smile on your face. You worry about nothing beyond what your mom is making for dinner, always have more than enough energy, and going to bed seems like the end of the world. I spent most of those days with him. We would build forts in the basement, and catch frogs in the ditch with the pool skimmer. I remember him sitting by my bed after my surgery, when I was in my full body cast. It was awkward, we couldn't play like we were used to. By the time I was healed, he had stopped coming over.

K was two years older than me and as soon he turned into a teenager, he lost interest in me, and later on wouldn't even acknowledge me in public. That's when I realized that boys only like girls who are terrified of things like spiders and snakes, and only like the color pink. They didn't want to date the girl who acted just like them and only loved blue. My strongest memory of him occurred when I was twelve years old and he was fourteen. It was one of the last times he ever came over. We were in the basement, it had been a while since he was over, and I was so excited to see him and hoped that things would be normal again. We built this fort under the stairs, there were a ton of pillows in there, and we crawled in all excited, just like old times. Once we got situated, we were both so quiet and unsure of ourselves. I felt his arm around me, and he started to play with the flower barrette in my hair. I can still remember the pink striped shirt I was wearing that day, and how I was shaking so bad, and hoping he wouldn't notice. My little sister decided to make an appearance and turned on the lights. She yelled, "what are you guys doing down here?!" I remember being disappointed and relieved at the same time. Later on, after he had gone, I would question whether that had actually happened or not. He moved away a couple months later and I often wondered if I had made him up all together. He remained tall, dark, and handsome in my mind, that is until I found him this year on facebook. I got so excited, till he accepted my friend request...I don't think he grew an inch vertically since I saw him last and he was drunk in almost every photo. He started chatting with me lots, and wanted me to fly down to visit him. Man alive, I should have just left him how he was in my mind, perfect and adoring me in my basement, in our fort under the stairs.