leave

September 25, 2009*

I’m cold and tired. I’ve slept for hours and there are socks on my feet and warm sleeves on my arms. I’ve learned so much and so little all at once. I’m still afraid, but somehow less scared about being afraid. I’m an oxymoron just waiting to be challenged. I feel defeated and careless, but more guarded than ever. I don’t think I could contradict myself anymore than I already do.

I keep waiting around. My whole life feels like one big waiting game.
I love, I mess up, I try to fix it, I repeat my same mistakes, thinking that maybe, this time I’ll get it right. I like to think that it’s everyone else who is wrong, but it’s always me. They say that life is only 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it. I have terrible reactions. I’m missing the piece of me that makes me think that I’m worth it. I’ve tried so many times to make You my everything and it’s like I can’t be happy, not yet. I feel like I have to be everything or nothing at all. There is no middle ground.

Seeing the seasons change reminds me of how far off I am from where I want to be. It marks another stretch of time that I’ve wasted and taken advantage of. It’s beautiful and new and I’m the same as I’ve always been. I have nothing to offer it in return for its beauty. I could enjoy it for what it is, but I would rather it serve as a reminder to me that I should try harder and keep my patience in tact. So I will let the fall taunt me into submission as another year passes just out of my reach.

Don’t worry, I’ll keep reaching and maybe someday I’ll reach and You will be closer. Or maybe I’ll reach and You will give me someone here on earth to love.

what a waste of a heart

Same trip, same month.

What if we stop having a ball?
What if the paint chips from the wall?
What if there's always cups in the sink?

What if I'm not what you think I am?
What if I fall further than you?
What if you dream of somebody new?

- Ingrid Michaelson

Part 4.
Another song that I still relate to J, it seemed to illustrate every fear I had about meeting him. We met up with J at this random spot right off the highway. It was an abandoned gas station. I felt like we were all going to end up on a dateline special. I questioned everything I knew about him. Here I was putting everyone's life at risk, they had no choice, but to trust that I had good judgment in someone I met online. We got to the appointed spot before him. I was so mad, we had come all this way, just like he wanted and he wasn't even there to meet us. The suspense was killing me. You know how sometimes you want something so bad, that it seems like it will never happen? Like the universe is playing a terrible trick on you, like you'll get so close to it, but never actually get what you want. It's like that moment when you're in the passenger seat of a car and you something up ahead catches your eye and you're so intrigued that you sit up a little bit straighter and squint your eyes to see a little better as you approach, but just as you do, a car comes along side you, blocking your view, and keeps up just long enough for you to miss out on what you were dying to see. That's how I felt about J from day 1, till that moment when he pulled up in his town car. Every picture that was tagged or posted of J online was so weird, his hand would be up across his whole face, or there would be a huge piece of furniture blocking his body. My friends and I would laugh about it, he was the mystery body and face, but what right did I have to judge him about these things when I was the one with a disability? I felt like we had too much of a foundation built for any of this to matter.

He finally pulled up in that granny town car of his, and immediately covering his face with his left hand. I laughed so hard, thinking to myself, "he would." We were all giggly, it almost felt like we were doing something wrong. I didn't usually meet guys in real life that I met online. My sister immediately said that I would ride back to his house with him. I was mortified, I'm not sure why, he knew more about me than most people, it was just so overwhelming. The reality of it all was hitting me. My roommate was such a good best friend and immediately offered to ride with me. I got out of the car and climbed in the front seat. They were leather. I kept sliding off and trying not to stare at him. He was exactly what I imagined, no real surprises. He was in a hat and a sporty zip up, not at all skinny, but not fat either. He had Christian radio on and his talk show opened up with a warning about having young children leave the room because they would be discussing sex. I wanted to die. Could this ride have been any more awkward? My roommate encouragingly squeezed my shoulder from the backseat. I loved her so much in that moment. We made small talk, J showed me all the dead zones, where he would lose me when we were talking on the phone. The night we got there we all piled into his car, he bought us all McDonalds and went to his hockey game. It was really fun. There was a lot of yelling. I was super nervous and not at all myself. I barely ate my mcnuggets.

J's grandma was adorable, she made us feel right at home. J gave up his king sized bed for me and my sisters. I went through his closet and looked at all his outfits, and what he was reading on his nightstand. I felt weird using his shower. I left one of my bobby pins in there. J had to work the next day, but I woke up to a text from him. Nothing too cute, just him making plans for us when he got out of work. We went to the mall and played putt putt. It was a lot warmer there. I rode with him in his car, just me this time. He told me he felt like he had known all of us for forever. I tried to make a couple jokes, but I just felt so much pressure to be everything he thought I was, that I just shut down. While we were at the mall, he barely talked to us, and was always a mile ahead of us when we walked. At one point we were sitting on a bench outside of a store, and I kept thinking to myself, I've waited so long for this moment, and here I am, right next to him, and we're not saying a word to each other. I just kept waiting for him to start trying, but he seemed so disconnected from me, from everyone. Neither of us were the confident people that we portrayed over the phone. We got home from the mall, played a little Wii, watched some Office, and just sat around. We were leaving in the morning, and my oldest sister was overtired and she started acting really weird and hitting J with a fly swatter. My roommate told her to go to bed, and surprisingly, she listened. She went up to J, offering him a hug, but he wouldn't give one to her. I laughed, glad that for once her flirty ways didn't get her anywhere. My roommate's blond sister was there, just watching us play Wii golf, and commenting on how much she hated it. Her and J started talking and before I knew it they were throwing grapes at each other. I tried not to be mad, tried to keep my cool, but I was furious. Really? Right in front of me? I told myself they were just being friendly, that it didn't mean anything, that I needed to stop being so insecure.

It was finally time for bed. We all said our goodbye's that night, since we were leaving at 6 am, and J didn't have to work till later. I had all this stuff in my hands, and J walked up and gave me a huge hug. It was awkward, my hands were full. I couldn't really hug back, so I just kind of leaned into him. I was confused, he didn't hug everyone else. What did it mean? I went to bed with a smile on my face. I couldn't wait to get a text from him in the morning. I thought it was weird that I wanted to know how he felt about me, but I couldn't talk about it with him in person. I remember being on the road and getting a text from him, it went something like this, "it was so awesome meeting you guys." I was so mad, blah blah blah, what about me? What about everything we talked about? I asked him about us, he played dumb and kept beating around the bush, not really giving me an answer. He kept talking in circles, and saying he felt like God was really working on him and that he had never been around a group of girls like us. Sure, that was nice and all, but it was like he completely disregarded everything we were, and he just lumped me in with everyone else. I was so hurt. I told him I couldn't talk to him for a while, I had to stop thinking of him the way I had before, I knew he couldn't mean so much to me anymore. I couldn't let him have so much of my time and energy anymore. But that's the thing about liking someone, well for me anyways. It was the first time a boy had admitted to liking me, I felt addicted to that feeling, and missed it when it was gone.

His birthday was coming up, I made him a card and drew all of his favorite things on it, but I couldn't bring myself to send it. Instead I wrote him a five page letter, trying to understand him. I wasn't trying to force him into liking me, that was the last thing I wanted. I wanted him to understand what he did to me, and to give him a chance to explain himself. I thought I had meant more, but all my worst fears about myself were confirmed.  He made me feel so insecure, so defeated. I mailed him the letter, he responded in a really long myspace message. It didn't answer any of my questions that had been gnawing away at me, but I started to accept that I probably never would really understand him. I slowly started to realize how lame he was, but everything still hurt so bad, I felt like I was losing a really good friend. I felt so bad about myself. I've always had a hard time separating out my feelings. I can't just quit someone, or flip a switch on how I view them. I knew it would take time, so I told him we couldn't talk anymore, not until I could switch my feelings over to viewing him as a friend. I eventually sent him his birthday card, and a few months later, we talked on the phone. He would randomly call me on his way home from hockey to talk about himself, then he would lose signal and not even bother to call me back. I also found out J had started texting my roommates blondie sister once we left. Big surprise. I stopped caring after a while. I had to. I guess I fell further than him after all. Sometimes you just have to let go, or you'll stay stuck forever. A few months later J started dating a girl he met online, but never in real life. I guess she was from Pennsylvania. It didn't last long. It was around this time when I started going to my new church, the one I'm at now. I remember being in such a dark place, and how Sunday mornings made me feel so safe and loved. I started serving in a ministry where the children needed so much love. I felt like I had wasted so much of my love, time, and emotions, but at least now I could finally invest them in something real. I felt needed. I was investing my heart where it would be safe. It was the one place where I felt like I didn't have to hide how sad I was. Even though I didn't know anyone, I felt like I could be myself and come just as I was, broken and lost. I had no idea you were so close, or what you would mean to me.

throwing blame & pointing fingers

April 2009*

Part 3
The night before we left, I was so excited, I couldn't sleep. We had built things up so much, that I felt like I could possibly be meeting my future husband. (confessional#7 I had our whole introduction down in my head. I planned on high fiving him for some reason.) The day we were supposed to leave, J texted me, telling me that his best friend wasn't coming now and that his car wasn't reliable enough to make it all the way to the Outer Banks. I was so angry. I couldn't even answer him. He wasn't even trying to find another way there. We had only been talking about this trip for months. He knew how much it meant to me, I thought it meant a lot to him too. I spent the whole car ride there disappointed. I didn't want this to ruin my whole trip. I was on my way to a beach house with my closest friends, I should've been so excited, if only I hadn't gotten my hopes up quite so high. I always place such high expectations on things and people, when I know I shouldn't. I was miserable, but pretending to still be excited. I was so angry at J. We drove through the night, so we were in terrible moods by the time we arrived at the beach. The rental place wasn't open, so we had no way to get our keys to the house. My sister was so stressed, and took it out on everyone else. As the oldest, she took on that role of being the mother figure, so she felt so much responsibility for us. I kept insisting we just drive down to the house, we argued back and forth, throwing blame around, pointing fingers. There was nothing left for us to do, but drive down the the house. It was unlocked, just waiting there for us. It was adorable and huge. I wanted to be so excited, this whole experience was supposed to be amazing, and J was ruining it, no matter what I tried to do, I couldn't let my disappointment go.

We texted back and forth a couple times. I suggested maybe meeting halfway between Charlotte and the Outer Banks, but there was really nothing in between. I remember being on the phone with him, so frustrated, a huge map laid out in front of me, I measuring the distance with my hand, and a place called Rocky Mount being halfway for us. Nothing was really working, I gave up and resorted to having everyone send him mass angry texts simultaneously. That made me feel a little bit better. It was freezing there that week. Almost unbearable, which was pretty disappointing considering we drove so far. In all of our pictures we made ourselves take our coats off so it would look warmer than it actually was. I kept making myself do crazy things, so I believed that I could have fun despite the major disappointment. I attacked the person dressed up as a lion at food lion. It made for some good photos. We went in the ocean, despite it being fifty degrees, made a horror movie at night, filmed a fake mtv cribs, and ate lots of good foods. I wrote in the sand and wanted to send you a picture, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't feel like you deserved to know that you were missed, that you were ruining my whole trip.

My oldest sister was so angry the entire time we were there. She kept complaining about the weather and saying she knew this would happen, why didn't we listen to her etc. She kept texting J and asking him what the temperature was there. I guess it was a lot warmer there since they were away from the ocean. They were in cahoots, J wanted us to drive all the way there, and my older sister just wanted a chance to wear all the tank tops she packed, she was also curious about what J and I would be like when we finally met each other. I thought he was being lazy and that it was out of the question for us to even consider making the drive out there. We had booked the beach house for the entire week, I didn't want to lose money for leaving early just so we could crash at J's at grandma's trailer. The whole thing just felt so weird, and I was finally starting to have fun. I didn't expect everyone to leave early and drive another 4 hours in the opposite direction of home, just to see a random boy, all because it was a little bit warmer there. There was some kind of vote taken, my sister threatened everyone and no one really wanted to hear her complain anymore, so we left early and headed to Charlotte, toward warmer weather, toward J.

the physical wreck

January - March 2009*

"We met on the front porch

Fell in love on the phone

Without the physical wreck"

- Ben Kweller

Part 2
I was attached to my phone. I couldn't be without it. We were always texting each other. I was always trying to get a good signal, or sneaking him a message under the table when I was supposed to be engaged in a serious conversation, or a guest in someone's home. He wanted to know me, really know me, and it scared me to death. J asked hard questions, he always wanted to talk on the phone. I was never ready, I was still convinced that he liked my sister and was stringing us both along, and I knew that as soon as I heard his voice there would be no turning back. It's one thing to be messaging back and forth, it was nice and I came to depend on it, but as soon as you hear a voice, it means everything. I knew I had talked to him once, in the beginning when things didn't matter, but now we were working towards something. I knew that talking on the phone would make everything real for me, for both of us. It felt safe to just have a texting relationship, he was thirteen hours away, he wasn't real, or at least that's what I told myself.

One night my sister was over for family dinner, she went into the other room to do something and I grabbed at her phone, scrolling through her text from J. I was convinced that he was flirting with both of us. I guess I was just a little paranoid. My sister had no idea how much we were talking and I didn't want to tell her. She was never good at keeping secrets. I found a text where she complained to him about being sick. He told her he would make her soup and sing to her. I was so angry, that's exactly what I thought was going on. It seemed silly that I reacted so strongly to this text, it wasn't like we were actually together, and he hadn't actually said anything that weird. I was just so insecure about the whole thing and wanted an excuse to get mad at him, to blame him for something.

J played hockey almost every night of the week. He had been begging me to call him, and I was so mad about those texts that I took that opportunity to call him and give him a piece of my mind on his voicemail. He called me back later that night, all confused as to why I was mad. He told me that he hadn't meant anything by his text, that he was just saying it as a friend. I let it go, we started talking like normal. J tried to get me to admit that I liked him. I told him he was crazy. He kept trying to convince me to move there, it seemed so ridiculous to me that he was even suggesting it. I would never move for someone I barely knew. It wasn't even a question for me. I was so close to my family and friends in my city.

I knew that once our phone conversations started, they wouldn't stop. He would call me all the time. At that point in my life I had just moved into my own apartment and I was always job searching. My days were often really long, lonely, and discouraging before he came along. He filled up my days, he gave me a reason not to sleep past 10 a.m. I loved waking up to something encouraging from him. He seemed really serious about me, really soon. I was terrified of ever meeting him. I felt so sure that once he met me, he wouldn't like me anymore. I guess I'm more insecure about my disability than I realize. I felt like once he saw me, and how I walked, he would change his mind about me. He told me over and over that this wasn't true. I know that it is one thing to know someone from online and on the phone, but another thing to be around someone in real life. You can play twenty questions every day for months, and get honest answers, but when it comes right down to it, you need real life to actually understand it all. In real life, you are able to see how someone interacts with others, how they converse, and what really matters to them. It's easy to say things, but everyone knows that it only counts for something when you really live out.

J was always telling me how much he loved God, and how he was always trying to grow in his faith. We read the book, "The Shack" together. I found it really controversial and blasphemous, he thought it was beautiful and that I went into reading the book with a closed mind. I just couldn't get past the fact that they portrayed Jesus as a black woman. We argued about it for days, he won. He always had really good points, and made me second guess myself. I liked the way we were always challenging each other. It was a new feeling for me.

I was so scared to admit to him that I liked him, even though he had more or less admitted it to me. I felt like as soon as I admitted this, I would be less appealing to him. I always blame it on the fact that boys play sports and they like the competitiveness of "the chase." I remember the night I admitted it to him. I didn't know how to tell him, I knew it wasn't fair to keep pretending that I didn't care about him. I didn't want to play games. I remember starting a fight, and him finally saying, "what is this really about?" Then I foolishly admitted that I liked him, I just didn't know how to say it. I wasn't used to having someone call me out on things. I had never told those words to a boy in my whole life. I was so used to hiding my feelings, and them never being reciprocated. I kept telling J over and over, I don't know how to do this stuff, I've never done this before, this is a big deal to me. I kept telling him that, but I don't think he ever really understood. J was always able to pin point the problem, and address it. Boys are pretty good at simplifying things, I love that about them. I could hear him smiling as he said, "oh, that's all?" We laughed about it, and that was it. There was nothing left, but to finally meet each other.

Oddly enough, my roommate and I had been planning a trip to North Carolina that April, we were going to the Outer Banks. I know it was still a big drive from where he lived, but I felt like God had this amazing sense of humor, that maybe this was part of the plan, as bizarre as it all was. We rented this adorable little house on the beach, for me, my oldest and youngest sister, my roommate, and her blond sister (Taylor Swift.) J promised to rent one close to us for him and a couple of his closest friends. I was so excited and nervous. I had so many fears about myself, about him liking my oldest sister instead, but I was a tiny bit hopeful, that for once my exterior wouldn't matter. That he knew and liked enough about me that it would mean more than the physical part. I remember trying to prep him for me, I made myself sound way worse than I actually was. I remember saying, "I'm kind of like a rag doll, I need to be propped up in a corner to sit." I would laugh so hard after I sent these text, and anxiously away his responses. It was a little mean how entertained I was by it all.

As the time grew closer for us to meet, I got more and more excited about it. I had such high expectations, he told me he was so sure of me, of us. I wanted so badly to believe him. He was dragging his feet about making reservations, it made me nervous. I even sent him links to a place that I thought would be cheap and nice. I left the rest up to him. I would stare at that picture of the beach house that we rented and dream up these really nice scenarios that always ended up with us taking long walks on the beach at night. I would fall asleep every night with my ipod on, listening to the same song over and over again. I'm not sure why it fit our situation so well. Every time I hear it, I still think of him. Everything seemed like it was falling into place. All I had to do now was pack my suitcase, and wait for April to come.

j, the one from north carolina

Winter 2008*

Part 1

This one's crazy. I wouldn't believe it if I heard it myself. Bizarre. I had zero intentions of ever getting to know J. He was just so insistent. My oldest sister has been going through this midlife crisis for years now. She's only twenty-eight, but as soon as her ex's started getting married, she went buck wild and signed up on every dating website. There have been so many interesting boys that have come out of her internet shennanigans. I wouldn't take the time to learn their names, I usually called them by their user names, since there were multiple boys with the same names. The whole concept of online dating freaks me out sometimes. I know it works for some people, and I'm really excited for them when it does, (confessional#6? I had a free membership for a week) but for me it just reminded me of how many other lonely people were out there searching for love based mostly on a picture. I know it's rude to be shallow, but when you can't experience someones personality in real life, you don't have much to go on besides a picture and a little blurb. All the generic winks and kisses that you can send someone seemed so demeaning and trivial. They may as well just have a, "I think you're hott" button.

Having a disability makes me feel a little bit like I'm deceiving these guys too. At what point do you drop the disability bomb? I think I would want to know if the roles were reversed. I just feel like it doesn't define who I am as a person, so it's not usually what I talk about when I first meet someone. At the same time, it doesn't seem fair to have someone fall for you and then say, oh my b, I have a plastic brace for a body. I know everyone says that in the end looks don't really matter, but they always do to an extent. Sometimes attraction can grow. I've found that when I'm getting to know someone, their looks appear average at first, but once I really got to know them, I started to actually see them for everything they are, and it almost seems like their appearance changes. I think that sometimes love changes how we perceive people. Attraction is only a starting point.

It would be so much easier if we could walk around and see people for their souls instead of their faces. I think our investments and who we spent our time with would be drastically different. Society is always portraying beauty as everything, sometimes I think the prettiest people are the most miserable. How do they ever know when someone is liking them for them? I hate to admit that sometimes I treat people differently depending on how they look. I often avoid people who I think are pretty, or have it all together. I find them intimidating and unrelatable. Maybe these outwardly beautiful people wouldn't be so sad if girls weren't intimidated by them, and guys didn't cater to them? Maybe they just get attention in all the wrong places. There I go, judging people again, thinking I have all the answers, I know I don't. This is all speculation.

It's a little ironic, I was there the night she called J from North Carolina for the first time. He didn't pick up. When my sisters lived near me, we used to get together once a week for family dinner night. It was nice to have a little home away from home night amidst our busy weeks. My oldest sister was over one night and told me I had to hear J from North Carolina's voicemail, she said it was the "funniest thing ever." I gave it a listen, wasn't impressed, but before I knew it, I was leaving him this very long, ridiculous message, and he was calling back asking to talk to me. We talked for an hour, while my sister and roommate listened. I could hear my sister in the background saying over and over, "they're going to end up liking each other." I was so annoyed, but we had this hilarious conversation going that I just couldn't hang up. We ended up quoting our favorite show to each other. When I hung up the phone, I felt like I unleashed a monster, like I was potentially getting myself into a huge mess.

My initial thought was, "oh crap, what have I done?" my second thought was, "what in the world does this kid look like?" I immediately wanted to facebook him. I felt like we both were genuinely ourselves for that entire phone conversation, and I know it was silly, but we had this electric banter going back and forth, like we were made to talk like that. There was something great about having zero preconceptions about each other. It was based solely on this weird verbal chemistry we had. I made my sister show me him online. In every picture he seemed to be hiding his face or things were too blurred for me to know what I was actually looking at. I told myself I didn't care what he looked like, that it didn't matter to me, that us talking was a one time deal. After our phone conversation, my sister told me that J always asked to talk to me, and wanted me number. I refused to give it to him, or talk to him on the phone. I didn't want to get into a love triangle with my sister and one of her men from another state. He added me on myspacemyspace. He was relentless, and I was bored, so one day I gave him my number. We started texting quotes daily. He delivered pizzas and would text me all the time.

One day he asked if he could get to know me. I panicked and immediately responded with a "no way." There was no way I wanted to be involved with someone who had been interested in my sister. Her and I were so different, I don't see how he could jump from her, to me. It just made me feel so weird. I kept thinking that there was no way I would get involved emotionally, I didn't want to feel like I was competing with my sister for him. I had an overwhelming sense of avoidance, even though I felt like we had compatible personalities and I did enjoy talking to him. That's when I dropped the disability bomb, in hopes that it might scare him away. It didn't.

My outright refusal to get to know him made him mad. He argued with me, and we went back and forth, each of us trying to get our own points across. Guess who won? I never seem to follow my instincts, I'm not sure why. That winter I kept him a secret from everyone besides my roommate. I didn't want it to get out that I was talking to one of my sister's online flames. Too embarrassing. I usually hated winter. Christmas made me crazy, I've always had this need to go sweater shopping for a boy. It seemed so crucial to my existence every winter, I'm not sure why. It's the one holiday that I want to share with someone. J came right on the tale end of Christmas. I guess I will blame it on that..