Thinking back to December 2010 still feels like kicking an old bruise. It still hurts to write about it. I'll eventually explain the events that lead up to this, but for now, here is the aftermath. This is actually my first journal entry about you. Everything that happened before this, I've written down as I've remembered it. This is my original entry, "I regret all the pressure I put on you and on myself. I want so badly to be a part of someone's life, that I often overlook the fact that they haven't asked me to be in theirs. When I rewind in my mind all the things you said, and all the times you looked at me, I know that I just heard what I wanted to hear, and saw what I wanted to see. You were and always would be four years younger than me. I'm disgusted with myself for thinking of you as more than a friend. You've made me feel crazy from the very beginning, and I don't think it was in a good way. You always talked in riddles and I would walk away from our conversations feeling even more confused. I was constantly trying to read between your lines, sometimes I thought I understood, other times I thought I was only hearing what I wanted to hear. How could I have misread everything? You gave me no reassurance or clarity in any way. It was selfish of you, it was like you couldn't, or didn't want to commit to anything, so you kept me waiting in the dark. You always knew how to keep me holding on just enough, it was everything your eyes would say, and how it seemed like you always had to touch my hair.
Every time that I get to know a boy, and I start to let myself think that there could be something between us, my mind does this weird thing, it says, this situation is so far from anything I could have ever imagined, it's so complex that it must have been orchestrated by God. My heart has always seemed to beat for Africa, and winding up in my mostly Sudanese church and meeting you, it all seemed to make so much sense. You wanted to live in Africa, you loved God, and you thought I was funny. It seemed too good to be true. I don't believe in coincidences, I think everything happens for a reason. I always want to assume that God is behind everything, but most times it's me trying to pull my own strings for my life. You don't know that it started this way, but everything started one night you were over, our friend from church was there too (the one you had an almost thing with.) We were all crowded around photobooth, trying on our halloween wigs, my roommate and our friend went in the other room, it was just you and me. You pulled me onto that tiny chair with you and we started taking pictures together. We took a few and were looking them over. You pointed one of them out to me, then you turned, looked me right in the eyes and said, "I look so content in this picture." I'm not sure if it was how you said it, or how you looked at me, but your words stuck with me in a way that was surprising and almost annoying.
There are few males in my life that look at me like I'm just any other girl, they don't see me as a the girl with the disability. They just treat me like I'm any other girl. There is no pity in their voice when they talk to me, and they aren't scared of hurting my feelings. This sounds like something a girl wouldn't want, but it was rare for a boy to treat me this way, I always feel so flattered when I'm perceived this way. You treated me this way from day one.
Needless to say, when my roommate went to bed that night, I spent a good half hour pouring over those six pictures of us, squinting, and hoping to see the answer to a question I was too scared to ask. That's how we started, sometimes I wish it had stopped there, that I hadn't pushed the way I always do."