Dualism...

Too many people inside,

Slashing away at my mind.

Two people so strong,

Reeking titanic Chaos.

Over.

Dear Thomas,

I can face the lies no longer. I have never loved you, I have only desired your love. I am addicted to the pain men shove into my heart. You are part of that cycle. Raliegh is part of that cycle. Patrick is a part, Lee was a part, Jeff was a part, Jason, Jaben, and over and over and over. At least with pain, I can try to contract some feeling from you ... pity, remorse, your awareness that I am worth loving. With pain, I can play on your sympathy. My life is sick, like so many other lives are sick. 

And it makes me sick to be with you. To be with Raliegh. 

I want adventure. You are safe. 

I want danger, excitement, ecstasy.

You can give me none of these.

Oh, how you make me angry! Your oblivious-ness shatters my whole body into fragments of disallusioned fear. That fear causes me to be sick, to want to quit, and sometimes to die. When you don't look at me, it kills me slowly inside. And I can't take it anymore. No more with the pain. No more with the false efforts of trust, of you being kind, then forgetting, of you being beautiful, and then making me feel ugly. You can't be attracted to me, regardless of how beautiful or perfectly feminine or wonderfully fit I am for you. 

And honestly, I care not. You are behind me. You, you, you and the rest of them. You are all mice, though created by a God who desires you to be men. I pray he does this transformation in you. Not for me (because I do not want you), but for the rest of humanity. This obsession with masculine/feminine rips my mind, my brain to fragments of a once-true ideal. My ideals are falling apart. And it's because of the mice that creep around my feet, my head, and my heart.

I hate that you were one of the mice. 

But you are behind me. I cannot be around you. I will not be around you. Go away and stay.

Truly and Forever,

A.

The Waiting Fulfilled.

I texted Patrick today, sitting in the library, drinking my coffee, working my brain to focus on my test tomorrow. I asked him for advice on studying for Christian Doctrines.

So, he called. It was great! He tried really hard not to talk about himself. He's grown up quite a bit. Still has a way to go, but he's growing up and I'm proud of him.

He gave me a lot of practical advice, updated me on his search for a job and his desire to do God's will. He asked about me like usual. He genuinely cares.

At the end, I said, "HEY...hey, I'm glad we're friends again. It's good to talk to you." He said, "Yeah, I mean, you were, uh are, a really good friend. And we invested a lot of time in each other. It would be bad to let that go to waste." Then he sort of apologized. "I understand why it was hard for you and why you needed time." He got that choke in his voice that he gets when he's being most serious -- when he feels most vulnerable, most down-to-earth and honest. He continued, "If you need any more help or have any more question...about the test, you know, call me back. No matter how late, whatever time. If you need anything, call." I said for him to call whenever, and if anything changed with his job stuff, and if there was anything for which he needed prayer. He said good luck on the test, I said good luck on work. 

That was all.

It felt so, so, so very good to have him bring up the past like that -- to acknowledge it for the pain that it caused me. He sounded so relieved and so at ease, at home, to have our friendship back to the way it was closer to the beginning. I could tell that he had been hurting for having hurt me. I know that he thinks about me so, so, so very often. I know that I am an important part of his life. I know a lot more now. In an odd way.

I know that I am a very unique and beautiful and important young lady. Many men find me fascinating and exciting and fun and genuine. I am gorgeous and separate from other women in many ways. Patrick Lynn Fitzgerald saw that in me, sees that in me. He's my brother in Jesus, loved by the same God. And he messes up -- just like Raliegh, like Thomas, like Tommy, like K-Pat, like everyone. 

But all these friends, these boys, these men have loved me. 

If selfishly at times, still they have loved me, at some point, absolutely purely.

I'm glad I waited. I'm glad I endured. There's nothing more beautiful to me in this very breath that I am breathing as I type out this episode of this particular waiting for closure fulfilled -- there nothing more beautiful right now than knowing that I am important enough to someone that he would lay down his pride for me, lay down everything around him, to show me in even a small way, that he had wronged me. And that he was sorry.

I'm glad he's back. I'm glad we're friends. I'm glad my best friend is in my life again. The kind of friend that I don't need to talk to, but enjoy his conversation, his laughter, and his love.

It hurts.

Dear Jesus,

It burns a lot. I feel used and sad and hurt and alone. I run from you when I feel like I'm obsessing over things not from you. I feel like it's who I am, but maybe that's the problem. Fear is not from you because you are Perfect Love. Perfect loves dispels all fear. Thomas said so many things. He said he would fight for me. He asked me if he could keep me. He told me he wouldn't leave me. I don't understand. 

Are my nightmares a reflection of the truth? I want to sleep in peace! I want to truly be able to rest. My insecurities, my fears, my failures, and my inadequate loves attack me in my sleep, in my most vulnerable state. And I've asked for help before, then pushed you away. 

I don't know what more to do. When I love, I get hurt. I get raped. I get used. I get depressed. Jesus, I'm sorry if I lay my life down at the foot of the cross then pick it up again. I don't mean to pick it back up. What sick person would want all the pain you've allowed me to lay at your feet? Make me whole. A whole person follows you no matter the pain and the hurt and the fear that confronts her. Make me whole, Jesus, like the woman at the well and the woman with her jar of perfume. 

-Ashley Ruth