My Broken Body: A Love Story

My body is broken and has been since I was a baby. I wasn’t born that way, but I don’t remember the two months of my life before the sickness set in. I don’t remember being a few months old and never learning how to crawl properly because my wrists hurt. I don’t remember being one year old and screaming when my mom got me out of my carseat because my body was stiff and to move it caused me pain. I don’t remember it, but I know what it felt like, because I still experience it to this day. 

I was barely three years old and dressed in a pretty pink dress with flowers on it when I went to a hospital that had a giant fish aquarium in the waiting room. There was a doctor there who told my parents what was wrong with me. They finally knew why I limped when I walked. They finally knew why my knee looked funny; I had a disease.

The chronic illness that took over my body is named Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, aka JRA. The Juvenile part was there to remind me throughout my childhood that I had the kid version. As an adult I don’t know if the J still applies to my sickness or not, so sometimes I leave it off. Kid version or not, JRA broke my body. 

I’ve met people since getting older who have had arthritis set in as adults and they look at me and say, “And you’ve experienced this your whole life. I’m so sorry!” And sometimes they cry, and I think to myself, “Yeah, but I don’t know anything else.” 

What is it like to walk without pain? 

What does it feel like to be able to grab onto things and twist off lids and pump gas without wondering if you’ll be able to do it yourself or if you’ll have to ask for help? Again. 

What about waking up and literally being able to jump up and use every part of your body? 

What does that feel like? 

I’ve never lived like that, so I don’t feel that loss the same way as an adult who has that torn away from them halfway into their lives. I feel sorrier for them in a way. Not that I don’t feel the loss in my own way, because believe me, I do, but it doesn’t feel the same. 

I honestly don’t remember ever being told I had JRA, I feel like I was just told so many times until I was old enough to understand it. I didn’t have a moment where my parents sat me down and said, “Baylea, this is why you’re different.” I also don’t remember when the bone changes started. They must have started when I was young because I remember one summer I could sort of do cartwheels with my grandma, and the next summer I couldn’t even try because my wrists had grown so much worse. 

Things didn’t get really bad until I was twelve. That’s when I started going to the doctor’s again. My neck became affected and my hands hurts when I did certain things with them, like washing the dishes, cutting vegetables and using scissors. All I did that winter was lay on the couch and read, which sounds like a lovely thing, right? I still remember the feeling of new pain, pain in places that hadn’t hurt before. Pain that was worse than it use to be. I was watching my peers grow up and embrace their journey into adulthood and I was on the sideline wishing I could be like them. 

My body is broken. My knees swell up until I can’t walk. My wrists ache, and my hips get so stiff I walk like a pregnant lady with a nine-month bump. I can’t grip things because my hands are weak. When I eat something that stresses out my body the first thing to start aching is my right shoulder, and my feet have walked so many painful miles, sometimes to the point where I don’t think I can go one more step. But I always do, because that’s what I have to do. I wake up in the morning, feel pain, get out of bed and feel more pain, slowly warm up my joints and hope that as the day goes on, some of the pain will dissipate. A lot of the time it does so that I don’t even remember I’m in pain. And some days, like this past week, I feel so much pain that I can’t do anything except cope.

My room is a mess at the moment. I hate it. I have a basket of laundry and a half-empty suitcase from my trip to Turkey. I have checks I need to mail in and a pile of clothes to put away, but I couldn’t even handle getting dressed. And I hate it, because I don’t want a broken body. I don’t want knees and hips that don’t work right and hands that hurt too easily and dealing with an overworked body that wakes me up in the middle of the night with an ache that goes all the way to my bones. 

But this is what I have. I have a broken body. I’ve lived a life of limitations and that’s just what I’ve had to go through, and I am thankful. Guys, I am so thankful. Because I’m the first one to say that I’m not strong enough to do things on my own. The story of my life is to lean into the strength of others. My family. My friends. Jesus. I can’t live on my own because I’m not capable of doing the things I would need to by myself. I’ve had to push through really hard things, but do you know how amazing you feel on the other side of really hard things? Having a broken body doesn’t mean I can just move houses or schools or find new friends to escape my problems. This body is with me until the day I die. There is no cure for JRA. There is no way to regain what I’ve lost aside from a miracle (which I do hope and pray for). 

I have learned the sweetness of persevering until breakthrough. 

I have found comfort in the fact that Jesus was a man, who knows the weakness of human flesh. 

He knew pain. 

He knew loneliness. 

I know Him in ways that people with healthy, whole bodies will never, ever know Him and I honestly wouldn’t trade that for the world. He has been my friend when no one else had time for a girl with a broken body. His body broke for me so that one day my body won’t be broken, and I think that is the most beautiful thing in the world. I long for eternity in a way people don’t understand, because their bodies aren’t broken. 

In two years I will have had this disease for three decades. That’s a long time to have a broken body, but it’s also a long time to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that in my weakness, God is my strength and my friend. 

I Didn't Always Live In America: A Love Story

On my Facebook bio I have the phrase “I didn’t always live in America” because my heart needs people to know that it belongs someplace else. I don’t always talk about it because coming back to the states was complicated. Not in the on-again-off-again type of complication, but like two lovers forced apart because of situations and circumstances type of complicated. I didn’t always love that place, but when I finally fell in love, it was for forever and I can still feel the ache sometimes even though it has been six years, eleven months and twelve days since I said goodbye. Didn’t really say goodbye that day, though, did I. No. Like I said, it was a forced separation. 

You know how you can look at someone and love so many things about them that you don’t even know where to start? That’s how it is for me with Morocco. I close my eyes and I think of the mountains. Summer days by the fresh water springs with the freezing water that will numb your feet within three seconds of dipping them in. The sound of the water rushing past as you eat tajine and fruit in the shade, laying back on the berber carpets and reveling in the coolness in the midst of summer heat. When it was hot, that’s where you would go; up, up, up to where the spray misted off the frigid mountain water, creating rainbows that shimmered in the sunlight. You would sit and eat and talk in simple shelters that shade you from the blazing sun that used to turn my skin dark. 

The long twisty, curvy roads covered in dust, slowly crumbling from the years of use, past the tall forests of trees and orchards. Wide open spaces where you can see hundreds of sheep and black dots of nomadic tents where families would live for a season. Even in the mountains the green of plant life doesn’t stay forever and you look forward to the beauty of things coming alive after a winter snowed into your chilly home. Warmth comes and trees bloom, grass grows and the sun turns everything from gloomy cold to the bright stepping stone to summer that is spring. Instead of snow, we get cherry blossoms and buds that will one day become apples. You look down from the high points and see miles and miles of green spread out before you. If you live there you know that in a few weeks the heat will turn scorching and all the green will die until the fall rains come back, so you soak in those moments. You breathe in deep and smell the distinct smell of mountain air and animals and flowers in the sun, and your heart swells. And then you add the people, the food, the beautiful babble of Tamazight and Darija and my heart just bursts. From the tiny villages to the bigger towns, there is always a welcoming smile, a pot of tea on to boil, a new word or part of the culture to learn and a laugh to be had. The people are the same everywhere, though, from the mountains to the coast. The kind of kindness and hospitality that would invite a stranger into their home and feed them the only food they have in the kitchen. The kind of friendship that would give you a place to sleep and help you overcome whatever cultural obstacle you face. The ones who laugh with you when you blunder through a new word or situation you weren’t prepared for, telling you that you’re doing great and they welcome you to their country. The ones that stand between you and the those who would take advantage of you whether it is because of your gender or nationality. The ones who take you under their wing and show you how beautiful life can be in the most northern and western country of Africa. They invite you to weddings and engagement parties, music festivals, baby showers and to the public bath. They answer your myriad of questions, call you their sister, put their arm around you when you walk down the street, help you buy clothes and beg you to teach them English, all the while correcting your pronunciation and expanding your world with every friend they introduce you to. 

Sometimes I close my eyes and picture the city. The cities are large, crowded, noisy… fascinating. All the excitement of crossing the road at the perfect moment, catching a taxi to take you across town because it’s too far to walk, smelling the mixture of exotic spices, exhaust, and freshly baked bread. Everything is literally right there as soon as you walk out your door. Hanouts where you buy two eggs at a time because you only need two eggs for this meal and you can just buy more next time you need one. If you live in the right neighborhood you could go to the corner and buy an ice cream cone for a durham, but then later two dirhams, because inflation, I guess. There were the two main roads where the middle median is wide and there are fountains, benches, palm trees, twinkling lights strung across like power lines and the murmur of gossiping housewives, laughing children and exuberant teenagers. You’ll see football games in any open square, candy and cigarette stands every half a block and bump shoulders with smartly dressed businessmen. Brown and yellow buses rumble past, shiny cars honk at every little thing and bright red petit taxis dot the roads like a ladybug’s spots. Well, they were red in my city. You could tell which city you were in by what color the petit taxis were. Blue? You’re in the capital city. Green? You’re in Ifrane. White? Oh, you’re down south in the Hollywood of Morocco where they filmed Kingdom of Heaven and Babel. 

But my favorite part of the city was the old city. I love the winding pathways that work around corners and buildings, sometimes becoming too narrow for anyone to pass through. The way the paths dipped down and then came back up, walls closing in around you, and then leading you to a wide place. I loved the places where every shop was a butcher and you would smell them cooking their meat for you right there, spiced and ready to stick into a half of a piece of khubs. Or where all the olive sellers were in a line and you could see bucket after bucket of green, purple and black mixed with things you never thought to mix together. You can smell exactly where the bakeries are when walking down the street. Woman carry their unbaked goods and come back for them when it was ready, the smell and the steam wafting up from under towels where the food is kept warm. You could stop a hundred times by Beboujloud and find something to eat; a juice shop, a sandwich shop, a rotisserie chicken place where you buy a whole chicken with sides of rice and fries. Be careful of donkeys, though. Listen for the men to shout, “Balak!” and move to the side until they pass. They might be carrying cases of pop, or large boxes of things to be sold at a tourist shop, or maybe they are pulling a garbage cart. Either way, they don’t stop for you and I know from experience that a metal crate hurts when it bumps your arm because you weren’t paying attention. Also, the tunnels have amazing acoustics and singing at the top of your lungs with a group of your friends at night is a memory you’ll never forget. 

Of course, there are other places in Morocco. The beaches with burning sand and waves from the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, depending on where you are. Humidity that makes you feel just as damp and sweaty as you did before your shower. The ice cream tajine in Agadir, the ferry port in Tanja filled with every language and color of skin you can imagine, the beach town of Mehdiyya where you can stand in your kitchen and see the sun setting over the ocean through the window. The cities and villages in the far south where the endless expanse of the Sahara desert lies and where they live in mud houses and eat spicy food and wear black sheets called Lzars when they leave their houses. 

I miss the familiarity of the place that I love. The way I could smell the wood burning stoves in the winter and cedar when I walked past the woodworking shops. The dinging of metal workers, saying hello to the people at the cafe who spoke English, making up stories about the faces I saw every day but didn’t ever meet. The colorful sea of gorgeous headscarves and jellabas that move around you as you walk through the streets, and the huddles of friends and families on the steps by the square, soaking in the late afternoon sun. I miss my mind and heart coming alive as I learned a new language and culture. I miss all night dancing at weddings and having belly dancing dance-offs with my friends and learning what they were learning because they thought learning was fascinating. I could go on and on about the shibakiya and harira during ramadan, or eating sheep’s tongue on the first day of Aide, or our neighbors bringing us couscous on Friday’s because they love us. I could tell you how I wore headscarves and rode the bus and learned the national anthem, but I’ll stop. Like I said, I fell in love hard and once I unlock the memories I have saved of that place the words come gushing out. 

It’s a beautiful place. 

A beautiful place to call home. 

What if I don't get married until I'm 50?

What if I don’t get married until I’m 50?

That’s the thought that came to me the other day, and the fact that I didn’t immediately fall to the ground screaming means that I’ve come far in the last seven years since thinking I was going to get married at age 21. Maybe it is the lack of young men in my life, or maybe it is because I’m nearly 30 and that’s past the halfway point to 50 so the hardest part of the waiting is behind me. You may be thinking that that is not true since for part of that time I was a child who didn’t care about a husband, but that is false. I cared a great deal about having a husband when I was young. All I ever played when I was little was house and I always had a husband and I always had babies. That’s why thinking about not having that for the next 22 years is a big thing, because I really let myself think about it.

What if I don’t get married until I’m 50?

I could travel to places and meet people and have experiences beyond compare! I could wake up and see the sun rise a thousand times over a thousand different places! I could taste foods and climb mountains and watch for shooting stars and sleep in people’s homes and sit around their tables. I could write all through the night and sleep all day if I wanted. I could sleep in and stay in my pajamas and leave my laundry until the last minute. I could have dance parties at midnight and fill all the shelves with my journals and hold onto things longer than I need to because all the space is my own and it doesn’t really matter. I could go on any trip, or even move to another country if I wanted to. I could stay out as late as I wanted, put off chores and forget the menial tasks so easily. Every penny that I earned could go to whatever I decided was best, no questions asked. I wouldn’t have to share the scary secrets, the ones that no one knows. I wouldn’t have to worry about looking dorky or dumb, or waking up with drool all over my face, or worrying that he thinks I’m beginning to look old or worn-out or ugly. I won’t have that nagging fear that I’m disappointing him with my shortcomings or hindering him with my sickness. I wouldn’t have to share my favorite snacks, or control of the radio, or what movie to watch. I could run wild and free and live a beautiful life of loving others. I could.

But, what if I don’t get married until I’m 50?

And I wake up one day and I look in the mirror and I ache from the waiting? When my body tells me I won’t be able to carry my own children and when I do meet Future Mr. Baylea, I won’t have the health and strength of my youth to give him? Because some nights I will wake up cold, alone and maybe scared and all I’ll be able to do is wrap my blankets around myself a little tighter and pretend that it’s enough. And some days I’ll be so tired and discouraged and overwhelmed that all I’ll want is someone to hold me and tell me it’s going to be okay. I won’t have him there to whisper secrets with after we turn out the lights. I won’t have him there like a steady guiding light to remind me where home is, who I am, what I love the most. I won’t have him to love my family, tease my brothers, have conversations with my parents and sit beside me on the couch. When my friends all get married and have babies, I’ll be so happy for them, because their happiness is my happiness, but sometimes I’ll go home and weep into my pillow because I want a family more than anything. All the weddings where I’ll say there is no +1 and stand awkwardly on the edge of the dance floor when it’s time for the slow dances. All the times I just want someone to pursue me and know me. All the birthdays where I’m surrounded by loved ones, but the faces are different every year, and there’s no one to tell me that they’ll be there with me until I run out of birthdays.

And right now I have many children in my life, but none of them are mine. I always have to give them back. And yes, I should enjoy the freedom that brings me, but when you’ve been waiting to be a mom since you were 3 years old and your baby sister was born, 25 years seems long enough. I love the children that I get to take care of. I do! With all my heart I love them! I hold them, kiss their faces, cook them food, change their diapers, have conversations with them, laugh with them, remind them what is wrong and what is right, teach them, carry them, snuggle them, learn about them, listen to them, play with them, take care of them if they get hurt and tell them I believe in them when they tell me about their dreams. Sometimes I find myself in a perfect moment and I wish I could stop time because they bring so much joy to my heart, and then I think to myself, “Is this what life will feel like sometimes when I have my own kids?” But what if I don’t get married until I’m 50 and my whole life is loving kids and then giving them back?

So, what if I don’t get married until I’m 50?

What if I pass through 5 whole decades of life on my own? But wait… I’m not on my own. I have friendships where I am able to have deep, meaningful conversations about things that I love, issues that trouble me, my dreams and where I hope to be in 10 years. If I’m confused or frustrated, I have people in my life to turn to. If I’m hurting or overwhelmed, they’re there. When life calls for celebration, there are friends and family right beside me to join in. I’ve made connections with people who have shaped me and changed me into a better person. Yes, there are times that are very lonely, but those times come whether you’re married or not. Of course I wish I had a husband to share life with, but I am by no means on my own. My life has always been full of beautiful people who love me and I know that won’t change.

What if I don’t get married until I’m 50?

What if the next 20 years look just like the past 5? I mean, the thought doesn’t terrify me as much as the thought of not being married by 30 terrified me when I was 24. So, that’s progress. Life could be full and satisfying and beautiful, even as a single woman. I have dreams and goals, I have family and friends to love, I have places to see and discover. I have kids to love, even if I don’t get to keep them. Right now my life is full of good things, and it will continue to be full of good things whether married or single. There will be bad days and hard days and lonely days, and there will be magical days and wonderful days and happy days. That’s just life. Life.

So what if I don’t get married until I’m 50?

Life will go on. I’ll still be me. I will love and I will be loved. I will learn and I will share. Maybe I won’t have to wait until I’m 50, and I’ll get married in 1, 5, or 10 years. Who knows. All I know is that I want to make each day count, and live life well, and maybe I won’t get married until I’m 50…

2016: A Look Back

As someone who spends a good amount of time on social media, I have heard people complaining about and hating on the year 2016 since probably February. Yeah, it was a very intense year in a lot of ways. There were celebrity deaths, political turmoil, mass shootings, and a lot of harsh words spread around. I get it; things like that aren't comfortable to think about and process. For me, however, 2016 was comparatively a  really good year. Maybe I'm just looking at it through rose-colored glasses because I had some really good things happen. Or maybe it's just that when you compare it to the year that every single one of my best friends moved to other countries, or the year where I had to leave my home, my job and the country I love most in the world, it seems a whole heck of a lot better. There was the year that my family sold everything and moved to a dying tropical island only to have the entire situation turn into a manipulative nightmare that led to us returning to the states, infected with scabies and living in our pastor's house for months until we could find someplace of our own. That was a hard year. The year I turned seventeen  I struggled with forgiving myself to the point where I was in a vicious cycle of self-loathing and trying to avoid God, only to feel more self-loathing because I was avoiding God. I still think that year wins for hardest year ever in my life so far. I even look at 2015 as a really hard year for certain reasons, even though there were some amazing things that happened.

Perhaps it is because I love even numbers that I had such an optimistic outlook on 2016, but even the hard things from this last year have silver linings to them. I found out I was weaker than I thought I was, but through that I have learned just how precious and amazing grace is. The unending mercy of Jesus is so valuable to me, because I need it. I have seen the ugly, dark side of my heart in a way I never thought I would, and I know that my only hope is the blood of Jesus and the work He did on the cross. I always knew it, but now I know it. I think I have cried during every communion service I've been to this year because I have understood so much more how much I need it. Of course I'd rather not have a fight that I feel like I lose more times than I win, but if I gain a little bit more perspective of how deeply Jesus loves me and how He continually fights for me, then I can't regret that. 

I also learned that I am stronger than I thought I was. I acted as "Fake Mom" for 23 days. I edited, formatted, published and promoted a book that I wrote. I left a job that I loved. I went to another country and led a 3 1/2 day conference for children by myself. My family brought two children into our home to make them a part of our family. I wrote an entire story in 15 days. I opened up to others and allowed them to love me in my weakness. When I fell, I got back up again.

The fact that I was able to return to North Africa and stretch my little writer wings has been incredible this year. I spent more time with my best friend this year than I have since 2009. I watched my 19-year-old brother return to a country he loves and come back changed and determined to be a voice in the nations. My second niece was born and my entire family came together for a reunion for the first time in five years. I was in the wedding of a dear friend. There are families in my life that allow me into their homes to love on and care for their children. My dance parties are better, I chopped off all my hair and I spent my birthday at Worlds Of Fun. I spent the fall season looking for magical moments. I cried when people told me they loved my book. I cried when I sat around the table with my family and realized just how good God is. I discovered a special place to go when I need to be alone. I was inspired to see beauty, write beauty, and be beautiful.

The prayer that I prayed the most in 2016 was a request for God to show me how to love better. So many people claim that the world's problems could be solved if we all just loved, so I prayed for love. I prayed that I would know how to love my neighbor, no matter who they were. I prayed that I would know how to love God in the midst of a world filled with contradicting opinions. I prayed that those around me would feel loved. I prayed that the world would desire that perfect love that casts out fear.

Right now I have no idea what 2017 will look like, but I am excited to walk out this journey. It might be hard, but I've done hard. It might have pain, but pain pushes me into the strength of Jesus. It might be a year where dreams are unexpectedly fulfilled right in front of my eyes. No matter what this next season brings, I pray that I would continue to see the good and I would continue to fight for truth, righteousness and purity to be in my heart. I have long since been convinced of the faithfulness of God, and every year only makes my heart believe it more and more. 

May your 2017 be filled with the joy and blessing of the Lord. May you see the good gifts given to you from Jesus and may your heart be strengthened in love. You are valuable. You are wanted. You are loved. 

all the love,

Baylea

Five Love Stories

Story #1-

I was never in love with him.

Not that children can't fall in love, because I believe they can in their own special way, but that's not how it went for me. 

I did like him, though. I liked him a lot. 

Honestly, I don't remember what first stood out to me about him. I remember that he was friendly. Kind. I was an 11-year-old girl with thick bangs, big glasses and a disease that no one else my age had. The first time I met him my family had just moved back from a foreign country where my world had been tipped upsidedown. A different language would sometimes randomly pop out of my mouth to go with my stories about killing turnatulas and the giant centipeed that we poured gasoline on and lit on fire. I would clam up when I saw the other kids wasting food because I had seen children starving to death. But somehow, despite all the things going on in my head, I noticed him, and he noticed me and took the time to show me that. I don't think he meant anything by it, but my heart gripped that tiny bit of attention and held onto it for dear life.

I only saw him from time to time, when we would travel to visit family. Our interactions really weren't anything special, but to me everything about him was special. When I was 13, I found out that my two best friends had crushes on him and I decided to stop liking him in case he went for one of them. 

He never did. In fact, he didn't go for anybody for a long time, and I would wonder, as a young adult, that maybe, if we spent time together as 22, 23, 24 year olds, something more would spark? Wouldn't that be a story; old crush from summer camp finally falling in love with awkward, little me. 

We're still friends, still chat and catch up if we randomly bump into each other. We still have the same circle of people we keep in touch with that we knew as kids. That's how I know that he recently fell in love and married a girl I've never met before. He had to wait a long time to fall in love and I hope she knows just how lucky she is to have him. 

Story #2-

I was never in love with him. 

But not because I didn't want to be.

Not in the least.

With everything inside of me I wanted to be in love with him!

Why wouldn't I? He loved Jesus, he loved his family, he loved kids, he loved his friends. He was always the one encouraging purity and righteousness amongst his peers. He played guitar and knew how to dance. At the age of 15, he was absolutely perfect and I was anything but. Everything in my life was an emotional mess as I sorted out my mind, heart and feelings about moving halfway around the world as a teenager. Day 2 in the country and I met him when he invited my siblings and I to youth group. Did I forget to mention that he was one of the most attractive young men I had ever met in my life? That was helpful.

There were little things, like the time a group of us hiked in the Middle Atlas mountains for 4 hours and by the end I was in so much pain I could hardly walk so he carried me. And the time when a man was falling asleep on me in the back of a taxi and he called me so I could talk to him and wake up the man. Or the time when it was my birthday and he traveled with 2 of my dearest friends to spend the day with me. 

I wanted it to be him. 

Maybe if I had been a little more perfect, or had a better grip on my life that time a group of us stayed up all night talking and I confessed how much I was struggling with things. But maybe not. Years went by and I convinced myself that I had moved on, until he would show up and my heart was ruined all over again. Not that he ever knew how far my stomach sunk when he walked away as a 21-year-old man, away from me and the guy standing beside me who would never come close to being to me what he was. If only I had known I would run into him in the street that day! If only I had been able to sit and have a conversation with him! Like I said, maybe if I had had a better grip on my life...

A few months later he fell in love, not with me, of course, and I wished him all the best, because that's what he was; the best.

Story #3-

I was never in love with him.

I thought I was, because I thought I had to be. 

In the end he never had enough of my heart to truly make me fall in love with him. 

Sure, he gave me butterflies and the first time he held my hand on the bus in Thailand I thought I could never be happier, but love? I didn't even know what love was supposed to really look like. 19 years old and fresh from the mountains of North Africa, I was a bit lost without my sister, my country, and you remember story #2? Yeah, was super stuck on him. 

It didn't take long for me to realize that I was soaking up his attention and he was more than happy to dish it out. I'm not sure what he saw in me, but there weren't a lot of options and I was clearly up for his game of who could flirt the most. It scared me to feel my heart become attatched to this stranger, this man who was opposite of everything I had fallen for with the boy in story #2. Then he told me he liked me and I thought it was a sign that everything was going to be okay. He was, after all, the only boy in America to have ever declared feelings for me. 

Our relationship was awkward with a few sweet moments that made me hold on too tight to something that I should have seen as bad. Not bad as in he manipulated me or used me or abused me, but bad as in long-distance sucks and I never saw the way he flirted with the other girls after I left. Bad as in once the excitement of "catching me" wore off, our conversations were shallow and rushed. I don't blame him completely; neither of us knew how to be in a relationship, but I do blame him because he should have known better than to make me think everything was pefect and then break up with me over the phone 10 days later. 

He ended up dating, and later marrying, a girl I used to go to summer camp with. Every so often I tell people the story about my only real ex-boyfriend and wonder what he's doing with his life. I suppose I could check his facebook, but I guess I don't really care to know that badly...

Story #4-

I'm not saying I was in love with him, because it didn't last long enough really know if it was love or not, but I will say that no one else has ever made me feel like him. 

The day I met him I wrote in my journal that I would marry him.

The day I met him I was wearing my red long-sleeved shirt that I still have in the back of my dresser drawer. 

The day I met him I was 21. The boy from story #2 was dating the girl he would later marry, and it had been a year and a half since the boy from story #3 dumped me. 

It wasn't a thunderclap or lightening bolt type of feeling when I met him. In fact, he noticed me before I even noticed him. He told me later that he loved how I was singing Christmas carols and skipping around the apartment waiting for everyone to be ready. I laughed because, honestly, I should have been helping get the tea and cookies together. We were going to pass them out to homeless people in the old city, my neighborhood actually, and there were new faces there along with the normal crowd of friends. 

As the evening progressed, I was drawn to him more and more. He was funny, brilliant, kind and different from every other man from that country that I had ever met. I was so much more than an American girl to him; I was Samira, or Sam as he later began calling me. We found out we were literally neighbors and had lived within a block of each other for the last 3 months. 

I didn't give him my phone number that night, but later I wished I had. We talked for hours on MSN chat and he told me he liked me. I don't think my feet touched the ground for weeks after that. One of the best nights of my life was the night I had to go out to buy blank CDs from an internet cafe and he asked if he could come along. I brought two of my little brothers and we walked around our neighborhood for over an hour, laughing, joking, chasing each other's shadows and soaking in every moment. There was a point when I stood back and watched him pick up my 3-year-old brother to make him laugh and my heart just burst. I had never felt that way about someone ever in my life. We ended up buying the CDs from the shop we had stopped at first. He laughed at me when I did the math wrong to figure out how much it would cost, then he paid for them himself. Everything about that night was perfect.

He drew me a picture a couple months later that was of two snakes out of their holes during a storm. It signified two lovers defying all odds and staying together even when people were telling them the wouldn't work out. 

That picture, however, wasn't meant to be us. March 24th, less than 4 months after meeting, my family and I left that neighborhood. Left that country. Left that Continent. We emailed a few times, but bad things were being said about me, and several of our mutual friends cut me off. He said it didn't matter what other people were saying, however it was only a matter of weeks before he had blocked me from facebook and stopped responding to emails. The last time I heard from him was days before my 22nd birthday when he said that it was his cousin who had changed all his passwords and deleted his friends on facebook. I believed him until nothing changed. 

Sometimes when I am desperate to see his face again, to know how he is doing, I try to search for him on the internet. One time I found a paper he had written and I read the whole thing. I didn't understand it, but I read it anyway. 

Maybe one day I'll run into him again. I'll ask him if he's fallen in love, if he has a family. I hope the answer is yes, because I want him to be happy. For all the happiness he brought me in that short space of time when we lived just down the street from each other, I hope he has happiness in his life.

Story #5-

I didn't want to be in love with him.

I wasn't supposed to be! It wasn't supposed to end up that way!

But it did. I fell in love with him.

I'm not blaming my sister, but he was her friend first, and when she moved away the summer I turned 22, we were both left with an empty space in our lives. We didn't exclusively fill that space with each other, but it was nice to have a friend who was free to hang out whenever I wanted, would always text me back and gradually became more and more familiar. 

What happened between us happened so slowly I didn't even notice it was happening until one day I was 25 and realizing that I enjoyed life so much more when I was with him. When I was scared or lonely, he was my first thought, when I was having a bad day he was the first person I turned to and if I needed anything, I knew he would be there for me. People started asking us if we were dating. He always said no, but...

What is dating? Is it going to Walmart at midnight to buy $40 worth of junk food to eat while staying up until 4am watching TV and cartoons? Is it texting him to come get you when you want to get out of your house? Is it him driving you around to look at Christmas lights for hours because he knows you love it even though he could care less? Is it him taking you to your favorite place to eat as a surprise because he knows you've had a rough day? Is it going with him to his parent's house on Christmas day and spending the evening with them, playing games and realizing that he picked your card to win in Apples to Apples on purpose? 

Whether or not what we did was technically "dating", when he suddenly cut me out of his life to date some other girl that he used to work with, it hurt. Forget about all the falling in love stuff; he had been one of my closest and best friends for three years and in a matter of 2 days, I was nothing. We had a few moments of texting back and forth, hanging out, catching up, but it wasn't the same. I became tired of texting him and never getting a response, so I stopped. 

He didn't seem to care, because two whole years went by before he even texted me again... to invite me to his wedding. 

Sure, he never actually told me that he was as in love with me as I was with him, but he did tell me, "Baylea, I don't care what is playing on the radio, as long as you're with me." 

In a couple months he will marry the girl he fell in love with while I was still in love with him. Maybe I'll go. Maybe I won't. 

Maybe by then I'll have someone of my own to fall in love with. 

For all writers

Do you ever feel like people think you’re the biggest idiot for wanting to be a writer? 

I’m just thinking as I edit and feel really good about my book and the quality of my writing while remembering the looks on people’s faces as I tell them that I’m getting ready to publish my second book. 

They look to the side, as if they are embarrassed for me, feeling the need to cringe and not meet my eyes because, shoot, people don’t usually know how bad they are and when their book is out there, they’ll finally realize how poor of a writer they actually are. And they want to tell you, but they don’t have the heart and assume you’ll just have to find out the hard way. Because that’s how people learn sometimes- by thinking they’re great at something and finding out how small they really are and how big and cruel the world really is. And I’m sitting here, actually really pleased with how far I’ve come and the characters I’ve created and their stories that I have crafted together with tears and skill and excellence, and I think to myself, “Just wait.” 

Just wait. 

Because I know I’ve done a good job. I know my characters are real and have emotion. I know that I have the ability to tell a story and pull others into the mind and feelings of someone on a page. And I don’t need their awkward glances, their almost apologies, their cringing and their forced smiles, because I’m not going to step out with this book and be embarrassed. Does that mean everyone will like it? Not in the least. But my book will be loved. It will be seen as quality. It will be shared and people will talk about how it moved them and the characters were just like them.

 I don’t have illusions that my book is the best or going to be known on a grand scale, but the people that do know it are going to see that it is excellent work, that I put my all into this, and I wasn’t just chasing some fantasy or some delusional idea that I’m a good writer when my work is mediocre at best. They’ll look at me and realize that this wasn’t a mistake or a failed attempt to express myself as an individual. 

Writing books is real. It’s valid. It’s not just a place-holder for a space of time to collect myself and recover from failure or try to sort out a different job. This is my job. This is what I want to do. I am a good writer and my books are good. One day people will see. 

The end.

But not really, because stories last forever. 

"What if Bambi Never Existed?"

Jamie’s hand stroked back the girl’s hair as she cried. 

“What if Bambi never existed?”

“But Bambi does exist, Aly. It’s okay. Bambi’s safe.” Jamie tightened his grip on the girl. “You’re both safe. It’s all okay.”