I miss that boy. Well, I miss all three of those boys, but mostly I miss the one on the left. He was closer to my heart than anyone had been in such a long time. I loved high laughter and the crazy faces he made. I loved talking about poetry and art and God and relationships and family with him. I loved that he would with me luck and he was my own personal lucky cricket. I loved that we use to talk late into the night about everything and anything. He had my heart in his hand, and I don't think he ever knew it.
Now...it has been a long time since we've had a real talk. Probably not since he was with me at FUEL this past summer. That was maybe the best week I ever had. Even better than CWS last spring or my first FUEL. I miss my friend.
What I hate though is that I still feel a little undone when I see pictures of him or here news of him. It gets less painful and less noticeable with time, but it still aches. I sometimes wish things could have stayed the same, but it's not my place or my path. He's not meant to be one of the main characters of my story. Maybe he's just someone who was a key element of my back story or something that pushed me in the right direction.
He did teach me some things about myself that maybe I wouldn't have realized otherwise. He taught me that you have to be willing to fight things out till the end and that just because someone touches your soul doesn't mean that they'll ever let you see their's. Just because someone tells you that you're important doesn't mean anything if they can't back it up with their actions. And I learned that I need to be needed, and I need someone to see me as beautiful. I should not be doing all the work or be giving all the compliments and kindnesses. You can only be in love alone for so long before it starts destroying who you really are. Sometimes you really do just have to let go and run. You gotta see if someone's gonna follow you, and you have to accept it when it becomes apparent that they don't even notice that you're gone.
Sometimes the hardest thing to take is the truth: they never loved you. You weren't important...not to them.
And that's when I realized something else, just because he never saw me, it doesn't mean that I'm not important.
I am important. I am loved.
This last picture is from last Christmas. Just before break we had a Christmas part at the college. I have loved this picture every single time I have looked at it because it reminds me of the general hilarity and awesomeness of the people who truly do love and miss me. You've got Amber in the middle there who was about a second and a half from cracking up entirely because of a. Garble's hilarious reaction to Mitch's present and b. to the general silliness of the fart noises being made the the putty Mitch had been given as a gift. I am reminded of Mitch sitting next to me on the couch making us all laugh, and I remember all the sing-a-longs and the fact we got Kristen involved super quickly with everything and that even though I'd never really met her, I loved her almost instantly because she's just an awesome girl. I remember Regina and I making faces while Mitch took pictures and I remember Cynthia being hilarious and insane while playing ERS with us. I remember that I am loved and missed by more people than many can ever hope to know, and I am reminded of how lucky I am.
I may not be married or have kids yet. I may not have traveled to Prague or France or China or Rome or any of the places I have always wanted to go to. I may not have an important job out in the public eye or having my Bachelor's in theology from ABC or anything really beyond my Associates in Arts in English from a local community college painted gray. I may not speak a foreign language or have published a book (or even finished one yet). I may not live in my own home or even have a guy who thinks I'm what he wants in life.
I may not be a lot of things or have accomplished the things I expected to by 25, but...
I am loved. And I love many people. I am truly living up to my beautiful name: Jaymin. I am "lucky" and I am a "special helper" to many people and I am "good luck" for many. May that never change.
We're going to make it. And this Christmas is going to be beautiful. It already is.