Dear Journal

                                                                                  Dear Journal
Dear Journal, today is April 25th 2012.I don’t hate you for what you did, I just wish it never happened, at least not like that, I just wish there was a better way for her to have found out. I know it needed to happen anyway, so I’m kinda glad you opened up to her when you did, because, I know I wasn’t going to do the same anytime soon.  I know you probably remember, but it’s not in your pages yet, so I figure I’ll put it in anyways, because I know I sure need to get it out, and that’s why I have you, to get stuff out.
Today, Sophie and I were hanging out as always, her wanting to be somewhere else probably, and me wanting more time with her. Not just with her in general, with the her that I love so much, I mean, I love her anyways, but I love when she’s open, I love it when its late at night, and she’s too tired to care what I think  of what she does or says. Ironically those are the times I love her the most, because she’s being completely herself, and that’s who I really love.  I love it when she tells me random stories of people back home, or of people we know, that she wouldn’t bother telling me during the day. I love when she gives me a sarcastic smile or laugh, when something I say isn’t actually funny, or says something snarky in response, and puts on her cute “I win!” face. I love when she stops feeling sorry for herself, and starts feeling sorry for me, the poor little boy who loves her. I’m getting the point in my life where I’m a man in most parts of my life, but am still just the little boy who loves her. I know she knows, at least somewhat, even though I’ve never told her that I never got over her. She can see it in the lengths that I will go for her that matches the distance in my eyes. REM, I know, it’s cheesy, but it’s a favorite song lyric of mine.
         This time it was the usual; we go and eat somewhere with our friends, they ask me to go with them and do something elsewhere, and “decide” to stay, even though I hoped to long before they asked. They know why I stay, and they give me shit for it later, that’s fine, I can take it, she’s worth it and so is the feeling she gives me, unintentionally of course. So I stayed, and then Sophie went to go work on something, and I tagged along, as if I was a sad lost little puppy following her home. She doesn’t care as usual, if I’m a sad puppy I might as well be hers, right? So it’s the usual still, I sit and steal glances at her as she works. She tells some stories, while as usual I just listen and occasionally throw in my obscure references, corny jokes, and decent advice.  All is going as it usually does, but the usual, while lovely in her case, is just as boring as ever for her. Boy was she about to get some excitement, and quick.
         On my way out I was getting my books together, which I pretty much just placed on the table for the effect while I sat there listening, playing on my phone and stealing glances at her. Sometimes things just happen and you think one or both of 2 things, that you either blacked out while it happened, or that God sent and angel to do it and made it seem like it was you. This is one of those occurrences. I went to take a book off the top of the pile, and as I took it off, the rest fell over, as if someone had put glue on the binding so that the pile toppled over like a Jenga tower. Losing at Jenga isn’t too bad, but losing at life is much worse, and this is the point where just about everything in my life seemed to be against me, it’s like my life was the Jenga tower, just toppling over, and having its pieces scattered everywhere. For some reason you were in that pile journal (very sneaky by the way) and you landed on your binding, so you opened, to a page with an entry on it. Most of you isn’t written in, and you open up to one of the pages that has writing in it! Sorry, sorry, I already forgave you, just caught up in the moment, that’s all. So it’s open to a page, and she can see it’s my journal, so under normal circumstances, she would respect my privacy, and close it and give it to me, without reading on. Of course this, was not a normal circumstance, and her name was on the page and she saw it, and it wasn’t just Sophie, it was her full name!! ,Sophie Testaverdy. So now it was personal, as if it wasn’t already for me, and she read on, out loud:
         “’Dear journal, I know people have problems with starting relationships, but don’t ya think after so many issues you should give up?’”
Side note: I really should stop being so rude when I write in you, it’s still rude even if I’m the only one who reads from this book, and now back to the exception to that rule:
         “’Sophie keeps asking me advice about what to do with James, who lives across campus. I am actually surprisingly helping as much as I can, I don’t know how to help her with him since I don’t know him, but hey, I can at least try for the woman I love right’…love?!?”
“Oh shit”
And yes that’s in quotes, because not only do I feel that way now, but that is actually what I said in the moment, not the best choice of words, however I don’t think much would have been able to quell the storm of questions I was about to get.
         Such questions as: “When did this happen? How come you never got over me? Are you sure that’s what that is?”
         My answers to those in the moment were something along the lines of: “uhhhhh I g-guess I uhh I uhh,” followed by more filler and stuttering. My actual answers would be, in order, March 1st, because that’s the first time I wrote it down in you. I don’t know, and I’m pretty sure, I’ve looked into, I’ve talked to my parents about it, and it’s like a boomerang feeling, I can’t get rid of it, it always comes back. Now of course I’ve stopped trying to get rid of it and am just embracing it, which she probably figured out by now.
         At this point I remembered that this was her lounge, not mine, and bolted. Lucky I had brought my bike so I was able to ride away fast, and she wouldn’t be able to follow me. I wish I didn’t bring my bike, so I could have seen if she really did intend to follow me, and I would have let her catch up to me, to see if she was going to console me, or berate me, and accept my love, or ask me to never come near her again, or something in between, but I did bring my bike, so I don’t know.
-Sammy Wells


Dear Journal, Today is April 30th 2012. Sorry for my absence as of late, but rather it was your absence, Sophie still had you in her possession. About now you’re probably wondering how you got back to me. Well, that’s another story that I have to tell you:
         It started off the other day, the 27th, I was back with my friends and they all wondered why Sophie wasn’t hanging out with us, I knew why, but I wasn’t letting on. We sat around for a while, a kept looking over my shoulder out the window, sometimes I felt like someone was there, sometimes I was just hoping that someone was. One by one people started leaving, after Tom left I get a text from him saying: “Hey did you guys know Sophie is right outside where you are just reading a notebook? I didn’t want to bother her, she must have a big test coming up cause she seemed really into it.” My first thought was “Oh shit. She’s reading it like it’s a damn novel, ” my second was, that he texted me and said you guys, and no one else got a text, that means he expected me to tell the others that she was there, fortunately I had that privilege, because I wasn’t going to use it.
         Then she came in, her hair all messed up, her face all red and her eyes recently dried. She ran over to me, threw you at me, and then ran out. Mike wondered what the hell just happened , so I just made some shit up. “Oh shit the test!” I said before I ran after her myself.
When I caught up to her she stopped, she knew it was me behind her, I thought that she would be sick of me by now, and turn around and slap me or something.  I felt like a real creep at the moment because most of that journal was filled with stuff about her. I cursed in my head, because of myself, I cursed the fact that I was so vain to keep a journal, that I couldn’t just talk to my friends about it, that maybe it really was such a stigma because I couldn’t, I cursed the fact that I write, I cursed that I’m a romantic, I cursed my love for film and good stories for giving me such notions.  There was just a lot of cursing going on in my head. Then she turned around, her head down, and said “I earmarked the best parts.” Then she lifted her head, and gave me a smile that said “we’re ok” before she walked away. And then I was grateful, I was grateful that I was vain enough to keep a journal, that I didn’t tell my friends instead, that maybe it wasn’t such a stigma, grateful for the fact that I write, and that I’m a romantic and grateful for my love of film and good stories for giving me such notions. There was just a lot I was grateful for.
Haven’t talked to her since though, nor have I looked at what she found best, I’m gonna start with those bright and early.
-Sammy Wells


Dear Journal, Today is April 31st 2012. Today was a good day, I got a lot of closure. This is something that before now I never wanted or thought would happen, but each day I’m happier that it did. Let me explain.
         Today I read the pages that Sophie earmarked, with her. We just sat and talked for hours, no pressure. I guess there is not a lot of pressure on you once you’ve already thought  nothing would happen.
         We started with a simple one, it was the one where I was finally able to admit what my feeling was:
         “Dear Journal, Today is March 1st 2012. He’s right, Tom is right, he said it before I did, that I’m in love. Journal, I love Sophie Testaverdy. I can finally admit that…”
         Well, you remember that, after that the theatrics just go on for a while, about how and why I do, but that was just the beginning, which Sophie now knows too.
         The next page she earmarked was when Tom was on my case about still pursuing her, he knew she had her eye on some other guy for a while, and she didn’t want another distraction since that happened once earlier in the year. The part she liked was what he told me, and what I figured out, but didn’t tell Tom of course:
         “Tom told me something today, that I found odd, about Sophie and me, and the reasons that there would never be an us. He said: “if she really wanted you, she’d tell you everything by accident.” I found that odd, and then I thought back, I know she never showed that she wanted me, but she had done exactly what he said. She told me almost everything about herself by accident, for some reason there was no holding back. At this point she already knows that I had feelings for her in the past, I guess that just made it easier for her to tell me, because I wouldn’t judge her as harshly, and I cared what she had to say and what she is about. If she only knew just how much I cared about what she says and who she is”
         Then we talked about that one for a while:
         “You were right, I wasn’t thinking of it so much, but yeah, that’s why it was so easy for me to confess a lot about me to you, I knew I could trust you, because I knew that in some way, you still cared like you had”
         “Yeah, I did still care, at that point it was already love, and I was already gone, already lost, but yet found, I—“
         “I earmarked the page with that on it too”
         “Oh good, so I don’t have to go on, forgive my embellishing of my own work”
         We laughed.
         The page she was talking about was this one:
         “Dear Journal, Today is March 22nd 2012. This love is so much, it’s like nothing I have ever felt before. It’s hard to remember where I was before this, because now I am gone from it, am lost, yet I am found, in this feeling. People always say it’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before, but I disagree, to me it feels like everything I’ve ever felt before, wrapped into one. It feels like how someone feels in the moments before they cry, or in the moments after they are done being angry. It is something I tell ya, in those ways, it’s like the essence of emotion, all I have ever felt, has come from love. While it didn’t and doesn’t always come from the love I have now, it always came from a love for something. Whether it was my family, my friends, the pets I have had over the years, or any part of nature. As children we are intrigued by nature, because we have no idea how it works, yet somehow when we know exactly how it works, we still love it, because it’s just so beautiful, it’s a bunch of molecules in some scientific process, yet somehow it’s still a work of art.  They say the best artist is Van Gough, or Picasso, but none of them compare to the works of God, His art of this earth and universe is simply magnificent, nothing earthly can create something so beautiful. But we can create a different kind of beauty, we can create life. Life is what brought my family here, me, and the beautiful life that is Sophie. God blessed someone with the ability to create something that beautiful, and that’s simply amazing to me.”
         Then we sat and talked about that one for a while. I talked about how I can’t wait to be a father because of my great relationship with my father, and while I may have criticized his actions when I was a child, I know it was all from love, be it tough love, and I can’t wait to show a child of my own that love, and be just as great of a father as my father is. I talked about how because I can’t wait to be a father, I was never bothered by her maternal instincts taking effect and her trying to be the “mother” of the group. I told her I love how she worries like a mother, but that I wish she wouldn’t so much, that we will be ok, and that I hope she knows that, and the best she can do is help us where she can, and not have to worry about what she can’t help with.
         Then that led to the last page that she earmarked. It was the entry where I talked about a future I couldn’t help but see between me and Sophie:
         “Dear Journal, Today is April 19th 2012. I never thought myself a clairvoyant, and never honestly believed in that kinda stuff, and I still don’t, it’s just that whether I believe them or not, I keep having these visions of me and Sophie and the future we could have. I keep seeing us as a couple, as if I know that will happen. I see us just sitting and talking about life. I see us going on double dates with some other great couples we know. I see where I would propose to her. I see us getting married. I see myself being the father of her child. I feel the worry of the waiting room waiting for a child. I see a child. I see that child grow to look like us. I see us being parents to that child. I see parent teacher conferences. I see graduations. I see us watching our child discover a love of their own. I see us growing old together.
         I don’t want it, I don’t want to see all that, I want it to happen, but I don’t want those to push me. I want to make my own future, even if it doesn’t involve her. More than me wanting an us between me and her, I want her to be happy, and that doesn’t mean it has to be with me. If she is happy elsewhere I want her to be happy there, cause that makes me happy as well. I don’t want the visions, because it would make me be selfish, make me want a future with her, which I do, but if it isn’t meant to happen, who am I to meddle? It’s hard, it’s hard to let go of a future that hasn’t happened yet, and that may never happen. I know this can’t be bad because it feels so good in itself. The best I can do is be as loving as possible, even if it is just in friendship, I want to be the most caring friend she has ever had, I want to be there for her no matter what. So I still want a future involving her, I want to be in her future, it doesn’t have to be our future, I just want to be by her side through it all, I want the rest of my life to be making sure she is happy, because if she is, then I am, and that’s all that really matters, her happiness.”
         We sat and talked about how odd that is, and sounds, but she wasn’t scared, not at all, she embraced it, she somehow gets it. Maybe we both see  a future that has an us, maybe it can happen like I see it.
Yet after today, I don’t even care if it does now, because the now is what matters, and I love the now and being with her, and the future may not involve either of those things. So I decided that now is what I love and not the future, because I can imagine what it could be all I want, but that doesn’t make the now any less important, because I know what the now is. Good or bad, I can depend on the now, because I am living it, and I know it’s here, but I never know what the future holds.
-Sammy Wells


Dear Journal, today is May 5th 2012. Last night Sophie and I stayed up studying for our last final, which we had in the one class we shared, and making sure all of the other work we still had for other classes was done. It was fun, that’s all I have to say about that.
         -Sammy Wells


Dear Journal, Today is May 14th 2012. It’s odd being back home again, but me and Sophie have been talking a lot lately, and again, there is just no pressure, she knows how I feel, and I know she’s ok with that, so I just go on being a loving friend, and she accepts it. She started going out with James once they both got back to their mutual hometown. It’s just nice that me and her are actually real friends now, because she knows that I care, and why I care, I am able to show my love in a certain way that doesn’t offend her, and that’s nice. We are able to both live our lives, with each other in our lives, not with each other as our lives. When she is down, I will be there to pick her up, because love is not a feeling I want to leave, because I know it never wanted to leave me. I am glad that she knows there is a loving man in me, and that that loving man loves her, and will do anything he can to make sure she is happy.
-Sammy Wells

Dear Journal Today is March 5, 2013.It’s been over a year since I admitted to myself the feelings I had for Sophie, and months since those feelings have been gone.  Now I have feelings for someone else, and this time the feelings are mutual.
For the past few weeks I have been in a relationship with Maggie, Sophie’s roommate, which is odd, I know. Despite that, Maggie makes things feel easier than they ever were when I was trying so hard with Sophie. Maggie makes me feel like I belong, like I’m a man, and not just the little boy who loves her, like I was with Sophie. With Maggie, I’m not afraid to show that I truly care, because I know that she cares for me too. We support each other, I pick her up when she’s down, and she lifts my spirits when I even get close to being down. We’re a team, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
         -Sammy Wells