I remember that kiss we shared in the darkened hallway. I remember the butterflies in my stomach. Even now, I still think how perfect you are for me. You’re the passive rebel, with a quiet sense of humor, laid-back personality, with the skater boy love for spontaneity. You are an artist with a knack for blowing me away with the way you see the world, whether through the medium of words, photos, or sculpting. Someone said we looked like twins, I think we even have the same sense of fashion. I love the way you look, tall and dark with a little bit of a child’s wonder in your eyes. You have the wild abandon that this overly-organized girl needs. Neither of us could settle down with one person and we lived for that kiss with a stranger. Maybe we’ve changed since then. Maybe you could have been my other half.

But even if you were and are perfect for me, there’s no guarantee that I would be the same for you.

When will I ever learn to value myself?

Maybe he did try to get through the thick wall around my heart. Maybe he only tried to stir me up and piss me off on purpose, simply to get a reaction, any reaction from me. I know I’m cold when in a relationship. I know that I kept that wall up. But I did try in the beginning and you know what, I simply got tired of trying to get him to understand what I was saying to him. Not saying his English was bad. He just couldn’t even understand my fibromyalgia. And so I became even more distant.

You know what having a chronic condition is like? I’m sure it’s crossed the minds of others who have a medical condition that’s incurable.

It’s the feeling of being broken and no one can fix you.

Yes, other people have it worse than me. Yes, some of those cancer patients are my friends. I know I should feel lucky that I’m not in more pain. I know all these things, so rightly so, I don’t complain about my fibromyalgia. But once in a while, I need to let out these thoughts that flit through my mind. Some of them are stirred up and conjured by things that my mom says. Things like, my fibromyalgia will scare off any guy who might want to marry me. That I shouldn’t tell the guy I’m dating that I have fibromyalgia, because no one wants a girl that’s sick like me. You know how that makes me feel? Like I’m broken and no one can fix me.

The most painful part of fibromyalgia for me at least, isn’t the physical pain. It’s the fact that people don’t believe I’m in pain, because it doesn’t show up on x-rays, it doesn’t show up in blood tests. There’s no swelling, I’m not bleeding, there’s nothing on the surface to show that I’m in pain and I can’t be the best that I want to be. And when he couldn’t understand that I was in pain and why I was in pain, I started to shut him out.

Simply put, I know I shut him out. I knew I could never be happy with someone that I couldn’t depend on for support, someone who couldn’t believe me when I said I had a chronic condition and that I was in pain for most of that God-forbidden English winter.

Lately though, I’ve been thinking a lot about Mr. P. Well, not so much thinking, more like involuntary memories keep flashing back to me. I get angered over something, because I’m reminded by how culturally insensitive he was. I read about France deporting the Roma gypsies and inwardly I shout at him in retort, Look! Your country has its faults, too! I glance at the scar on my shin, from when he drunkenly pushed me into a lawn sign. I’m pissed off at the marring of my otherwise attractive legs and he doesn’t even remember how it happened. It bothers me, how I keep being reminded of him. Did I really care for him? WHY do I still think about him?

I counted the months that went by since we broke up. Thought about what’s happened since then.

My master’s thesis was failed at the beginning of July. My world was literally shaken. I couldn’t eat, my head spun every so often and the floor would tilt up at me. We broke up one week later. The break up was civil, his mother forgetting my face was not as painless. I never wanted to see him again but that night he called me out saying he wanted to see me one last time. Drunk as hell, he caressed me, held my hand, gazed at my eyes. He left with his friends and I cried, upset and hurt in front of the club. In four hours I left to fly home home, a world away, unsure what awaited for me there. I filled my time with trying to appeal the decision to fail my thesis. Tried to cope with living with my parents again. Up until two weeks before my PhD program was supposed to start, I was still unsure whether my program would still let me enroll. Arriving in Illinois was another issue in itself. Adjusting to the environment, to the workload, to being alone and having to start all over again, it’s been difficult.

It hasn’t been an easy two months. Since we broke up, I’ve packed up and moved twice. Living alone and not having close friends makes me think of what it would be like to have someone beside me. It reminds me of him, whether good or bad.

I wanted to take away only good memories, but all I can think about was how I should have left when I knew we would never be able to make it. I should have screamed out all the things that I kept inside, instead of holding onto all the frustration. But I can’t forget, I needed you, I needed someone to lean on, because I couldn’t handle it on my own. So who used who?

I wish I could erase the scar on my shin. I wonder if you’ll ever understand how hurtful you were that last week in England.

I thought I was safe, but the tip of the ice berg is just beginning to show.

Even the guys my age seem to young to me. They still haven’t experienced the world fully, they haven’t worked a nine to 5 job (not like I have either) and they don’t know what it’s like to have to support themselves. I’m saying this about the guys who I currently associate with on a weekly basis, which limits this impression of mine to guys of college age.

After living with my cousin and his family for three months, after hanging out with guys who were easily ten to twelve years older than me, after hooking up with guys five to seven years older than me, I am simply more comfortable with older guys. I feel like I can reveal my innocence, my vulnerability, in their strength and cynicism. They seem more stable, more safe, and less childish.

Why is it that I don’t treasure innocence and vulnerability in a guy? That innocence that can only come with a first love? Is it because I lost that long ago, became so cynical so young, that I resent their innocence? And yet Istill  subconsciously desire it.

Two of my favorite songs these days are “Because You’re My Woman” by Lee Seung Gi and “Noona is so pretty” by Shinee. They’re both about younger guys liking older girls and just the other day, I thought to myself, if anyone ever sang an Lee Seung Gi song to me, I would simply melt. I would probably fall immediately for that guy. Of course, I was picturing Lee Seung Gi, tall, skinny, adorable and awkward, and an amazing voice.

On Thursday, my church friends and I went out to karaoke. Among the friends was a guy (boy?) who, I had just discovered that day, was actually younger than me.  I had been feeling vibes from him for a while, which always made me anticipate meeting him, even though I knew it was just my lust for attention that I was experiencing. Once I knew he was younger though, it kind of killed the vibes.

I sang Lee Seung Gi’s song, because I love that song. And he sang it with me, because he was the only other person who could sing Korean songs. It was alright until he turned and looked at me, singing the line, “Because you’re my woman.”

I laughed it off but now I don’t know what I feel. I’m struggling with a silly crush that threatens to turn dangerously awkward. He’s unsuitable in every way, especially as an unbeliever who is in the journey of seeking God, and most importantly, soon to be an illegal immigrant if he stays in the U.S. past the sixty days after his student visa expires. He smokes and more than likely clubs and drinks as well. Superficially, he’s short, perhaps even two or three inches shorter than me. He is struggling with paying for college and may have to return to Korea to serve his mandatory two years in the military.

Why do I always fall for the ridiculously unsuitable boys/men? I am tired of the Christian answer. I am tired of waiting on God’s will. I am tired of never loving someone suitable, never loving someone who could love me back.

I wish I weren’t as jealous as I am.

I wish I were ecstatic to be with you instead of just happy.

I wish I had been able to graduate on time.

I wish I were as brave as I used to be.

I wish you could adore me in the way I deserve to be adored.

I wish I were less emotional.

I wish you were more emotional.

I wish the thought of having to take out more loans for next year didn’t make me want to curl up into a ball and cry.

I wish I were happy.

I wish I were less honest.

I wish someone, anyone would hire me.

I wish I could move home or run away or do something that would make me feel like I was alive again.

I wish you loved me.

I wish I loved you.

I wish I could pretend that it doesn’t hurt when you joke about other girls and I know you’re being serious.

I wish I were badass enough not to care.

But now I’m trying to be resolved in my decision to not see him for the next week. To try not to think about him too much or obsess about him too much because I don’t want to be hurt again. I don’t want to be the one who’s in love with someone who’s just along for the ride.

I want someone real, someone honest, someone committed. And there are so many things wrong with him that I can’t see us staying together.

Plus I’ll be leaving in another 6 months for the UK. I’ll be out of the country for another year, again. I am never in the same place for long enough time to make a relationship worthwhile.

And it hurts that I am still scarred by your words. Why can’t I move on?

I guess because two of the girls were under 21 so I didn’t want to drink too much in front of them. I didn’t get drunk at all, which is an unusual thing for me. I ended up being the only girl who didn’t dance with anyone, really marking me out as a prude. I was just so uncomfortable dancing with these random strangers. Maybe the fact that it was an 18+ club was why; I couldn’t get past the fact that the guy dry-humping me might be just barely not-jailbait.

At any rate, I knew it was because I wasn’t drunk enough.

Because when I’m drunk, I can pretend that the stranger is you. Even in my subconscious, your face is still there. When I’m drunk, I can pretend it’s you, the last person that I loved.

Fung kuang qu ai. In Chinese, that means love crazily.

I loved you crazily. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. It happened so unwittingly, so fast. I have never changed so much as the result of one person. I say I’m over you but the effects of loving you and being heart-broken because of you are still stamped all over me.

I saw pictures the other day of you with my closest friend in Singapore. Pictures of you and her (with some others) on three different occasions. Why were you there with her and her friends? Why was she there for your 25th birthday dinner? Why didn’t she tell me?

Why do I care anymore?

But it hurts me like crazy to think that you would want to be with her and not with me. It hurts me to think that you might be happy be together.

I want to get drunk this weekend and forget your face, but getting drunk does nothing but leave me another scar from you. Yet another unwitting scar scored by your casual affections and clumsy excuses.

I want to finally forget you. I don’t want to remember you anymore.

These days, for some reason, my mind keeps wandering back to you. Of your emo boy-band glasses and your smooth voice.

You remembered my birthday. You found me online just to make sure someone wished me a happy birthday when I was so far away from home and family.

I didn’t realise that maybe it wasn’t such a coincidence after all.

I guess you still haven’t forgotten me. I haven’t forgotten you either.

Text messages when I was lonely.

Lunch dates and dinner dates uncountable.

Sunday morning church together.

All the excuses I made to myself, that you were not my guardian angel.

When it was so obvious, I just ignored the facts.

You played me your favorite song. I said the singer had only selfish love. But maybe mine was still more selfish. Even if it wasn’t quite love.

Sometimes I wonder about how you’re doing these days.