ˈwəndər

my heart is still so capable of wonder

It’s been six years since I had feelings for a guy. Almost seven years since my heart knew without a doubt that there is something unusual about the sound of my heartbeat.

I was in eighth grade, in middle school, and for some reason I knew exactly what A did to me. I had fallen for my classmate. But this was not an ordinary fall. This was the part of my life that looked like a Wattpad story, and if I were not the one living it, I would have been convinced it was made up. Fictional.

I have written about A before, briefly, as a passerby in my words. Today, I want to relive those memories and honor who A was and how he taught my belly to dance.

Let’s go on a (hand-written) memory lane.

A was an athlete. He was my classmate. We had one class together and barely interacted. I do not know when or how the feelings started, but I know they stayed longer than I knew what to do with.

I wrote about A more than I would like to admit. Poetic, in the mind of a teenager. Honest, too. Which feels incredibly brave for fourteen year old me.

I remember looking at A and knowing I could only like him from afar. At a time when people walked into class and recess in pairs, I walked with the name of my crush and the quiet decision to like him. No dating. No confession - yet. Just liking. Just admiring, and occasional frequent glances.

I never tried to get close to A. I was shy in front of him. Shy beside him. Shy to the point where my friends teased me whenever he was close. I did not know how to stop liking the boy I did not know how I fell for.

Bear the cringiness with me. I really was just a girl.

I crossed out his name in my letters because I was afraid they would fall into the wrong hands.

I liked A from afar, and I was sure of it. But as much as I liked A, I wanted to love God more, and I was content with that. Content enough to make a pact with myself. No matter how much I liked him or deep the feelings went, I would not date in eighth grade. I could not.

I prayed for A to understand himself in an age that felt confusing. I wrote poems for him, and about him. We shared eye contact that made the butterflies in my belly twist. It felt cinematic, and I liked it.

I liked smiling about him. I liked being in the same class as him during exams because our last names alphabetically matched. I liked watching him play basketball, and I am pretty sure I wished he ran track so we could ride the same bus to meets. That was my delusion peeking through.

I liked that my friends knew it was A, and only A. I liked A a whole lot.

Women in love are so dangerous.

Kai.

When school was coming to an end and graduation approached, I made a plan to “confess”. I was going to give him all the letters I wrote. But on the day I decided to be superwoman, I could not find him. I searched for a while, and I think he left school early. The class of 2019 graduated, and I never gave a single letter from my pink envelope to my crush.

Sike, I eventually confessed. Kind-of. I saved his phone number from Instagram back when phone numbers were visible on profiles. After what felt like a long time, my neighbor and friend, who was like a younger sister to me back then, called him as a dare and confessed on my behalf.

She actually did it.

The first thing he said was, “Let me call you back.”

He never did. He sent a message instead. I do not remember most of it, only this: “Keep being you,” with a yellow heart.

I do not remember if his response was encouraging or confused or if I am filling in gaps with imagination. But I know this. A knew I liked him. What he did with that information, that I will never know.

Six years later, I have not liked anyone as evidently as I liked A.

I bring him up now as a way to reminisce and to give the lover girl in me a seat at the table.

Lately, I have been thinking about my lover in flesh, and it reminded me of the last time I truly liked someone and how much I yearn for that again.

I have been attracted to guys at school, at church, and the one whose posts and face caught my attention the first time I saw him on this app.

I have been told that dating is like collecting data, that you have to keep trying until the right one comes along. But I do not want to keep trying. I do not want to keep dating. I do not want to keep handing out shares of my heart while being told to love carefully. That women should not give one hundred percent. That you should always hold back just in case it ends.

I do not know how to love in bits. I could not do it with A. I cannot do it with the Lord. I do not think I can start now.

---

Yesterday, my sweet friend, my sister, sent me a voice note that affirmed what I want.

I know love will find me. I am already in Love, so the love that comes will not torment me or taunt me. It will make me brave again.

The way it did back then.

When I liked A, and it did not feel like punishment.

Love isn’t punishment.

Six years later,

Abba is still a girl dad.