I want to be your last first kiss

I won't say I'm in love, because I'm not.  But I do love a boy very much.  Someone I've known for nearly 4 years and have had the wonderful pleasure of getting closer to.  Ryan James Nelson (aka East Coast Ryan) is by far the cutest boy I have ever known in my entire life.  He's tall, he has beautiful green eyes, he's funny, he's entertaining, he's a complete Anberlin nerd, he's a Christian, he's just wonderful.  However, he is blond, but that's okay, easily overlooked.  I just think he's a lovely person.  At the very least we are Anberlin soul mates and have extremely similar musical tastes.


We've been Skyping some recently and that's been a lot of fun.  I like being able to talk to him "face to face" in a way.  We put it on our mutual bucket list to see Anberlin live together one day, or Anchor & Braille at the very least.  I just adore him.  


I've been reading through this blog a little tonight and saw a post where I explained that I have two very opposing ideas when it comes to falling in love.  I've always thought that I would be friends with a guy for a long time and then one day we'll realize that we're in love and can't live without each other; on the other hand I've always had a dream of just knowing when I meet the guy I'm meant to be with.  I would normally not talk about this for a fear or jinxing it, but a friend of mine said to me once "You can't jinx God's will," and there was no better point ever made.  I was Skyping Ryan tonight and thought to myself "Maybe he's that guy.  The one that I'm friends with for a long time and we fall in love.  And since I've never actually met him in person, maybe it could be that when we finally do meet, I'll just know it's him."


I've been very skeptical about love as of late though.  My "relationship" with Beau was nothing but a sham.  I tried to convince myself that it was real love when it clearly wasn't.  (Just a quick side story so I don't forget it in years to come:  About a month ago I was trying to be friends with him again because I didn't want to hate him or keep avoiding him.  Big mistake.  We ended up having sex and things went downhill from there.  He was getting high around me and eventually I sent him to jail because he hid my keys and I wanted him to leave.  Then a couple of days later he stole my cell phone and after a lot of back and forth crap I finally said "Screw it.  Keep it, I don't want it anymore," and that was the last I said to him.)  Anyway, because of that relationship I realized that love isn't what I always dreamed it to be.  It's nothing like what you see in the movies or what you read in books; it's more real, with real world problems that don't necessarily work out.  


I have impossibly high expectations that are unlikely to ever be met.  When I was at the Awakening's spring retreat this year I started a list of qualities I would like my future husband to have - I originally came up with 43 and have added more since.  I realize that there are a few things I'm more lenient on than others, such as hair color and height being more negotiable than him having to be a Christian that is artistic in some way or another.  And I also know that right now I am in absolutely no place at all for a relationship and I am 99.9% okay with that; it's that other .1% of me that just wants to feel like I am special to someone of the opposite sex, that I mean something more than just being a friend.


And I don't know if East Coast Ryan could ever think of me as more than a close friend that lives on the opposite side of the country.  Granted, I do think we were truly meant to know each other in some degree:  we met on MySpace four years ago in July or August and have been friends since (however there was a span of about 8 months that we lost contact when there was a big migration of people from MySpace to Facebook.)  Then when I started going back to church and the night I went to my first small group meeting at Jeni DeSpain's house I came home and found his friend request in my inbox on FB.  I don't know if it was some act of God's or if it was just serendipitous happenstance, but either way I am grateful.  We would talk off and on, but in the past few months we've really been reconnecting.  He texted me last week telling me that he did something really stupid with a girl and sadly I was able to relate completely because it was exactly what I had just done with Beau a couple weeks prior.  Then he called me a couple of days after and thanked me profusely for being there for him and giving him encouragement.


Going back to being 99.9% okay with singleship, I know that my focus right now needs to be on God and what He wants to do with my life, not what I want for myself.  I need to get myself right with God and build lasting relationships with friends and family before I can start to build any sort of romantic relationship.  On top of that I need to figure out what the heck I need to be doing as far as school goes and I need to find a way to make a decent amount of money while enjoying what I do.  I know God has a plan for me in all these areas of my life and I just need to take the time to sit down and listen to Him and grow in my relationship with Him above all others.  And I just need to stay patient while waiting for the love of my life to come along.