And I Will Hold Onto Hope

Love

it will not betray you,
Dismay or enslave you, 
it will set you free.
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design, an alignment, a cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be.

Never would I believe I'd be so close with an ex, I'd consider him a best friend, especially imagine him as my potential roommate.  I'm not exaggerating when I tell you guys that this is the most fantastic person I've ever known in my lifetime.


J.C. has been there for me during wheelchair, no wheelchair, hospitals, sickness and health.  I will forever be grateful for that (and it makes me tear up just typing this out).

Our relationship was pretty amazing.  I met him when I was 19, him being 23.  He chased after me for a few months, and over that time, we became very close friends.  Our friendship blossomed into something beautiful.  We became that couple who were inseparable -- not because either one of us had to see the other every single day of every single hour... it was because we were best friends.  We had more fun when the other was around.  One year for Halloween, we dressed up as a nerdy couple (glasses, pocket protectors and all), snorting when we laugh, dorky Eskimo kisses with our pants raised high up and being in total character for the whole night.  That was us; a team.  Soon enough, we were living together.  J.C. and I very rarely fought.  Almost three years into it, the only things we'd fight about were money, because we were two young kids with our first apartment.  

After we had split, we did our back-and-forth post-breakup... however, J.C. didn't consider me a booty-call, there was no pretending -- J.C. wholeheartedly cared about me, with no doubt about that.  Sometimes J.C. would call me late at night and I would quickly drive over to see him.  We would just sweetly kiss, spoon with each other in bed, lay quiet as mice and cure whatever pain we had from missing one another.  Nothin' dirty.  In those moments, all our problems, our fears, and worries slipped away.   There wasn't any who was right, who was wrong.  There wasn't any who gave more effort, there wasn't any who won or lost.  It was something I'd wish I had with Chunks.  He was my first love, and greatest love.  J.C. made my heart pure and caged the wild animal in me.  And the trick of not fighting?  The trick of tasting some of the most pure love of all?  Knowing what we had between us was too strong and able to conquer any kind of mess; big or small.  We became a team -- us vs. the world, us vs. the outside forces -- and we became impenetrable. 

My mother secretly hopes me and J.C. would run away to get married.  Our family members urge us to get back together.  However, my dad hated him -- I was going into college and J.C. was stuck in a dead-end job with no goals... no matter how wonderful he treated his daughter.  As for me and J.C., we frequently flirt with the idea.  To any outsider, we may look like a couple.  He's still incredibly protective of me, even though we give each other dating advice. 


But we're too afraid to lose what we have now if something went wrong.  J.C. is hands-down the best boyfriend any gal could ask for.  He's going to make some girl very happy one day.  And in the meantime, I need to fix myself to be the girl I once was.  I will hold onto hope, and I'll find strength in pain, then I will change my ways.