Hi Zach! Thank you so much! My contact email for this tumblr is allenroseamongstthorns@gmail.com
Feel free to email me whenever about any questions, or if you just want to talk!
When I was 14, I had a crush on a popular boy in my class. A big crush. A HUGE crush. It felt like my heart burst every time I thought about him, and when I saw him my breath would catch. We were both in band and drumline, and our moms were friends, so I wasn’t exactly crushing from afar. We were friends, and I took full advantage of it. This was around the time my mom was pushing me to think about attending a private high school instead of the public, which would’ve meant leaving all my friends. It would’ve meant leaving him. Being the rebellious teenager I was, I refused to go. I thought I was absolutely, positively in love with him.
But, like most teenage romances, there were two things wrong with him. 1, he had a girlfriend. And 2, he was straight. Or so I thought. See, one day, at a band competition no less, he started telling our friends he thought he was bisexual. As if that wasn’t enough to make my heart thump out of my chest, he was saying that it was because of me. He LIKED me. And because of ME, he and his girlfriend decided to take a break.
For the next two weeks, my dreams came true. We talked, we wrote in notebooks about each other and exchanged them. The entrance exam for the private high school was in a month or so, and I decided to purposely fail the exam so we could go to school together. All my friends knew. Everyone knew he had a crush on me. I knew girls were jealous, and I loved it. I basked in every single minute of it. I was ecstatic, floating in air and sailing through skies of giggles and butterflies in my stomach.
Then, almost as sudden as it began, it ended.
He went back to his girlfriend, who still wanted to fight me. The jealousy glares turned into sympathy stares. I was free falling from the sky with no parachute, and I felt like someone had ripped out my heart and tore it apart, stomped on it and then shoved it back inside. I couldn’t bear to go to school, because that meant seeing him. I couldn’t bear to go to band or drumline rehearsal, because that meant having to work with him. I avoided parties, because I didn’t want to force myself to smile in front of him. I was destroyed. I went through the next few weeks in a haze. I finally forced myself to go to a party, to ease my mom’s mind, and of course, there he was. Despite my attempts to avoid him, I was cornered. He said he wanted to talk. The rest of the party, the rest of the world sort of just faded away. So we talked.
As it turns out, he wanted to talk about what happened at the band competition when he told me he liked me. He and his girlfriend were having problems, he explained. He needed to get her attention. And what better way to get your girlfriend’s attention than to tell her you have feelings for someone else? Not just anybody else…but someone of the same sex? Why make a splash when you can make a tidal wave, right? In this case, it was a monsoon. And I was the city it was about to destroy. It was all a lie. Everything, the notes, the words. None of it held truth, and the tape holding my heart together fell apart and it was broken again. This time, the pieces were even smaller. I thought it would be impossible to put it back together again.
At the peak of my teen angst, came exam day.
I poured every single tear, every single rip in my heart into that exam. Going to a different school would mean I would never have to see him. It would mean starting over. It would mean leaving all my friends, but at least I would be away from him. And you know what happened, baby girl?
I got in.
I left my heart in junior high. And I went to a brand new school, away from all my friends. I spent my first day of high school eating lunch in the boy’s bathroom.
Some people said I was crazy; changing my life for a boy. Leaving everything I knew, leaping out of my comfort zone just because my heart was broken. But what I really did was move on. I’ve made a lot of bad, spontaneous decisions in my life, but I knew deep in my bones that this was one for the better.
High school is where God found me.
My dad didn’t protect me from my very first heartbreak, and he wasn’t there to pick up the broken pieces. But my Father? He was there in every single tear, in every single sleepless night. In every sad love song, and in every crack in my heart, because the only way for Him to consume my whole heart was for him to break down the walls guarding it first.
Love is everywhere around you, my dear. In every star that burns in the night and in every flower that blooms from the ground. In every smile, and if you look hard enough, in every tear. You might not want to tell me everything, but remember that while my arms are always an available haven for you to take refuge, God holds your heart in His hands. Immerse yourself in the love of Christ, my child. Be so in love with Him that any boy who even thought about courting you would have to know and Love Him first.
Also remember to look for blessings, even in the worst of times. If I was praying for a way to get over this boy, God wasn’t going to make my feelings dissipate overnight. He gave me the opportunity, and I took it. It was His invitation. It pains me to know that I won’t be able to fend off every boy who falls for you, no matter how much I try to scare them, but I only pray that one day you’ll find the man who will sprint toward Christ by your side. Not behind you, or in front of you. Beside you.
“Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine…It’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of His victory.”
—- 1 Peter 1:6-7
I love you so much already. I’m already praying for you.
Love always,
Papa
You are more than the choices that you've made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You've been remade.
The last post from this blog was 7 months ago. Simply reading (and re-reading) that fact, for me, doesn’t truly speak on how long 7 months feels. Approximately 28 weeks, give or take. 196 days. Four thousand seven hundred four hours—-of struggle, of diminishing faith and of heartbreak. Abandonment. Anger-turned-rage. Fear. Depression.
In short, I was falling apart.
I would feel pieces of darkness sticking to me, but at first they were small enough for me to brush off, like bits of lint attracted by static. It wasn’t much of a distraction, then. I plucked off the tiny pieces and blew them away. It took a while, but after some time, I grew weary. And for whatever reason, I thought it best to rely on my own strength. The pieces of darkness grew bigger, like pieces of scrap fabric. By then it was like there was a stronger adhesive, and instead of brushing them off I found myself trying to rip them away like velcro. And with the bigger pieces went little parts of myself. I watched as I was being slowly ripped away and the pieces of darkness simply increased in size and density. I became exhausted. I fell. Humiliated, I attempted to save parts of myself; I was met with more darkness.
Defeated, I stopped moving. I allowed the darkness to wash over me, because it was easier than standing. I let myself stand still because I couldn’t find the fight or strength in myself to move. I thought that someone, anyone, would come to help me. I thought that someone would pull me out and help me through it. Like a child, I waited with outstretched arms. I waited. And waited. And after giving up hope that none of my friends would come, I found myself being suffocated by the darkness of what the world told me was freedom.
It wasn’t until recently that I discovered that I could not rip off the darkness myself. It is impossible for me to rely on my strength alone, for He is stronger than me at my strongest. I wasn’t waiting to find someone who would help me. I was waiting to be found. The child in me, with outstretched arms, was—-is, and forever will be—-reaching for my Father.
The only way to rid of darkness is with light.
In luce vive, vive in amore
(Live in light, live in love)
Allen
St. Rose of Lima
Aww, thank you Myra! What a commendation, coming from someone who I’ve come to look up to and respect so much. It means a lot :) I hope all is well with you and, from what I hear, your travels!
whoops! I did mean subjective, based on my experience. I apologize! It has been fixed. Thank you!
- That I never got to go to prom with who I wanted to go with because I was so deep in the closet.
- How people can hate me or tell me I’m going to hell based off some old book.
I’ve also learned that I cannot let it phase me. And I won’t let it. If someone says to me, “you’re going to hell”, does it mean I have a one-way ticket to damnation? Uh…no. I will get to where I am called to be through my actions, through God’s Will and plan for me. Not through some snide and rude remark made by a shopper at Ross (yes, it’s happened).
- Being known or defined as the “gay friend.”
- Having to out myself every time I meet a new person and worrying about whether they will care or not.
- That I never got a Teenage Dream like Katy Perry’s.
- How certain straight guys think I’m hitting on them just because I’m friendly. Don’t flatter yourself.
- Not feeling normal, feeling different from everybody else.
