i first thought to understand it as an elementary age girl when i kissed my parents goodnight and felt nice about my siblings, and then in first grade when i though Jeremy was just so beautiful i wrote it on my hand. Furthermore to understand what it meant when i felt the urge to have sex around age twelve. Although I always understood that some of that didn't have to be about love, but about some animalistic need we are all born with. Then again at thirteen or fourteen when i felt fond enough about a shy boy in english class to ask him to be my boyfriend. that ended less than twenty four hours later and still i wondered. Then i was fifteen and I felt an even stronger urge to have sex. A warm sensation down below that seemed to be atleast in the like category. again I understood to some degree that it wasn't necessarily about the person, but the action. our family is prone to addictions, as some are, and I always joke that I was addicted to feeling. Overdramatic, very descriptive, very deep feelings. And this was a very inner feeling. Then I got involved with a 'man.' David Eugene Shu, Jr. turned eighteen the day he met me and he flipped my world upside down. Gazing adoringly at his every move, gesture, and body part, as he interacted with people he was actually engaging with. A friend and a phone number made sure I became part of that world. This facade went on for three years. While I swam in a swirling sea of questions without answers that high school is, and feeling so lost as a military child. There were good times, times when he wouldn't say a word, and just look at me as if i was amazing, and me just happy to be touching him, have someone to listen and think my ideas weren't krap or drivel. someone who would tantilize me with statements like "I want some gum" when the only piece was in my mouth. whew what a kisser. so scared of every move with him. he wasn't mine, and i knew it. but having any piece was thrilling. but scary. finally as every girl gets fooled, i gave him something that i thought would keep him. nay. i lost him just that fast. and then i was even more lost and now hurt. who knew what love was, even basic friendship love? Not me. I felt alone. Until I learned that I was making myself feel that way. I had so many friends I couldn't even count. Those were thge years God taught me to count my blessings, and rally jsut to learn I could barely keep track. Then I went to college, and backtracked a little. I became to lazy to really love myself, and took care to love others since I had found so much joy in that years past. I came home, empty and angry. I had a deep enoughrealtionship with the Lord to heal and grow back in to a better place. Then a mistake for a weakling. Not having learned to lvoe myself enough, be selfish enough, I fell into a trap of loving a friend into an engagement that felt like a trap. Unhappy and angry, going to South Carolina, where I had learned so much, I saw with clarity the path I had blundered down, and got off. Two words for an attempt that took six months, and hurt that took a year to heal. In the years since David I have learned that love begins with love of self. Not that eveyrone needs to be completely selfish, but to a point, yes. Only when you love yourself enough to take care of who you are, can you love -beyond a family love- someone for who they are and who they are to/for you. And that is just mere friendship love. Romantic love is a while nother debacle. Where I am in my young life I can say that love can be had when you love youself enough to be who you want to be and still have enough focus to take care of someone else, and that is much deeper of an answer when you are a woman. Men certainly take care of and love us, but women are so much more the ponderers. We care for the man in a way that someone taught or showed us, hoepfully for many of us it is the plain old American definition I have admired so long. The girl who plays house to do dishes, and plays momma with the first doll thrust in her little arms. I am engaged now to the man of my dreams who looks nothing like i thought, but cares for me just like I have needed for my whole life, cares for me so jealously and so completely, most days i can barely belieive it. I care for him in my actions. I cook, I clean, I keep house, I soothe, I comfort, and sometimes I shut off my music or game to give him the quiet he desires.

In the end the person who taught me what love is was my grandfather. He was a quiet country boy who married a loud city girl and never gave her a word about it. Just did everything with a smile on his face and a good story hidden behind his lips. His example taught me to choose my battles. Listen twice as much as you speak. And that real riches are in your family, the people, not the house, the things, or the way everything looks perfect. Its in the memorieas you make and will make, and the smile on your face. He also taught me how to be a disciplinarian. The most effective way isn't the loudest. Better advice then what i got from him no one will ever find.

for a long time i was afraid that love was weakness, the way my mother bended to my father's will. I despised love and then my mother because of that. Still do in some ways. That love can bend a person out of shape in a harmful way.

A copy of the letter my love wote to my dad to ask for my hand.

Mr Luhrsen,

Let me start off by saying thank you for what you are doing for this country. Being in the military myself, I understand what a simple thank you means. My name is Justin Michael Robinson and I am a Senior Airmen in the Air Force. I want to give you a little background on myself. I am 21 years old. I have been in the Air Force since 14 days after my high school graduation in 2008, and I do not regret a single minute of it. I am in the Intelligence career field currently stationed at Shaw AFB in Sumter South Carolina. I have been overseas one time but that was just for 10 days for an exercise. I am scheduled to deploy in December to Al Udeid Qatar. Amanda tells me that you will be in town in June, but the time you come in, I will be leaving town to go to Hurlburt Field in Destin Florida for pre-deployment training. That being said we will miss each other by literally one day at a time. My heart just sank when I was informed of this because I was so excited to meet you, Amanda has told me so much about you. Anyways moving on to a little bit of my past, I was born and raised a Baptist. My grandfather is a Baptist preacher. Amanda and I got to go to his church for Easter, we both really enjoyed it. Being a religious gentleman, God has helped me through a lot of struggles throughout my life and I really do not know where I would be without him.

so there was no one and my period and john then there was the short stint of jason. what was i thinking - other than sex - i knew i couldnt love him. ick. then i cheated on him with travis who left for afg today. it was a whirlwind thing. met him sunday and slept with him probably four times. in his car. yep. classy all the way baby. and now dom has been back with emma since i was dating jason. but just told me a few days ago. and at some point got drunk and deleted me as a friend. i read this as one of two things: still realizes we could have something, or doesnt want anything to do with me. but the fact that he still keeps in contact with me reads as numero uno. so. back to going to sc plan. working on it first thing tomorrow. fafsa and finding a school. and emailing dad. all the while pondering the whole thing with dom. just that i am glad to have him as a friend and am happy for him if rebecca is his love. if she makes him happy. than for now. i am happy for that. its still not fair. i feel so ready for love and the next step and feel so jilted. so impatient. so ... stalled. aimless. unmotivated. but realtively happy and supported. i will make it. thank you great lord for setting up my life the way it is and making me who i am. this is a great life. give me strength and patience to wiat for the great man you are preparing for me. love love love love love love :D

life was better, for a while. i got over ben. and feeling dead. dated dom. and was trying to do 2011 single. but as usual my period came and so did the hormones. i am thinking about researching if i have pmdd or not. something is not okay in the hormone department. i'm going to find out what. so in the weeks of my hormonal-ness i started pof again. fucked john. went on some dates, had more sex. and am now in a sort of love triangle. jason is goofy like ben. dom is an ex. and scotty is a pot head.

my thoughts are so jumbled. and my phone is out of commission momentarily. i fell in the tub while bathing keegan and didnt realize immediately that my phone was in my pocket. greeat. what an idiot. i think and hope and pray it will be alright after a night in rice, but my hormones are slowing down and i am getting to the point of needing to make a decision. i kinda need dom to do that. and he would be on the phone. :/

no one knows me well enough honestly. or i just don't want to share as much with them as i do with him. he is so good for me. but i don't know if he agrees visa versa... or whatever.

hopefully i can talk to him tomorrow after church.

talking to scotty was a complete loser and jason is decidedly too goofy. i need serious to balance me out.

gr. well. so its dom or nothing. and i think dom is out. he wanted to be single before he was. i'll just keep being friends with him and see what he realizes or doesnt. i am okay being alone. i will be okay. i need to get my life somewhere.

Lord, be with me. I am not strong enough or wise enough. I love you.