Dearest,

I turned 25 last week. It felt significant, like I'm finally embracing adulthood. Finally becoming a woman.

And I remembered how I'd "surrendered" the dream of marriage. How, two months back, I'd resolutely refused to continue dreaming about you.

But the truth is letting go of the dream had been a relief.

For so long, I've lived with the secret, debilitating fear that a person like you doesn't exist, and that I could end up waiting forever for a phantom. I've feared that even if you do exist, you'd never be attracted to a person like me.

In the end, it boils down to this: I have been afraid to hope, to dream.

But I think God wants me to hope & dream again. And to trust Him for a good gift in you.

I am so scared...

Dearest,

The other night, I happened to wander into my housemates' room just as The Bachelor (first season) was starting. It's a reality show where one guy ("The Bachelor") meets 25 women. Later, he chooses 15 whom he wants to get to know better, then slowly eliminates the others until he is left with a single one.

It was his first time meeting the ladies, yet he easily put his arms around them and even pecked their cheeks. I was just struck by how casually they all treated this small physical intimacy.

Some people would say it isn't too big a deal, but I couldn't help remembering my conversation with Janelle about hugging. She's a huggy kind of person; she hugs the people whom she cares about - no matter whether they're guys or girls.

But I - I am not comfortable hugging guys at all, or having guys hug me. I remember when our college's Christian Fellowship going to break for the summer hols and the president went around hugging everybody - I was as stiff as a board when he came to me!

It's got something to do with the fact that Mom taught me not to let men "simply touch you". Now that I think of it, I actually rarely touch guys casually - even to pat them on the shoulder or swat their arms playfully. And men don't touch me either.

Jan's boyfriend hugs me goodbye, sometimes. She protested, "You know he means nothing by it." Yes, I know, and I know he's just being affectionate, so I go along with it. But I don't initiate hugs with guys. To me the hug is a pretty intimate thing and... well... I just wouldn't like you to go around hugging any girl. Even if she were your trusted friend - or mine!

"You mean I won't be able to hug him?" Jan asked, shocked.

"You may hug him on our wedding day - but that's about it," I laughed.

"And if I do hug him, you'll be angry?"

Not so much angry as kinda like, whoa, he's hugging her. I don't know how to explain it, other than to say that I just don't like the idea of you having your arms around some other woman, no matter how innocent it is. Possessive? You bet I am, baby! ;)

Dearest,

Sometimes I watch married couples and wonder.

There is a mystery in marriage; you commit your whole life - or what's left of it - to another. Things will never be the same again.

Something indefinable separates the singles from the marrieds. It's not that they ignore us, neither is it that they can no longer identify with us. It's just that they now have different priorities, different responsibilities, different concerns...

I watch my friends taking their wedding vows in church and I know that they are going somewhere I have not gone; they are going to a place I cannot follow as yet, a place that is foreign to me.

While I'm not in a hurry to get to that place, I am intensely curious about it. But I get the feeling it's one of those things that cannot be explained. One has to experience it to really know what it's like.

I look forward to experiencing that with you.

Dearest,

Do you know, when you have told me to think of you, I have been ashamed of thinking of you so much, of thinking only of you - which is too much, perhaps. Shall I tell you? It seems to me, to myself, that no man was ever before to any woman what you are to me - the fullness must be in proportion, you know, to the vacancy... and only I know what was behind - the long wilderness without the blossoming rose... and the capacity for happiness, like a black gaping hole, before this silver flooding.
-- Elizabeth Barrett, in a letter to Robert Browning dated Jan 10, 1846. They were married in Sept of the same year

Although people in our time now "fall in love" with an ease, rapidity, and frequency never seen before, I think we are more cautious of love than ever.

We declare ourselves "in love", sleep together, live together, or marry; but I suspect that very rarely is there the full, passionate giving of one's self into the other's keeping.

No, we cannot reveal too much of ourselves, must not allow the beloved to see too deeply into our hearts; emotions, even while indulged, are not to be given full rein. He must not know that I feel like I cannot live without him.

Why? It is weak; it is shameful - one should never have to need another so much. To feel that way is bad enough; to tell the other person of it is even worse.

We constantly second-guess the other: Will he feel uncomfortable if I say too much? If I go off into raptures and tell him how I really feel, will he feel cornered? What if he feels less than I do for him - wouldn't I be making a fool of myself by telling him how deeply I care?

I suspect that there is a lack of such honest expression of emotion between the lovers of today. I suspect that, whilst we may say "I love you" a lot more glibly, we temper our joy, guard our words, rein in our impulses. There are neither exhuberant protestations of love, nor extravagant outbursts of emotion.

When I do meet you, dearest, I pray that I will feel secure enough with you to speak my heart - dramatic expressions and all. That I won't fear you'll laugh at me for sounding silly, exaggerated and sentimental... because I just KNOW I'm going to be so totally in love with you that I'll want to rhapsodize and go into raptures! *grin*