September 22nd, 2013

Most other normal people would post this in a blog, but your dear author is choosing to expose this in her story because I want you to read this.

For those of you who know me, you are aware that I am a particularly physically active individual. I love exerting my body and working up a sweat and recently, I've signed up to run a half marathon in May, so I've been training and working my body hard.

Yesterday, I pushed myself harder than I should have and I realized I've been doing this more often in this past week. I ended up hurting myself.

Now it's nothing too bad nor permanent and I do believe that I can still run the half marathon if I just rest a little.

But that's not the point.

I looked back on this past week and I finally saw how hard I was working my own body and how much damage I was doing.

I've been running twice a day.

I wake up at 5 or 5:30 in the morning to do a quick run, usually about 8-10 kilometres, which takes me just under an hour. Then after coming home from class, I run again, this time longer, at least 15 k and I've been pushing for 17.

Yesterday I made myself run 19 almost 20 k and I couldn't make it home. I collapsed on the trail and splayed myself out, uncaring of anything else. Everything and everywhere hurt. I could taste blood at the back of my throat.

And it was there alone on the trail that I reflected and made myself think as to why I was pushing myself so hard at an ungodly and unhealthy pace.

I was angry.

At a lot of things but mostly with myself.

My friend left a few days ago, Monday to be exact, to leave the city we grew up in. Leave far far away for school. This was a long time coming and I was sad to be sure, but I was also excited for her, until exactly a week to D-Day when she had to leave. We went out for coffee to just talk and make the most of the remaining time we had together.

And that was when she told me the real reason she was leaving.

She felt suffocated, trapped and very very very unhappy with her life.

She floored me with one sentence.

'I haven't been happy in a long long time...'

How can someone as young as we are say that?

And how did I not see this coming?

I've known her my whole life, we grew up together and I always saw her as a happy girl with a loving family and lots of friends. I prided myself in knowing her better than anyone else. We could read each other like a book.

Apparently not.

She (I will name her Jane), Jane is not one who is particularly adept at hiding her thoughts and her emotions. When she's happy, she'll laugh and smile and clap her hands. When she's sad, she'll cry openly on my shoulder. When she's angry, she spews her thoughts in a plethora of angry diatribes to let of steam. She never holds back.

So how sad is it that such a girl learned to hide one thing from everyone she's known and grown up with her whole life? To know how to hide something so deep that those closest to her would have not even an inkling?

Or is this on me? Because I feel that it is. How could I not see that she wasn't happy for so long?

Let me tell you her story.

Jane grew up in a loving, happy, materially well-provided for home. Her parents are Christian and they raised their only child in the same way. Jane always invited me along to her church outings and I would go and thouroughly enjoy myself.

I am not religious and nor is anyone else in my family, but I could see the appeal of religion.

And as it turns out, that is where it all goes wrong for Jane.

She told me a week before she left that she was running away from her life here and all the oppression that she's placed on herself.

She's been struggling with her uality.

She told me as she cried that she's hid it since highschool, so scared to even let hersef think upon such 'unholy and aberrant thoughts'. It was really the typical thought process you see in movies and dramas. She felt dirty, disgusting, and she found herself very aware of how she interacts with girls around her, afraid they could sense her 'condition' through her touch.

She even felt that with me.

And yet she hid it, pasted on a smile, and went on.

Throughout the years, she began to feel tired about feeling so grossed out by herself and allowed herself to start exploring, in her mind, about how she could feel with a girl. She found it increasingly pressing to act out on her desires, but her upbringing and the fear of being found out and the stress of how her parents and all her church friends would look upon her in shame...all stopped her.

'I am leaving and going far far away so that I can find a girl, screw her, and live my life.'

I cried that night thinking about how I was never able to help her with what she was struggling with and I can't help but think that I am a huge huge failure to her in this regard.

My family and I have always been open to homouality.

My uncle is gay and he is very well loved in our family.

And I am more than certain that I can count on a huge level of support if I were in Jane's shoes. My brothers would joke that they would no longer have to worry about some stupid boy knocking up their baby sister and my parents would be with me every step of the way.

But perhaps I am not open and vocal enough about my support. Whatever it is, I did not create a good enough friend in her so that she could feel safe enough to share this with me and let me, if not help her, at least hold her and support her.

At the same time, Jane, I am talking to you right now, I can't help but worry for you. This is not the right way to deal with this. Do you plan on leaving your family, and everyone else behind and to live a completely separate life from all of us?

You didn't even give us a chance to let you down much less bring you up.

It is highly likely that your parents will find this very hard to accept, it is very likely that they may feel ashamed of their daughter for quite some time, it is very likely that you may be shunned by some of your more hardcore religious friends, that is all very very very likely.

But what if they care enough about you to try and work towards something? Don't you have enough faith in your parents that they love you enough to not want to see you out there living a potentially self-hurting lifestyle? Don't you have enough faith in me that I will be there every step of the way? I'll go to the gay bars with you. I'll be there to cheer you on when you kiss your first girl. I'll be there to watch you get into a relationship with a girl who cares for you and loves you. Tim and I will be there to go on double dates with you. I'll be there to hold you as you cry when the going gets tough.

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We 'ship' our OTP's together, we are open to their being gay, but some if not most of us are from Asian countries. Please please please understand I am by no means making any attack on any culture or country. Each culture has their own wonderful things to offer, but at the same time, each culture also has their own weak points.

Asian cultures tend to the side of being conservative and more paternalistic. So while most of us are ok with our OTP's being homoual in fan fictions, you may not actually be ok with it in real life. But dare I say that if for some reason, your OTP suddenly came out to the world and admitted they were gay for each other, how would you react?

Happy? Estatic? Accepting?

Then how can we not be more loving to those you can actually touch and affect in your life? How then can we not be more kind to those whose lives you can actually make a difference i