A Conglamerate of Broken Promises

You promised you would always be there. You promised you would never, ever leave. You promised you would always love me. That you would be different than everyone else....
And you left.
January 13th, 2013 you walked away and didn't look back. On March 7th, 2013 at the order of my father you sat across from me at the West and told me to my face that you didn't love me anymore and you would never love me again. Maybe you really stopped loving me long ago, however. Maybe it was over Christmas break when you went back to the world you called "suffocating" and spent a month surrounded by other influences. Maybe it was before that when we were fighting so badly you wouldn't even wish me goodbye when I flew out to Arizona. Maybe it was long, long ago and I just never saw it. Maybe all I've seen is love when love didn't really exist.
All I know is that you promised.
Over, and over, and over again. I read back through the blog posts. Especially the first ones? They were litterally exploding with your love and excitement. For God. For me. For us. In that order, too.
Where did it go? you asked.
I ask the same question.
You hurt me, Levi, that night you took your car and zoomed off campus and left me standing there in the cold, essentially stranded. I felt my heart constrict in surprise and fear, and it has never been okay since. You hurt me when you ruined my coat with hot chocolate. You hurt me that you are so convinced I was going to throw it on you, when I was just trying to get you warm because I was frustrated and trying to show I still cared. You hurt me so badly when you ran away, away, into the dark where I couldn't follow. You hurt me when you ignored me for weeks. The silence, hot and angry and confused. You hurt me when I cried and you didn't even reach out to apologize. You hurt me with the next silence, cold and stony and smug. I watched you petrify into a cold, hard heart of someone I don't recognize anymore and it hurts like hell. You hurt me so baldy. With each agonizing day, not knowing, not knowing, crying and wondering and wrestling from feeling you are at fault and should fix it, to I miss you so much I don't care I just want to fix this mess. You hurt me those few days I couldn't handle the silence anymore and ran to find you. At church, on campus. Just a few times, so few, for so many days. Each time, I was trying and you were not. Although talked to you even so briefly was like a salve for a huge wound, I walked away with the bitter gall of knowledge that I had tried, and you hadn't. I was chasing you and you didn't care to pursue me any more.
You hurt me, Levi, with every day you broke your word. When you didn't text me to sleep. When you didn't write the letters back in answer to mine. When you started up your Facebook agian and posted, posted, posted... without me. When you deleted my friend request and blocked me. When you blocked my family, my relatives... the people who only wanted to offer you a home and family that you've been without your whole life. You hurt me so deeply when you rejected them. What did they ever do to you? They did nothing, and yet they received the blunt end of your anger and coldness.You hurt me so badly be that. You hurt me on Valentines Day. I don't think I cried so much in my whole life. I held onto Fevraal and my old roses from last year, read the blog post from last year, and cried my heart out. When I texted you... you rejected me. You hurt me deep inside. And you hurt me again on the ice skating activity. When you didnt' come. Didn't care. Just didn't care. You hurt me when you glared at me and walked out of the cafeteria. You hurt me when you walk around laughing with your shallow new friends - too busy for me, but obviously not too busy for them. You hurt me when you'd wear your mask at church and pretend to be a great CHristian when I know the last few months have been the evidence of a weak Christian. It hurt me so badly every time you said "you need to go" and the resentment at my very presence, my utter existence, glinted in your eyes. That hurt me so badly.
I miss your eyes, the old ones. The ones warm and gentle and tender. The ones who cared. Not about being "Status quo." Not about being on the "heartland page." Not about being "just like everyone else." Not about "being a kid" and "blending in" and caring only for yourself. Not those eyes, the cold caramel eyes so alien and terrifying to me. I miss the old ones. Warm, like butterscotch, and glowing. Glowing from within. Your passion that lit your soul and animated your spirit, glowing out of your beautiful eyes. But your passion was always tender, gentle... precious. So precious. Tempered by cautioun, tempered by wisdom, tempered by humility. I miss those eyes. I could get lost in them, staring all day and feeling the awe of the amazing soul that God created in you.
I miss my Levi.
It cut the hardest, I think, during our talk at The West when in mid sentence, you cut me off because I called you an endearment. It hadn't even registered to me; it was just how I feel towards you; I love you, and I've been in the habit of demonstrating my love thorugh my speech for the past two years. It cut because you have become so distant, so cold, that it must have grated against your heart and bounced right off. You instantly repelled it. You despised and resented my love. That cut so deep. That you were already so far past the "break up point." and you had never told me. I was just facing it for the first time, and you were already three months (or more??) down the road from it, glaring at me across the table, rebuking me. That hurt so badly I felt my physical heart lurch in my chest, straining so badly I was afraid I would need to get up and walk away so I didnt' have a heart attack. Choking back the pain, refusing to allow it to register, groping so hard for self control and denying my body and mind any reaction to it, I couldn't help the tears that leapt from my soul and down my face. I wanted to break down and weep, to feel the pain flow through me, to give release to a heart that was so restricted with stress and pressure that I was afraid it was going to burst. But I tried to be strong. I tried so hard to be strong for you, the whole time. To push aside who I felt about everything you said, and only focus on saving us, if at all possible, in any way. I was strong that day at that table and you called me weak. The truth is, I was strong enough to fight the pain in trying to fight for us, and you were weak. Weak enough to give up your responisbilities, commitments, and promises, and walk away without remorse. You have become so weak.
But I miss my Levi.
The little one, you know? The one who didn't have a mom or a dad. The one who was always strong because he had to be. Who wasn't a kid, who was a grownp, because he grew up so very long ago. I miss him. I loved him, and I wanted to spend my life with him. I still do.
I miss your stories. About the stone house, where you would play outside an dyour dad would walk you down the road to school. About the big house, where you would wait ouside the bus for school and lived with your mom. About your dad's yellow car coming to get you. About the cool things your dad helped you build. About the places where he took you, places I wanted to see, about the places you loved. Strawberry Island. Sandra's house. Your Grandma's. The original Starbucks in Seattle. So many places... will we never see them? Will we never spend a day a week a month a year chasing each other around Puget Sound and the wine valley seeing the places, holding hands, living? Will you go back and find it suffociating you again, and I'm not there. Your boat, your dad's car... a little cabin in the woods? So many dreams. So deep a love. This love these dreams still burn within me, but they are dreams that may never see the light. I say "may" because I am still in denial.... or maybe because my hope is that strong.... somehow against all these decisions you have made, against months of running from God and your responsibilities and now I'm facing many many more.... I still hope that at the end of it, you will come back to me.
Although, since my dad told you not to bother me, I doubt it will happen the way I see it in my mind. Sometimes, when I lie down adn can't sleep, because the tears slipping down my face and soggying my pillow and I'm cold, I think about what it would feel like to have you come back. My big dream was Valentines Day. That you would be there with roses, and a letter, and we'd share lunch and talk about the painful weeks and you would be courageous enough to try to fix them. My next dream was the ice skating activity. You could have been there, waiting to see which bus I got on. Right there in the dark like you used to be two years ago, when you were different than everyone else instead of in love with being just like them all. We could have skated, and maybe cried, and sat down on the bleachers and started all over again in the place where we began two years ago. My next big dream was when my parents came. Surely, if outside stimulus would help influence change, it would have to be this one. They came and you worked... and then you agreed to see me at The West and even though I knew was it was about, that it was the end and not the beginning, I spent all night on my knees beside my bed and prayed. and prayed. and cried and prayed. And when I woke up my body felt so weak but I knew that God could do it if He wanted. He could create a miracle. I prayed that He would give you something in the preachign that morning, some kind of fire, some kind of conviction... something. And that you would surprise not only me but also my family and you would be there with big flowers and a tight hug and tears in your eyes and we could talk and pray and figure things out. And you could talk to my dad. And be honest with how you feel about him (riddles) and he could try to help you not feel so confused. And you could apologize to my little brother and to my mom.... and we could hug on you and it would be family again, the family I dreamed of.
But I walked in and it was such a little thing, but the minute you rejected the water sitting on the table, refused to touch it, it was like I knew. You didn't want to touch anything. You wanted to walk away without a trace of dust on your shoes from having been in my life, been near my family, been in front of my parents. You were so distant, so closed, so.... changed. I looked into your eyes and I felt something break inside, and the next two hours I listened to your words that hammered the break into a shatter of a million fragments. A heart that was once broken to the point of suicidal pain, that God had stitched back together using your gentle, precious and strong hands... and now I was watching the world end all over again.
It is so hard to wrap my head around the knowledge that you held me two years ago when I cried over Andrea and Chicago. It is so hard to wrap my head around the day that we sat in Santanna in Nichols Hills Plaza and I had the courage to finally tell someone about the person I had lost and who walked away from me. About the day in the park behind the trees when I opened my Andrea box for the first time and wept at the memories of a love that was as real and active as ours. It is so hard for me to understand that years of promising you'd never do that, years of promising you would nver, ever leave, you would never be like the others, that you were different... and you chose to be just like them. Knowing the consequences. Knowing that it would do to me. Knowing, and still proceeding.
You said you wanted to take our journal. I would have given it to you in a heartbeat if you wanted it because it mattered to you. Because you treasured those days, those letters, those dreams and memories. But you don't. You could care less. You left them rotting among the garbage in your car, too proud and bitter to even pick them up and put them back in the box for safeskeeping. I was afraid you'd burn them, or throw them away. Ultimately, you only wanted the book because you don't want the guilt. You don't want to accept the fact that you're the one who is on the other side of that story now. The one who walked away. The one who stopped caring, stopped loving, the one who lied and broke every promise and every piece of my heart. You wanted the journal because you didn't want the pain for me - but you were denying reality. Book or no book, you walked away and the pain would always be there. The story would always read that way.
I didn't want this for our story.
Our story was better.
Our story deserved better.
Our story deserved to live, to continue, to perserve, to survive. Our story deserved it. Because God was writing our story. He was writing about two people with faults and weaknesses, and painful pasts, who came together during tough times and formed an alliance so strong they spent almost two years without a single day apart. Emotionally, physically, and spiritually. They wanted to make each other strong Christians, and they did. They wanted to help tohers, and they did. They wanted to reflect God in thier lives and I think that they did. Satan opposed.. thier flesh opposed... circumstances opposed... doubt and fear and exhaustion and anger and resentment all crept in to oppose... and our story failed. It failed when I said I love you still and you said I don't love you any more and never will again.
Levi deserved better. He deserved to make his dad proud. He deserved to live up to a promise for the first time in his life and feel that accomplishemnt, feel that peace in his heart and soul.
I know I made mistakes. I know I have a sin nature and weaknesses. But I know I have a love for you that is genuine. I don't bounce from person to person. I wait until God brings them in and then I love them with all of my soul. And that is you, was you, will always be you..... I love you and it is not enough.
I don't know what else to say.
I think you are a coward. I know you hate it when I call you anything negative, but I really feel without any malice intended, that you are running from being brave. That you are taking the easy way out. Emotionally, spiritually, financially, in every way. You said it yourself when you said I'm just a kid, I'm just too young. The biggest cop outs in history. Did you ever hear David whining about being a kid when he took out a bear and a lion? No. Did you ever hear Danial whining about being too young when God took his whole family and put him in front of  the king? No. Do you ever hear Jospeh bewailing his lack of experience when he was put in the Egyptian's house and demanded to work? No. No one in the Bible ever used their youth as an excuse who did anything spectacular. You could be so spectacular. I know it! I know it because I've seen the potential. God created something special in you. He created such perserverence, such gentleness, such clarity of thought and purpose, such compassion. And for the first time since I've known you, you are rejecting that and refusing God to use that potential. You feel weak. You feel young. You feel inexperienced and immature. I understand that.... I really do.... life is so big and huge and scary. But who would put those thoughts in your head but the Devil? He would love to have you hiding at HEartland Baptist Bible College or Yakima Bible Baptist Church or at some internship somewhere or anywhere you may run and hide. The sad part, the tragic part, is being able to look and see that you think you are doing such great things for God but your own words as well as your actions prove that you are not. You took the great things for God and threw them in the trash, and you are trying with all your might to substitute for something less. I'm not surprised it is easier for you to be in church every service, to make your ministries, to need less sleep. Why would Satan oppose you now? He has you so convinced you're a great Christian doing nothing for God that it is of no strategic point to try to bother you. Let you sleep. Let you get good grades. Let you bounce in to church and bounce out. He just has to keep that influence whispering in your ear so that you forget who you were, what God once asked of you, and you blindly shuffle on. Maybe even bounding on. Trying to convince me and the little Levi that I know is deep within you that everyone else is just fine and so you can be just like them, too. Because it's easier. Of course it is.... and that is why you are a coward.
But I love you still. Because I saw the hero in you. I saw the courageous young man who would make every other Christian at Heartland look like a child. Who loved God so fiercely, and was opposed by Satan on every side... and who fell.... so hard.... I love you. I see glimpses of you. The fact you even came to see me at The West. Even though you were still taking the easy way out, you at least put some effort into it. And when you said that you found out why you always listen to music? running from yourself? I'm not sure what to thnk of that. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, all I know is that you really do want to be all you can for Christ...... the sad part is that you have swallowed a lie, hook line and sinker, and you won't listen to anyone tell you otherwise.
It breaks my heart.
My heart is so broken, I don't even know what else to write. What about learning calculus on the floor? teaching your Russian? chinese and dr. pepper? what about Patrick? what about our blog? what about meeting your cousins? the lake? the hugs and soft soft kisses? what about them? where did they all go, Levi? Only you know. Only you can fix it. Only you can bring them back.
You have broken my heart. I am trying so hard to respond differently than I did two years ago but I'm not going to lie... I don't want to live with this anguish. I don't want to wake up every day in tears, asking myself Is it over yet today? knowing that you are waking up and making the conscious decision, I won't do it today. I won't go back to her. I won't go back to when I knew Satan opposed me. I won't love her today.
But I love you today.
Lonely, broken Rigel.
All alone in the night sky.
All all alone.