First love.
Despite being a horny high-schooler, I didn't cultivate many relationships of the loving kind when I was in school - I focused on my schoolwork, my friends, my family, church. I was too busy for much besides casual dates or get-togethers, and I my heart was constantly in tumult from trying to figure out where I was in terms of my sexuality. So, it makes sense I would've met my first love after high school and a couple years into college, when I left for Japan.
He was in some of the classes I took there, a beautiful boy in the way sometimes only androgynous Japanese guys can be beautiful, and called me "the cute American boy" in his broken, faltering English. I said androygnous, and I meant androgynous - he often got mistaken for a girl when we went anywhere, with his tiny slim short body and a fondness for thigh high boots, shiny black latex, tons of colors, and skirts (yes, seeing a pattern in the sort of men I'm attracted to?) I remember I loved his eyes, which were large and inquisitive and gray and expressive, with kill-for long lashes, and that he'd grown out his black hair a bit and streaked it with caramel-colored highlights.
At first we could barely communicate, and our conversations were a rapidfire mishmash of hand gestures, Engrish, made-up words, and my still-evolving Japanese. He became my ticket, gaijin that I was, into the more insular levels of Japanese society. I met his friends and his family. We watched movies together, and he insisted on watching the English dubs, because he wanted to learn the language. Over time, he started sending me emails and cards written in the halting English he was learning.
On the fourth of July of my first year in Japan, he came to visit me bearing a blanket, a teddy bear, and a basket full of food. At the door, he smiled shyly and said, "You are sick."
I responded, confused, that I was fine.
He pointed to my heart, drew a shape in the air, and said, "No, sick," and added a Japanese word I didn't understand. When I expressed confusion he dumped all his things in the floor of my home, grabbed my hand, and walked me down the street to where a TV was displaying an American 4th of July celebration. "Sick," he said, "for home. I wanted to make you feel better."
I think I started falling in love with him then.
More than anyone else, he taught me that cultural barriers didn't matter. I had some of the deepest conversations with him I've ever had with anyone, and he spent long nights curled up in my arms talking wistfully about coming one day to visit me in America whenever I went home. He sang to me when I was sick, he would come laughing to get me whenever it rained (he liked to walk in it), and he challenged me into forming my own life away from home. When he said "I love you," he made sure he said it to me in English (he called it my heart language) and when I told him I loved him back, I said it in Japanese.
There were tough moments. He was occasionally outcast even by his own friends for falling in love with a gaijin, and we had to navigate carefully around his family, who didn't know he was gay. But for the most part we learned what a serious love relationship was like together, and the things we taught each other I don't think I'll ever forget.
I never stopped loving him. I don't think he ever stopped loving me. But he had to move, eventually, after over two years together (!) and we said tearful goodbyes. He wrote me long, long emails every night, we exchanged constant phone calls, and it wasn't until I moved and he moved again that I lost his information, and we fell out of touch.
Last night after a conversation with a friend I was thinking about him, and attempted to find him on a whim. I emailed a friend of mine, who gave me his last known email, and I sent a brief, "hey, how are you, remember me?" message.
And damned this morning if there wasn't a long-ass, jubilant reply when I got back, along with a picture. He's hardly changed at all, and that makes me all warm inside.
Good to know some bonds, memories, and joys don't fade so easily.
He was in some of the classes I took there, a beautiful boy in the way sometimes only androgynous Japanese guys can be beautiful, and called me "the cute American boy" in his broken, faltering English. I said androygnous, and I meant androgynous - he often got mistaken for a girl when we went anywhere, with his tiny slim short body and a fondness for thigh high boots, shiny black latex, tons of colors, and skirts (yes, seeing a pattern in the sort of men I'm attracted to?) I remember I loved his eyes, which were large and inquisitive and gray and expressive, with kill-for long lashes, and that he'd grown out his black hair a bit and streaked it with caramel-colored highlights.
At first we could barely communicate, and our conversations were a rapidfire mishmash of hand gestures, Engrish, made-up words, and my still-evolving Japanese. He became my ticket, gaijin that I was, into the more insular levels of Japanese society. I met his friends and his family. We watched movies together, and he insisted on watching the English dubs, because he wanted to learn the language. Over time, he started sending me emails and cards written in the halting English he was learning.
On the fourth of July of my first year in Japan, he came to visit me bearing a blanket, a teddy bear, and a basket full of food. At the door, he smiled shyly and said, "You are sick."
I responded, confused, that I was fine.
He pointed to my heart, drew a shape in the air, and said, "No, sick," and added a Japanese word I didn't understand. When I expressed confusion he dumped all his things in the floor of my home, grabbed my hand, and walked me down the street to where a TV was displaying an American 4th of July celebration. "Sick," he said, "for home. I wanted to make you feel better."
I think I started falling in love with him then.
More than anyone else, he taught me that cultural barriers didn't matter. I had some of the deepest conversations with him I've ever had with anyone, and he spent long nights curled up in my arms talking wistfully about coming one day to visit me in America whenever I went home. He sang to me when I was sick, he would come laughing to get me whenever it rained (he liked to walk in it), and he challenged me into forming my own life away from home. When he said "I love you," he made sure he said it to me in English (he called it my heart language) and when I told him I loved him back, I said it in Japanese.
There were tough moments. He was occasionally outcast even by his own friends for falling in love with a gaijin, and we had to navigate carefully around his family, who didn't know he was gay. But for the most part we learned what a serious love relationship was like together, and the things we taught each other I don't think I'll ever forget.
I never stopped loving him. I don't think he ever stopped loving me. But he had to move, eventually, after over two years together (!) and we said tearful goodbyes. He wrote me long, long emails every night, we exchanged constant phone calls, and it wasn't until I moved and he moved again that I lost his information, and we fell out of touch.
Last night after a conversation with a friend I was thinking about him, and attempted to find him on a whim. I emailed a friend of mine, who gave me his last known email, and I sent a brief, "hey, how are you, remember me?" message.
And damned this morning if there wasn't a long-ass, jubilant reply when I got back, along with a picture. He's hardly changed at all, and that makes me all warm inside.
Good to know some bonds, memories, and joys don't fade so easily.