<3 joe <3

I am so infatuated with Joe. I have daydreamed too much about him that I now think we are getting married. Funny, we are in college, and therefore we may potentially marry people that we know now. Strange, but it makes for more exciting daydreams.
I think I have carried my fantasies too far. Bob wanted to get married, but that would probably freak Joe out. But then again, Joe's never had a girlfriend before either...
or a serious kiss...
Every time I think about him, I want to kiss him. Every time I see him, I want to hold him. Or, rather, have him hold me. I love how he puts his arm around me. I love the way he held me in the haunted house at Worlds of Fun. I love how he initiates holding hands and how he kissed me on the cheek that one night outside Gallagher. I want to hug him or kiss him every night when he leaves our room, but usually he is sleepy. I never know if I should follow him out. I don't want to move too fast. I don't want things to get "mundane" as he put it. He is so smart! I am afraid that when I get the chance to kiss him again, I won't be able to stop. :( Joe deserves a good girl. Bob got me in the habit of kissing and kissing a lot so that I wouldn't be embarrassed to do it in front of anyone else. But what about with Joe? I don't know what he feels like. I hope we get a chance to be alone sometime so we can either talk about it or I can get a good hug in. He is such a man compared to Bob. I hate to say it, but it is true. He went to an all-boys school so we are kind of on the same track. Mmm, I like him a lot. I hope it stays this way. I hope I continue to be normal. I really want him to like me. Have I ruined it already? I'm scared I have. I want to spend time alone with him.
I have too many feelings about the topic of Joe, so I am just rambling. Sorry I can't organize my thoughts. Mmm, a kiss would be wonderful. A hug would be perfect. Hold me some more, Joe. :)

How well do you know the Mother of God?

How often do you pray the rosary?
Yeah, it might not sound like that big of a thing. Actually, it might sound like a hassle. 15-20 minutes a day devoted to redundant prayer. It's easier just to throw in a prayer here or there when you need one.
Pray the rosary. Mary is the most beautiful woman you will ever meet. I hated being a woman until senior year when I prayed the rosary every Wednesday. I hated the hormones, the stereotypes, and the road-blocks that happen to women. I hated the way they acted, and refused to be one of them. I dressed like a boy, I talked like a boy, I tried to be a boy. And here I was, seriously a young woman, at 17 years of age.
Not only did I hate being a woman, I also didn't pray very much. I liked to think bad thoughts about hurting myself or others. Heck, I liked to actually hurt myself or others. I was a bad kid at times. I never did my homework either. I was a mess.
Praying the rosary never seemed to do much good at first. Sure, I felt better after I sacrificed 15 minutes of my time doing what seemed to be the right thing. I even got a chance to finish my homework in a calmer manner after the rosary. It wasn't that much of a hassle and waste of time. Soon, I started to feel like I had a personal relationship with Mary. Like I knew her better, and that she knew me. She knew all my faults. I know because I told her. I told her when I was in the hospital in the behavioral health center for four days. Mary became my best friend. She's the one who I could go to and be perfectly honest with, all due to the relationship we developed by my praying the rosary.
Since that year, I have appreciated my role as a woman. Whenever I feel offended or less important, I can confide in Mary. She protects us from evil as well. I know that she loves me as a mother loves. She is a mother! Yes! A mother who won't judge all the stupid things I do. She's the mother who remembers the good that I do and who knows my inmost intentions. It's so easy to trust in her because I know that she is always there, and I wish that you would talk to her and have the same opportunity to know her that I did. :) I love you, Mary.

Mother Mary, walk with us.

Confession gave me the grace to stop.

Go to confession. You may think it's impossible to get over. You may not even want to get over it. You may not think there's anything wrong with it. But do you feel bad? Like, when you think of who you were a few years ago before these teenage hormones set in... do you feel like you rejected yourself or that you are being untrue to yourself?

I do. Took me a long time to realize it. I never even considered being true to myself when I went through my violent phase. Or my depressed phase. But my lusty phase, I knew right away how unlike my true self and against my conscience that was.

There were stages. Yes, this is gross. There were the daydreams about boys. Harmless, yes? Probably. Then there came the depressed spells. I would disrespect myself so much that I would have had sex with 30 year old men and anyone who would pay me... just to make my parents bleed inside. The only reason I didn't was because I did not have a car or any personal space to sneak a 30 year old man into. Then, yes, I finally learned about sex. The bad way. On the internet. My curiosity took me through horrible websites filled with explicit content and crude material. Stories that were written to get you to lust up a storm, advertisements for toys to enhance your sinful pleasure, and pictures to lure you into sin. Everyone has things they are interested in that they just cannot turn away from altogether. You drive by a car accident, you try to see as much as you can in the split second you are passing. You see nudity on TV, some will get as close a look as they can without seeming like a perv. You run across new information on the internet about sex you had no idea about, you study more. You learn more. You corrupt your mind more and more. You begin to joke about sex. You begin to think about it constantly. You begin to desire the same things you are reading about. Until it gets out of control. Until you rot into a sick lustbag and pass the time dreaming about sex and boys instead of doing your homework. Yeah, it's gross, and I've never been this honest before. But, it's a problem. A problem that you can hardly stop on your own because it is just too exciting.

But when you think about it and you're not doing it... when you think about it at church... when you think about it when someone else does it... you know you disagree with it. You know it's a terrible thing. You know you want to murder the person who developed the trash you've seen and the dirt you've learned. You know you want to stop. It's something you need help with but you can't just ask anyone for help. This is not a problem you admit to. You can hardly go to God for help because you are so ashamed of your actions. You downplay them like they weren't that big of a deal and everyone else does the same things, besides. Well, if it's not that big of a deal, I guess you don't need any help, do you? You have to humble yourself and hate the sin. You have to want to stop. You have to begin with a clear slate and start over again. You have to go to confession.

It's the hardest thing to say. It's the worst subject to bring up. You know how horrible it is. You know how dirty. But you just have to get it off. Not because you want to now, but because you know you want to. Oh, and you have to. Say it. Leave knowing you're cleansed, whether you feel guilty still or not. Believe you have been forgiven. You have been! So you can stop now! You can stop now! You can be yourself again!

I wrote this in the 2nd person because it's a little hard to admit to the 1st person standpoint.

Maria, you were named after a Virgin.

I haven't had sex. Would it hurt? Yeah, I guess, but if I was caught up in the moment I think I could deal with a little pain for all the emotional and physical pleasure I would be receiving. Would it be the right thing to do? Sure. Whatever I want is the right thing to do. If I make the decision to do something, it is the right decision for me. What if it wasn't? Losing my virginity is not something I could ever take back. It is a final decision. It is absolute. What's done is done. No starting over. There is no room for regret. If there is a regret, I will live with it for the rest of my life. I can't get over it. It is so important and so final. Because when I get married, I want to be a virgin. It would ruin my marriage, or at least compromise my goal in marriage if I had lost my virginity previously. What if I previously lost my virginity to the same man that I married? Response: What, he couldn't wait? Was that really love? If you were going to end up together anyway, you couldn't just wait for the Lord to bless your love? What about oral sex? It's not really sex, is it? Yes. Yes it is. Private, sacred parts of your body are being stimulated in a perverse manner, meaning outside of a blessed covenant. Wrong. God gave us sex and the potential to have these feelings as a gift for marriage, to procreate life. It is the most sacred action, and one of the most sacred things we can have on this earth. Have I ever done something I believe is wrong? Yes. Touching sacred parts. I am so ashamed. However, in the moment I could excuse it because it felt like the right thing to be doing. And I have a lot of confidence in myself. Plus, it felt good. So why not go just a little bit farther? Also, kissing. Kissing for a long time. Making out. It's foreplay, really. Making somebody think sexy thoughts because of the way you are seducing them. I felt like I was so desirable, like I was so much better than my partner. That made me too arrogant, which is negative in itself. Not to mention the fact that I continued on because I felt like I was such hot shit. Now I think about it from a more mature perspective. I am really leading this boy into temptation. The devil is acting through me. I am seducing someone's younger brother, someone's son, someone's role model. I am making him act as a worse individual than he tries so hard to be. I am bringing him down. That must mean that I do not love him; either that or I do not respect him anywhere near how he deserves to be respected. Besides, boys do have a hard time controlling their hormones, especially due to the way girls portray themselves as sexy babes who are there for pleasure. Anyway, I know I am destroying his relationship with God, his opportunity to be pure for the sake of his soul, and his relationship with his future wife who will appreciate a virgin husband. I can't be the cause of that either! God would hate me! He would hate me! His wife would hate me! His kids would hate me! This is about the future, because as a teenager, I do not think clearly. I need to think ahead to the consequences and how I will be thinking as a mature adult so my mind is not fogged by hormones and ill-judgment now. He can't take back his actions anymore than I can take back mine. And if I can't control myself for the sake of my future (because I am depressed and do not give a care about it), I should make the effort to behave for the sake of his future, because I care about him as a person.