“Jeles” I’m planning on Submitting

Question:  Describe a moment of faith found or lost 

1. Answer:  For years I fought to find meaning: in relationships, in sex, in drugs, in alcohol, in success, in any place I could.  At the end of a week clouded by drugs and alcohol, my journey truly began.  I would come to weep because Jonah got swallowed by a fish.

Question:  What is your deepest secret?

1. Answer:  It was Armageddon, the last frat party of the year.  We went with the goal of finding boys to kiss.  We came home to each other and the Armageddon of our simple friendship.  5 years later we’re still living in a post-nuclear confusion.

Question:  What is the nastiest thing you have ever said or done?

1. Answer:  As I watched Susan and her fiancé, John, play with their daughter, Susan commented on their inability to get pregnant again and joked that John and I should have a child together so she could raise it.  John and I looked at each other and I thought back to earlier that morning when I watched him quietly leave my bed to return to hers.

Question:  What is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?

1. Answer:  As our 7^th grade English teacher is passing out papers, my twin sister cries out, “My dad has a girlfriend!”  The room is so silent you can hear the bees buzzing by the window.  I try to spend the rest of the day in the handicapped stall of the girls’ bathroom.

Question:  What is the worst betrayal you have ever experienced?

1. Answer:  It’s 3:00 a.m. and I feel someone gently rubbing up and down my “sailboat” birthmark.  “Shhh,” my grandfather whispers, “we mustn’t wake anyone else up.”  I was 5.  When I hit Jr. High my “sailboat” would begin to be subtly obscured by my emerging pubic hair.

Question:  What is the greatest risk you have ever taken?

1. Answer:  It’s been a little over 2 decades since my grandfather last laid his hands, and other body parts, on m; a little over 2 years since I got the call that he had passed-on; and a little over 2 months since I forgave him.

Question:  What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?

1. Answer:  I was 19 and he was the first boy I ever loved.  “I don’t know why you’re going over to his place when he has a girlfriend at home!” my roommate exclaimed one night as I got ready to go to his apartment.  I dropped her phone in the toilet as I vomited at the news.  I would spend the next 2 ½ years sexually servicing him and whoever else he asked me to.

Question:  What were the strangest circumstances under which you have been intimate?

1. Answer:  It was summer and my dad and I were sitting in the living room watching a movie.  I had a blanket over my lap and my hand down my pants.  My dad asked me why my legs were shaking.  I replied that I was simply restless. 

Question:  What is your most obsessive thought?

1. Answer:  When I was a very young girl, I would bunch up my pillow and put it between my legs, gyrating my hips to rub against the pillow.  It wasn’t until years later that I realized what I was doing or why that helped me to sleep.  But even then, I felt ashamed by the action.

 

**The names of persons have been changed to protect the innocent**