My friend had left me but I had instantly found another friend, André, with whom I could talk about all kinds of things. I suddenly seemed to have an opinion on every issue.
I was not only interested in matters that directly affected my own life, but I felt that I was affected by everything. From the bottom of my heart I dug up everything I could think about and spread it onto a paper. Nothing seemed to be unfamiliar for André.
Our relationship made me breathe. I had closer connection to him than to any of my nearest neighbors and in a way it lifted us above time and space.
I got a letter from André every day. Sometimes I sat beside the postbox on our front-door and waited his letter to arrive. We had close, balanced mental relationship and I wanted to have as balanced and relaxed physical connection with him. I imagined that we could live like brother and sister and even sleep in the same bed without need to emphasize self-interest.
We begun to plan a journey that we would do in the summer together and my heart was waiting for him. Sometimes I was bothered by the thought that maybe André will not adjust to my handicap and I wrote about that. He said that he can take it, if I accepted myself as I was.
The day I had waited so eagerly dawned at last and I met André.
The way he touched me let me understand at once that there could be a conflict. I felt a bit annoyed, because it seemed to me that he didn’t take me seriously. I had written to him that I do not accept sex relations before marriage.
Marriage was in my mind rather a real connection between partners than a legally sealed happening. I still remembered clearly how I felt as my previous love affair made me totally lose control over myself. I wanted to create something more constructive with André.
I wanted to feel him near me and have a tangible connection, but it did not necessarily mean that I wanted to feel him as material being.
I wanted to feel the energy between us, bask in it and let him become a part of me.
We rented a car and drove around my home country. We had sunbaths on seaside cliffs. We went to see my childhood home, or remains of it. We sat in the church, where our class used to begin and end school years. We went to André’s homeland and I learned to know his family.
As we slept in a hotel for the first time I had to choose between my idealistic thoughts and the reality of life that was facing me: he wanted to make love with me.
My feelings were contradictory, but I said to myself that now I had a chance to give him something he wanted as he had already given me so much. So, we had it all. With all the bells and whistles.
André became a part of me: He served as my left hand, polished my nails and helped me on the way when I had to go to the bushes to empty my bladder. He made me feel that everything was OK just as it was. He talked to me all the time although I did not really reply to him. We didn’t need words to get connected.
On one hand our relationship was better than I could have wished for myself in my bravest dreams. On the other hand I had constantly the feeling that everything was proceeding too fast.
The feeling became stronger and stronger, but instead of facing the matter as such we got engaged to make everything feel all right.
When I returned home from our journey with a ring on my finger it felt wrong that we tied each other together.
I was the first love affair for André. He had his whole life before him, but everything concerning me was insecure.
My new life situation demanded totally new kind of adaptation and self-examination from me and I had to be free to make my own decisions.
I wrote about my thoughts to André, but he thought that everything was fine.