If you were here, I would just hug you for a minute. I hope you'd hug me back. It's kind of a vulnerable time and I feel small. (I'm not small. I'm like six feet tall and I live in Japan. It's weird to feel small.)

There's a picture of me when I was nine or so on my bookshelf. I was small then. Super skinny. In the picture I'm shirtless and wearing a cowboy hat. It was probably summer. The kitchen stools are stacked up, so it was probably Saturday—chore day. It's a good reminder of who I used to be. I almost wrote something about how I used to be light and happy and carefree, but I haven't really been that way as long as I remember. Certainly not when this picture was taken. My face is so serious.

I mean I had fun, of course. There was always a sick feeling in the background, but I did have fun.

***
It's one in the morning and I probably won't go to bed tonight. See if I can make it to eight or nine o'clock tonight. It's summer vacation for another week, so I can do that.
***
My mom used to give us pajamas and slippers every year at Christmas. (Another picture in the same frame reminds me of this.) I'm glad she made that tradition. Even though I thought they were dorky at the time (I tended to just sleep in my clothes and walk around barefoot . . . don't judge me), it's a happy thing to look back on. One year they were all Taz slippers, even though none of us really liked Loony Toons except maybe my older sister. I clearly remember the way they glommed on my feet. They were very warm. I kept tripping over them.

I think the tradition stopped after my second year at BYU. That was the first year I didn't go home for Christmas. (So maybe it was just that I didn't get to participate.) But by that time I was pretty fiercely exerting my independence by coming out and fighting with myself about the church, so I didn't really notice.

***
Mostly if you were here I'd just want to be with you for a bit. I'm lonely. I'm not interested in making Japanese friends because I'm not very good at Japanese and I don't know how to be out in a foreign and homophobic country. The first takes time and work and discipline and the second, I don't know where to start.

That's a lie. Yes I do. I need to find out if I can be fired for coming out.

I should have done that a year and a half ago, but everything was so new and frightening then. I wasn't bold enough.
***
The last picture in the frame is my little brother when he was five or six. Now he was small, especially standing next to my dad. Even though he's tall and strong now he's always going to be little to me. Always there for me to watch over and protect and tease and hug. He's always been a cuddly little guy.

I don't understand how my older brother can think "It's better if we don't have a relationship."

Maybe because I'm taller than he is.