What are the qualities that most attracted me to you?

Beloved,
there were many. I'm trying to think back to my initial impressions of you. I thought you were handsome. You were the oldest of the guys in our little group at the Mission, and for some reason that was attractive to me, probably because you were on your own and were just more mature than the others. I remember liking your ideas for the newsletter. I also liked your confidence and assuredness in speaking.

I have said this many times, but the first time that I started to look at you differently was that day in the park when you stopped the two bums from fighting. I thought you very brave and began to admire you in a whole new way. One time when the youth group was together you raised your arms above your head stretching and your shirt came up a little. I saw your belly button and the hair right below it. I knew nothing of men, and had never looked at anyone erotically? before. But when I saw that, there was something very masculine about the hair and I felt a stirring inside me. At the time I didn't know what sexual feelings really were, but in hindsight, I think that's what I felt.

I liked the sharing we started through email. It was a new and exciting friendship for me. I began to look forward, almost like an obsession (as everything I care about tends to become!) to every form of communication between us. I would hang on your every word, and when you and I would exchange a glance my heart would literally skip a beat. That day in the park when you told me about your past, my heart broke for you, and it was the first and last time in years that I saw how vulnerable you could be. There was such a strength in showing your weakness to me: taking off your mask.

Obviously, my feelings matured and deepend over time, but those are the initial things that first made me fall in love with you.

Faithfully,

Your wife