CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

 THE MISS CUTIE EFFECT

Dear Diary,

Do you ever sit and think, what if? What if you had never said the first HELLO, or what if your PATHS never crossed? What if you kept your mouth shut, kept your feelings to yourself and just let things BE/PASS?  What if you had just five more minutes? What if you could turn back TIME and make it all stand still? Where would your LIFE be? Who would you be with as a FRIEND/LOVER? Would the person be somebody Better? Worse?  Would you be less confused? more confused? Happier? Sadder? Just, what if?

You see, I’m a GUY who has been tamping down his EMOTIONS and keeping them tightly GUARDED for almost his whole life…well maybe not my entire life…but pretty much all year round after my ‘love-gone-bad’ experiences with MISS PERKY and MISS DEE. And that was working really well for me... And now out of nowhere, MISS CUTIE comes in and I truly feel like my thick SHELL has a dangerous crack in it. Without much EFFORT on her part, my shell had split wide open and my enormous river of EMOTIONS is gushing out - the bad and the good. It is pretty much the scariest thing I'd ever thought of…

I guess everyone has a reason for keeping people away, an instinct to PROTECT ourselves from getting HURT. It’s a part of human nature. I’ve been doing pretty great at PROTECTING my heart from getting broken all over again because of unrequited love. But my little experiences with MISS CUTIE and the others before her make me believe that the inconvenient truth is sometimes: we only HIDE because we want to be FOUND. We only WALK AWAY because we want to see who will FOLLOW us. And sometimes we only BREAK HEARTS to see what they really MEAN to us…I’ve had my heart broken by so many people under so many circumstances but gradually, MISS CUTIE is making me realize that LIFE is not just a simple SONG but a series of COMPLICATED MELODIES…And all in all, I admire her for being such an expert at crossing my mind, she does not need to be extravagant to impress me, her personality already captures my heart…

I had the pleasure of escorting MISS CUTIE on an 80km journey so she could go to her mum’s for the Christmas holidays. The ride to her home was quiet most of the time but it was filled with intermittent conversations/chit chats till we finally got to her house. Unfortunately, her mum was still at work so I didn’t get to meet her, she decided to accompany me to the nearest bus terminal so I can hitch a ride back to Cape Coast where I live…nothing significant happened on our way to her house but that short ride has come to mean so much to me than the many “SOMETHINGS” I’ve done with others…and though I am far away from her now, I can FEEL her heartbeat in mine, I can SMELL her fragrance in my MEMORIES, I can feel her soft palm in mine and the mellow taste of that KISS – that never happened – still lingers!

I must admit there was a time I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But lately, my daily experiences with MISS CUTIE is making me begin to believe again that few times in our lives, if we’re lucky, we might meet someone who is exactly RIGHT for us. Not because s/he was PERFECT, or because we were, but because our combined FLAWS are arranged in such a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together!

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

MISS CUTIE - NEW OBJECT OF INTEREST UNCOVERED

DEAR DIARY

The last time we talked I made mention of a certain MISS CUTIE (**not her real name**) I gradually find myself being DRAWN to. Well, honestly, I’ve kinda always ADMIRED her from afar, because she literary gives me the kinda feeling people write novels about...but for some “twisted” personal reasons, I had to keep my distance from her till now…

Well, tonight MISS CUTIE showed me pictures she had taken during her HANDING OVER CEREMONY in her church last Sunday. After, seeing all the NICE PHOTOS of her with her FRIENDS some of whom I barely even KNOW or recognize, I couldn’t help but WONDER…

Have you ever LOOKED at a picture of you and saw someone you barely know in the BACKGROUND? Does it make you WONDER how many STRANGERS have pictures of you, OR how many MOMENTS of other people’s LIVES you have been in, were you a PART of someone’s LIFE when their dreams came TRUE? Or were you there when their dreams DIED? Did you keep TRYING to get in the PICTURE as if you were somehow DESTINED to be there? Or did the SHOT take you by SURPRISE? Just think! You could be a big part of someone else’s life and not even know it!

Indeed we're all PIECES of the same ever-changing puzzle; some of us are CONNECTED for mere seconds, some connected for LIFE, some connected through KNOWLEDGE, some through BELIEF, some connected through WISDOM, some through LOVE, and some others connected with NO EXPLANATION at all. Yet, as SPIRITUAL BEINGS having a human experience, we're all here for the sensations this reality or illusion has to offer. The best anyone can hope for is the right to be able to Live, Learn, Love then Leave. After that, reap the BENEFITS of their own chosen existence in the hereafter by virtue of simply believing in what they believe. As for here, it took me a while but this progression helped me with my life

If you really think about it critically, you’d realize your LOVED ones and your FRIENDS were once STRANGERS. Somehow at a particular time, they came from the DISTANCE towards your LIFE. Their ARRIVAL seemed so ACCIDENTAL and contingent. Now your LIFE is unimaginable without them, and that is how the STORY goes with MISS CUTIE and me. She’s suddenly become a huge part of the puzzle called my life now, and I WORRY about her a lot. I worry and sometimes wonder if she can HANDLE the bullshit that PEOPLE will throw at her just for HANGING AROUND me. I wonder if she can handle my oversized EGO…I wonder if she SEES me the same way I SEE her…I know I have a deep AFFECTION for her and I really CARE about her deeply. Sometimes her nearness takes my breath away; and all the things I want to say to her can find no VOICE. Then, in silence, I can only hope my eyes will speak my heart.

But I’m kinda SCARED also because I have a HISTORY of making DECISIONS very quickly about WOMEN. I have almost always FALLEN IN LOVE fast and without measuring/considering the RISKS. I have a tendency not only to see the BEST in everyone, but to ASSUME that everyone is EMOTIONALLY CAPABLE of reaching his/her HIGHEST POTENTIAL. I have fallen in LOVE more times than I care to count with the HIGHEST POTENTIAL of a woman, rather than with the woman herself, and I have hung on to the RELATIONSHIP for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the woman to ascend to her own GREATNESS. Many times in ROMANCE/RELATIONSHIPS I have been a VICTIM of my own OPTIMISM! And I really don’t want to make any such MISTAKE with MISS CUTIE. They say “Perfect love casts out fear…and that where there is TRUE love there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency…” I do not demand that MISS CUTIE makes me happy; my happiness does not DEPEND on her, and If she were to leave me NOW or some other time in the FUTURE, I will not feel SORRY for myself; I enjoy her company immensely, but I do not/will not CLING to her or anyone!

Whenever I look into her innocent EYES, I see that indeed God give gifts of LOVE through people like her and I can only HOPE and PRAY that all her days be as SPECIAL as the MEMORIES she create in the HEARTS of those she’s TOUCHED like myself!