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!

CHAPTER TWENTY

DEAR DIARY

Have you ever wondered what’s WORSE than wanting something you can’t have?

I believe it is NOT KNOWING what you want. Wishing on all the STARS in the sky for the answers to your numerous questions, for something to believe in…someone to hold. Having absolutely no CONTROL over yourself, being caught up in a place you WISH you were miles away from. Being stuck somewhere between the PAST and the FUTURE, and being nowhere near where you should be - in the present. Being stuck in yesterdays and tomorrows, so far from home, far from everything you know and LOVE. The uncertainty about the FUTURE could just tear you to bits.

Sometimes you meet certain people that can TOUCH your SOUL in certain ways most people can't. But you have to let them go because you realize that it just isn't the BEST TIME in your life for them to come. It seems like you meet the PERFECT people just when you can't handle them... And it’s hard letting go of something that you did(n't) know you were HOPING for... but not every RELATIONSHIP – be it friendship or romantic - is meant to last FOREVER.  And sometimes the best thing you can do is take a step back and give yourself a chance to breathe.

Today is Miss Perky’s birthday and just as I did same time last year, I have a surprise planned for her. However, to make her birthday surprise from me more surprising, I pretended as though I had forgotten it’s her b’day. At around 21:00 GMT, I received a heartbreaking text message from her. In her message, she was so pissed about the fact that she’s not heard from me on her b’day and that she “can’t continue being friends with me anymore!” Ever since I got that message from her, I feel as though my whole world has grinded to a halt! I mean, who in her right mind will ditch a friend over such an issue? Could it be that all this time, the only reason she’s with me and hangs around is because of what she GETS from me? The content of her text message was so painful that I literary cancelled all my appointments with my students and others and kept to myself all-day….

Hmmm, it is really FUNNY how LIFE changes. You get all lined up just the way you like it, and then something far beyond your CONTROL comes along and bumps you off center. How nice it would be if you could get anything just the way you want it and say, “okay, now stay.” But nothing STAYS the same. You grow up, make friends, lose friends, go to college/university, lose track of people, meet new friends/people, and sometimes you ask yourself why.

But all I know and can tell you is that every single EXPERIENCE you go through has changed you in some way. Every new person who comes into your life changes you. Every moral dilemma or emotional experience you come up against changes you. It’s your job to decide how exactly it changes you. That’s how character is developed!

To my dearest MISS PERKY, you’ve taught me and showed me many things. You’ve taught me that I can LOVE, that people can (pretend to) CARE about me. You showed me the feeling of being in someone’s arms when they MEAN the world to you. The feelings of COMPASSION. So many wonderful things. I thank you for that. You’ve also showed me that people BREAK PROMISES, that people don’t always hold TRUE to their word. You’ve taught me that you can LOVE someone more than anything in the world, yet HATE them just as much. That just because someone says something, that doesn’t mean it’s TRUE. You’ve showed me how bad it HURTS to have the girl you LOVE and mistakenly thought cared about you, push you away and treat you as if you are WORTHLESS. You’ve showed me wonderful things just as well as HORRIBLE things. I do thank you for both. You’ve now prepared me for the harsh world I am entering or already find myself in. You’ve thought me the hard way that people who say they CARE about you don’t always.

"Love is blind," we hear this all the time. People will use this phrase to describe a situation in which someone who is ENAMORED is not seeing the FAULTS of another. Oftentimes people become so OBSESSED with having a SPECIAL person in their life that they close their eyes to the things they should be looking at; and later they end up getting hurt. People who BLIND themselves make a willful decision to blind themselves, just to enjoy a superficial and fleeting pleasure, or emotion. LOVE IS NOT BLIND; I have come to believe it is rather people who blind themselves to the things they should be looking at.

When it comes to true love, we should look at a person's character, commitment, manners, respect, virtue, integrity among many other things. We should also look at their good and bad habits, their history, how they treat the opposite sex, how they treat their parents or siblings etc. We should never be blind to these things. True love deals with the WHOLE TRUTH about a person because true love desires to love the whole person; and if a person is not looking for the same thing we are looking for--true love--we should not give them a GIFT they are not worthy of receiving; you can be sure they will trample on it. Real love sees everything because real love seeks truth. Let's be guided by truth, never by SELF-DECEPTION.

Furthermore, I have come to believe that when one speaks of love, one must not immediately equate it to romantic love between two partners. Love is beyond that. Love is affection. Love is caring for another. Love is the general concern and care for another person. To those in the “FRIEND ZONE” who were seemingly placed there by the ones they truly loved, do not weep, nor stammer, nor criticize love itself in blind anger. Rather, try to UNDERSTAND. The reason he or she may have placed you there in the “friend zone” may be because he or she saw the UN-READINESS for the RELATIONSHIP. He or she might fear you getting hurt. He or she might have done so due to social schisms, despite really wanting to. He or she might have done so because he or she loves you too. And love does not always mean 'yes’ to a date request!

Though it hurts me to the core that MISS PERKY will literary dump me simply because I delayed in her b’day surprise, I am glad I met her and all the things she’s indirectly taught me about women.

And most importantly, lately, I find myself gradually being drawn to MISS CUTIE, I call her that because she’s literary the cutest person I’ve ever met. As to whether it’s going to be another painful story of unrequited love with her also, only time will tell!

WATCH OUT FOR MORE!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A trip down memory lane-part 1

DEAR DIARY

Lately, I can’t help but find myself wondering; WHAT SHOULD REALLY COUNT when you are in LOVE? Is it the TIME you find yourself SMILLING thinking of that person, giggling about the MOMENTS you've had with him/her? Or the time you found yourself CRYING because someone makes you so HAPPY, it melts your HEART?

Life with MISS DEE (*not her real name* see CHAPTER SEVENTEEN) has been like a roller-coaster RIDE. I remember a TIME that she was all I could THINK about all day every day. But the TRUTH about the inconvenient TRUTH is that it is HARD when you meet the RIGHT LOVE at the WRONG TIME. And what is more PAINFUL is when you have to give up the RIGHT LOVE because you have to face the RIGHT TIME holding the WRONG LOVE!

Diary, permit me to take you on a little TRIP down MEMORY LANE, I met MISS DEE a year prior to the time MISS PERKY (*not her real name*) crossed paths with me…She had everything I thought I needed in my ideal girlfriend at the time. For quite some time, she was just a CLOSE FRIEND till the pent up FEELINGS in me for her became so uncontrollable that I had to make it known to her that I wanted to DATE her. Unfortunately for me, my TIMING was wrong because she had started seeing her ‘dream guy’. I had to contend with her friendship and forget about ever getting to DATE her. Things were very DIFFICULT for me because let’s FACE it, to be offered FRIENDSHIP when romantic LOVE is in your heart is like being given a loaf of BREAD when you are dying of THIRST…!

Fast forward a year later when I had TRIED all I could to WIN her HEART but realized to my utter dismay that it’s a forlorn cause, MISS PERKY showed up and that is where another story of unrequited love began! My attention had shifted from MISS DEE to MISS PERKY who was also head over heels in love with another guy. Just when I had grown TIRE of futilely pursuing MISS PERKY, Miss Dee popped up out of nowhere and we started dating!

Indeed, it was a story of meeting the RIGHT LOVE at the WRONG TIME for both of us…This is because she had just broken up with her supposed ‘dream guy’ and I was also tired of chasing MISS PERKY without any LUCK! I must admit, life with MISS DEE was kinda fun but so unreal! Yet like the true HOPELESS ROMANTIC I am, I wanted a PERFECT ENDING. I guess I must have some undiagnosed brain injury because I stupidly thought that this relationship based on convenience I chanced into with MISS DEE early this year might turn out to be REAL with TIME! But now I’ve learned the HARD WAY that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end.

 In life, as in art, some ENDINGS are BITTERSWEET. Especially, when it comes to LOVE Sometimes FATE throws two LOVERS together only to RIP them APART. Sometimes, the hero finally makes the RIGHT choice but the TIMING is all WRONG, and as the saying goes, TIMING is everything! It was fun chasing an ILLUSION, it gave me reason to be HAPPY, even if it wasn't REAL, but any ‘chase’ surely has to END. I'm just disappointed because when it did end... I was left with nothing but a MEMORY of something that never EXISTED!

It is hard to love someone who can never be truly yours. Time would give you chances to talk, chances to be together, chances to share. See how it hurts? You only have chances. Just chances!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Dear Diary,

Did you ever FALL for someone you know you shouldn't? Tried hard to FIGHT your feelings, but you just couldn't? You FALL deeper with each passing day, but you try to HIDE it in every possible way. S/he's only a FRIEND, and nothing else--That's the LIE you keeping telling yourself. You keep on saying s/he's just a bud, but deep inside, you're FALLING IN LOVE. You get so GIDDY when you MEET his/her EYES, but you keep reminding yourself it isn't RIGHT. Perhaps it’s not RIGHT because the TIME is wrong or perhaps s/he’s your STUDENT or perhaps she’s your CLIENT or PATIENT or somebody social structures or society or culture does not PERMIT you to BE WITH. But despite all what is wrong, a simple GLANCE turns into a long STARE, yet you PRETEND that you don't CARE about her in “that way”. You remind yourself that it's "NOT RIGHT" for you two to be TOGETHER, so you try to HIDE it so no one can see. But how long can/will you PRETEND and keep LYING that she's just a FRIEND? Your budding FRIENDSHIP can't be RISKED over this, so being her GUY is an impossible WISH and you want to LET GO even before it “STARTS” but it HURTS to LET GO.

Sometimes it seems the harder you try to HOLD ON to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of CRIMINAL for having FELT, for having WANTED. For having WANTED to be WANTED. It CONFUSES you, because you think that your FEELINGS are/were WRONG and it makes you feel so SMALL because it's so hard to keep it INSIDE when you let it out and it doesn't come back. You're left so ALONE bottled up in a FEELING so DEEP that you can't explain. Damn, there's nothing like that, is there? I've been there and perhaps you have too. You're probably nodding your head…

Indeed, it’s FUNNY how we’re all SEEKING that SPECIAL person who is RIGHT for us. But if you’ve been through enough RELATIONSHIPS, you begin to SUSPECT that there’s no RIGHT person, just different FLAVORS of WRONG! Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out PARTNERS who are WRONG in some COMPLEMENTARY way. But it takes a lot of LIVING to GROW fully into your own WRONGNESS. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you TRULY who you are—that we’re ready to find a LIFELONG mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re actually looking for the WRONG person. But not just any wrong person: the RIGHT wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.” I will find that special person who is WRONG for me in just the RIGHT way. Let our scars fall in love!”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dear Diary,

          I know I’ve missed a few days. But in my absence, I’ve been thinking about some things. I’ve been thinking about LIFE before Miss Perky caught my ATTENTION and ARRESTED my EMOTIONS. I’ve been thinking about how I used to PRAY for something to happen, something to happen to just break the routine, you know? Of school and my overloaded work schedule? Something that will make a country boy like me feel BIGGER too! And ever since I got my wish and MISS DEE (whom I futilely “pursued” so aggressively even before MISS PERKY came into the picture) came to rescue me from the hold MISS PERKY seemed to have on me, I realized one thing: that the bigger your world gets, the bigger your problems become too!

          

In my desperate attempt to ‘get HER out of my system,’ MISS PERKY who consistently told me that it’d be a COLD DAY IN HELL before she even considers dating me, the chance to be with one of my numerous adorers, MISS DEE (*not her real name*), presented itself and I took it! The truth is, as far as MISS PERKY is concerned, WANTING her is hard to FORGET, LOVING her is hard to REGRET, LOSING her is hard to ACCEPT, but even with all the HURT I've felt, LETTING GO was the most PAINFUL yet. Indeed, sometimes we’ve got to forget how we FEEL and realize what we DESERVE.  After all, as an optimist, I’ve always had the belief that sometimes on our way to a DREAM, we get LOST and find a BETTER one. People think it is HOLDING ON that makes us STRONGER, but sometimes it's LETTING GO! Sometimes WE just have to hold our head up high, blink away the tears and say good-bye. For there’s always some GOOD in GOOD-bye! I didn't ask for it to be over, but then again, I didn't PLAN for it to BEGIN. For that's the way it is with LIFE, as some of the most beautiful days come completely by CHANCE. But even the most beautiful days eventually have their SUNSETS.

I’ve been dating MISS DEE for quite some time now and before you even think about judging me or thinking of me as a FICKLER, let me remind you about the fact that this is after all the DIARY OF A HOPELESS ROMANTIC!  Being with MISS DEE, I’ve come to the realization that the tough thing about following our heart is what people FORGET to mention, that sometimes our heart takes us places we shouldn’t be, places that are as SCARY as they are EXCITING and as DANGEROUS as they are ALLURING. And sometimes our heart takes us places that can never lead to a HAPPY ENDING. And that’s not even the difficult part, the difficult part is when you follow your heart, you leave NORMAL, you go to the unknown and once you do, you can never go back to the way things used to be!