March 1, 2010

  • Yesterday, I had my first experience going to a club. However, that’s a story for another day. For now, I want to go back to two weeks ago, Monday, February 15, 2010.
    From the start, that Monday was not the usual Monday. I took a shower and spent about half an hour fixing my hair, even though I was only going to my weight lifting and aerobics classes. While in class, I tried to work out as little as possible, being conscious not to sweat or mess up my hair. When the two hours were over, I walked up the stairs and headed across PEB. Anxiety and excitement built in my heart. I walked into the hallway near the entrance, half expecting not to see anyone there because of my horrible directions. And yet, there she was, this girl who had rode 14 hours on a bus to see me, serenely reading a book. We had waited six years to be reunited with each other, and the moment has finally come.
    To say that Ada is my oldest and dearest friend would be perfectly true. And yet, we have agreed that what we share far transcends friendship. It would be just as accurate to say that she was my first love… and yet, that can be misleading as well. In the end, there are just no words to describe our relationship because it is truly so special. We met a long time ago, when we were both kids. Was fate being playful, or cruel? Born and raised in the Midwest, I met this half-Chinese half-Spanish girl who was born in Panama and raised in Canada, during a missions trip in Arizona. Did fate laugh teasingly as she watched us fall in love, before dashing us apart? Ada and I were only together in person for a week, but in all my life, I had never felt such a strong connection with someone. In one fleeting week, we shared enough excitement, sappiness, drama, laugher, tears, and love to inspire poetry. When I met her, I felt like peanut butter who had just met jelly for the first time. I was in love. I was young. Like falling off your bed after a sweet dream, we were thrown back into our respective worlds, apart from each other. The months that followed was a very dark time in my life. In the end, the heart of that little boy who had fallen in love was completely annihilated, along with his hopeless romantics, dreamy ideals, foolish innocence, and feelings for her. However, my love for Ada remained; though my heart was utterly broken, my love for her was something that could not be destroyed. I can only explain it by saying that, through lots of trials and prayer, when God finally restored my heart, I was given a new heart, one without the romantic desires for her. However, the essence of the love that I’ve always had for her remains, because nothing could have broken that or ended it in the first place: not outside pressures, conflict, drama, or time and distance. Throughout the years we continued to keep in touch with each other, share our lives with each other, and love each other.
    And here, finally, we were reunited in person. I took a few steps towards her. “Ada?”
    She turned around and at the sight of me, beamed a smile that transformed the dreary halls of the Physical Education Building into a meadow of wildflowers on a sunny summer day. We embraced; this was the moment of reunion that I had spend countless hours daydreaming about, imagining different scenarios and pondering all the different ways in which it would play out. I felt like a dried out and neglected house plant that had just received more water than it could soak up at one time. Since she hadn’t had anything to eat since she got on the Grayhound bus, I took her to lunch at Giordano’s right away. It turned out I had nothing to be anxious about. Although she was a completely different person than the girl I met, and I was a completely different person than the boy she knew, the connection, ease, and comfort we shared remained unfazed. We chatted, joked, and played as if no time at all had passed since we last saw each other. Throughout the whole meal, she kept looking at me with lively, wide, and beautiful eyes that shone like Vega and Altair on Tanabata. They were eyes filled with overflowing adoration, delight, love, and affection. No one had ever looked at me with eyes like that before, with the possible exception of the day I was born when my mother first saw me. But this would be the first time I was conscious enough to soak in such an affectionate look, and I will never forget it. When I pointed out the way she was looking at me to her, she cheerfully replied, “Well, of course! I haven’t seen you in seven years!” Indeed. And for the rest of the week we were together, I made the best of our time together.