Kimber fell in love foolishly.
I haven't seen Kimber in a long time. She manages several businesses and takes care of her aging parents. She looks like she's lost some weight.
"Kimber, this is a surprise, you actually have time to meet me for coffee?", I said as I entered the Coffee Beanery at Banawe.
"Yeah, and I managed to remember what coffee you like. Café Latte right? And they have really good cheesecake here.", she replied.
"Oh great, thanks. What's going on with you?", I said as I propped myself down on the pretty brown couch.
"What do you say to somone who fell in love foolishly?", she said.
"Foolishly? What do you mean by that?", I replied.
"Do you remember Charles?", she said as she dug in the cheesecake she ordered.
"Charles, the drag racer?", I said as I added sugar to my coffee.
"Yeah.", she said.
"Wait, what happened? I can't answer your question if I don't know what happened to you and Charles.", I said trying to understand her situation.
"Amici had a party a couple of weeks ago, and I had a long conversation with Charles in that party. Somehow, I didn't expect to be so attracted to him. You know, after all, what my type is right?" she smiled.
"Yeah, you like the good guys, because of your parents.", I said as I remembered her story.
"Well, Charles is exactly the opposite of that.", she said.
"No way, and…?", this is getting interesting.
"Well, let's just say I fell in love after that one conversation. And we swapped numbers and ventured to send text messages to each other." she continued. "Susie, I'm not the type who falls in love so easily…. But I can't help it. Then one day, I thought, I need to know if this is just me or maybe it could be something else.", she said.
"Ok…", I said.
"I asked to see him last Saturday. See, we don't see or talk to each other regularly. And you know how precious my time is right? I thought I needed to see him", she said as she sipped her coffee.
"Yeah, everything's on a schedule with you, even your sleep.", I said.
"Yeah, so I made arrangements to make myself available for him, just to see him. If we really are friends, I thought he'd make the time to chat like how we are now, right? And I thought this was the meeting that I would finally figure out if my feelings for him are authentic and if they are well ... mutual so to speak. I suppose I needed to get a better picture of what I think is going on." she said as tears welled in her eyes. "But see, he didn't show up."
"What?", I asked.
"Yeah.", she said.
"Did he explain why he didn't show up? Did he even try to reschedule or anything?", I said sounding a little frustrated.
"No. He said he got busy and he can't make time.", she said sternly.
"No way.", I said. I couldn't believe it. Here she is, invested in the friendship she has with Charles and he takes it for granted. I suppose he doesn't know how important Kimber's time is to her, and how hard it is for her to get out of her comfort zone. Meeting people is not Kimber's best suit, she's very shy. Plus, she doesn't have a lot of time for other people. In fact she doesn't get out at all unless she's dragged by her closest friends to stop and smell the roses outside her house.
"So, Susie, what do you say to someone who loves foolishly?", she looked at me as she sipped the last of her coffee.
For the first time, I didn't know what to say. Maybe Charles was just busy with something important and that he didn't know how hard it is for Kimber to go out. Or maybe Charles really didn't want to see her that day. Or maybe Kimber did fall in love foolishly.
"Kimber, I realized that I can't give you the answer you want me to say. If you are so sure of what you feel for him, then his showing up or not isn't the premise with which you are to classify your feelings for him as foolish or not. Love isn't foolish, it's the dichotomy of selflessness and selfishness. You love selflessly and seek it selfishly, as well. Right?" I said, as I struggled to make sense of what it is that I was telling her.
"You make it sound so simple.", she said.
"But it's not right? Look, there are ten thousand maybe's that we can come up with tonight, but all of those are irrelevant. If you are patient enough, you'll find the answer you seek. Are you ready for both answers, will you be ok if he says that the feeling is mutual and will you be ok if he says that it isn't?", I said clearly.
"I don't know. I haven't thought of it that way.", she said.
"Ok, then maybe that's the question that you have to ask yourself. So that when you finally meet, you will have the strength to manage whichever side he moves to.", I said as I finished my coffee.
Kimber finds managing her feelings painfully difficult because in the act of loving someone else, we strip ourselves of the security of comfort. The hard thing about the act of loving is that in order to complete the circle of loving, vulnerability is required and that means, possibly getting hurt in the process or possibly being loved back.
