July 5, 2008

• Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–

  “Then the spell of silence fell from Beren, and he called to her, crying Tinuviel; and the woods echoed the name. Then she halted in wonder, and fled no more, and Beren came to her. But as she looked on him, doom fell upon her, and she loved him; yet she slipped from his arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking. Then Beren lay upon the ground in a swoon, as one slain at once by bliss and grief; and he fell into a sleep as it were into an abyss of shadow, and waking he was cold as stone, and his heart barren and forsaken. And wandering in mind he groped as one that is stricken with sudden blindness, and seeks with hands to grasp the vanished light. Thus he began the payment of anguish for the fate that was laid on him; and in his fate Lúthien was caught, and being immortal she shared in his mortality, and being free received his chain; and her anguish was greater than any other of the Eldalie has known.”

  -”The Silmarillion”
  

  Mystery Girl and I had been wanting to watch a movie together for some time. Finally, on February 5th, 2005, I stumbled across her in the cafeteria, and asked if she had the evening free. She said yes and we planned to watch a movie that night.

  She came to my room later and we watched “City of Angels.” She sat in my comfy, fold-out camping chair complete with armrests and a footrest while I sat on my bed. She is a person who expresses honestly the emotion she is feeling, so it was not long before parts of the movie were causing her to cry.

  One of the many aspects of Mystery Girl that I had fallen in love with very quickly was her tears. Though I never set out to make her cry (it did on occasion happen though…), I was in a few instances honored to be present when the crystalline jewels appeared upon her face. I cannot express how my heart was moved by each one, they were so beautiful and she always cried so beautifully, as if her heart were a star and during these instances, and these only, the veil of her flesh was drawn apart and the star exposed for me to see clearly.

  By the end of the movie she was sobbing (the ending is beautiful but sad) and I had no idea what to do to help. I gave her a box of tissues but you may as well have tried catching a waterfall in a bucket. Scrambling for some way to cheer her up, I thought quickly for something, anything in my life that brought me joy.

  So I shared with her my excitement and joy after having read a book called “The Fifth Week.” It is a short book that talks about the Jesuits, relating tales of Jesuit saints, the basics of Ignatian Spirituality and formation, and other things about the Society of Jesus. I also connected that with my previous experiences of God (mentioned in the previous post) and I shared my thoughts on the idea that, perhaps, God was calling me to the priesthood.

  Much to my dismay, she began to weep even more than before. Being what many would refer to as a “complete and total idiot” I thought to myself, “Wow, this movie really upset her…”

  Completely out of ideas, I embraced her lightly, resting my chin on her shoulder. Still to this very moment I can remember the feeling of her hot tears dripping onto my forearm, the sound of her sobbing in my ears, the scent of the tear’s salt mixed with the scent of her hair (like cornsilk). The sound of my heart pounding is also quite memorable.

  Eventually she seemed to calm down, and because many of my female friends have told me that I have a gift for it, I offered to give her a shoulder rub. I thought to myself that perhaps such a thing would calm her down; she was seemingly to the point of complete hysterics and I was on the verge of panic! She accepted, and so I began.

  Afterwards she offered me a shoulder rub. I was caught by surprise; very rarely did anyone offer to reciprocate. So I accepted, and she asked me to lie face-down on my bed (which was simply two mattresses piled on the floor- surprisingly cozy!)

  While she worked all of the many kinks out of my back and shoulders, I was mentally swimming in joy. “Oh God!” I thought, “Thank you so much for my dear friend, Mystery Girl! Thank you for calling us into this beautiful and chaste friendship, and thank you for this beautiful and perfect time together!”

  I was so grateful, you see, because (as mentioned in the last post) I had surrendered to God my feelings of love for her, contenting myself with friendship. I did not tell her this, mind you.

  After she had finished, Mystery Girl began running her fingers gently through my hair (which was long then; past my shoulders… actually it is about that length again now), which was very soothing and I thought, “Lord, thank you for this… it reminds me of when I was little and my mother would do this whenever I was very sick.” Then something beautiful and peculiar happened.

  Mystery Girl slowly ran her finger over the outer edge of my left ear. My head was turned, and I could see her face when she did this. There was such a look of love on her face, but also a sense of bittersweetness, and at the time I thought surely she was experiencing the same gratitude to God as I, that we could be dear friends like this forever. So I filed this moment away as, “lovely” and thought nothing more of it.

  Soon her pager went off and, after brief goodbyes, goodnights and hugs she was out the door to begin her 10pm rounds of the building. I brushed my teeth and went to bed with a warm heart overflowing with contentment.

  The next morning as I showered, however, something changed radically.

  As I shampooed my hair I replayed the events of the past evening: the movie, the tears, the shoulder rub, the hair thing and the ear thing. Time and time again my attention snagged upon the moment when I shared my thoughts about a possible vocation and how it seemed to make her cry harder…
  … then this connected with the ear thing as well as the look upon her face…
  …and then my brain worked for perhaps the first time in twenty-four hours.

  She loves me.

  I slopped a handful of conditioner onto my head, spread it around, combed it in, rinsed it out, turned off the shower, dried off and ran to my room in record time. Throwing off something decent enough to wear to Mass, I flew down the stairwell and stood nervously in front of her door. I knocked and she answered, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and coveralls. She smiled at seeing me, but her eyes betrayed the fact that she was as terrified as I was at that moment. Mystery Girl invited me into her room, crawling up into her loft and burying herself in her comforter, only her face peering out to look at me as I stood on her ladder.

  I began to speak to her, beginning with, “I know why you were crying after the movie last night…”

  When I had finished, she said not to worry about it, that she didn’t want to interfere with whatever God was trying to do with me. I told her that I loved her, that I have loved her this whole time, but I was afraid of interfering with this other man in her life. She said that there was nothing going on with him, that he wanted to be with her but never acted upon it, and she has given up on him for good. She said, though, that she doesn’t want to just keep dating men until she finds one she likes; she only wants to date a man that she thought she could marry. Hearing this caused my heart to swell with hope, and I related that I only wanted to date a woman I thought I could marry. I swore to her right then that I love her and that I would keep loving her until she asked me not to, and that I would keep writing her poetry as often as it came to me. I also told her, though, that I had promised God that I would look into the Jesuits further and with my whole heart until he revealed his will for me, and that I wanted her help and prayers on this journey because I could not do it alone. She promised she’d do what she could and with that I had to leave for church, lest I be late for Mass.

  So began my poetry crusade. At the very least once a week, oftentimes once every couple of days, sometimes several in a single day, I would compose a piece of poetry, slipping it under her door whenever I had a moment. Day or night, class or not words came to me, and my heart filled more and more until it overflowed with love for her. On occasion I would dream about her, and the dreams were so vivid, so pure and so beautiful that I would awake in tears upon finding out they were not real. I spent as much time as a could with her, helping her with what I was able, but I also was in close contact with the Jesuit vocations director, and I attended a couple of discernment events and continued reading books about the Jesuits.

  As the middle of March approached, I began to realize that the school year would be winding down very quickly, and there were things we had not been able to talk about regarding my feelings for her and the sense of vocation slowly growing within me. I had come to a point in both things where I must choose one or the other; I had come to a crossroads. One choice would lead me to a lifetime with the woman I had longed for my entire life. The other would lead me on the road to Jesuit priesthood. Surprisingly, the road to priesthood was much clearer to me, for whenever there was something I needed to know, the knowledge was readily available. But, there was one element of the road to Mystery Girl that remained, truly, a mystery- what were her feelings toward me? I knew that she loved me, but did she feel the same way about me as I did her? It was something I had to know before I could make a choice; it was the “x” in the equation that I had to know before I could solve the riddle of my future. Were I to work out a solution with such a crucial element shrouded in fog, how could I be confident of my choice? Choosing between two goods is never easy, and such was the case in this instance.

  I therefore begged her to promise me one hour of her time between then and April 1st, that we might talk about a few things. She promised that she would let me know when she had an hour available.

  In the meantime, I began to work on my backup plan- a masterpiece of a letter that explained to her everything I wanted her to know. If she was unable to provide an hour of her time before April 1st, the letter would have to suffice.

  April 1st came quickly, and before I knew it I was placing that fated message in her beautiful hand…

  • 4:02 pm
  • 5 Comments