I spent a week wondering if I am in love.

If one must question if she is in love, it must be that she is not. People seem to know immediately, without a doubt, if something is love. I have never known that, and I am realizing this now, as a 28 year old person.

Self-doubt. I don’t trust myself, that is what it is. There are things that I am absolutely certain of… and if anyone says anything otherwise, I will defend myself, the stubborn creature that I am. However, there are issues which seem so foreign to me, decisions I cannot seem to make. And in these circumstances, I am immersed in self-doubt, hoping that someone will be stronger and tell me what to do. Such issue is love… I wish someone could say, this is it.

Someone had said, ” this is it,” and it wasn’t it for me. Maybe I am not as indifferent about it as I think I am. But now I am rambling. I think I know how I feel, although I do not trust myself to go forth with my feelings.

All this time, I was developing something deep with someone, not knowing that each time I saw that person, each time I talked to him, I was taking another step toward him. Another irreversible step. All this time, we had nurtured a friendship that was wholesome in Christ, the type of correspondence we were looking for in a future spouse… except we were looking elsewhere, not in each other. All this time, he had been a spiritually grounding influence in my life, my biggest fan, my best friend.

Now I realize that he is an indispensible person, whose presence, words, smiles, and company I miss terribly. Now I realize that I could possibly want all this in my life… for keeps. Great timing…

Why this sudden rush of emotions? I am tormented. I cannot eat, I cannot keep food down! I am nauseated, I have palpatations, and my mind is constantly running. Suddenly, I am writing! I cannot contain this rush.

With a single act of true caring on his part, he has managed to unclog the barricade that I had set up for myself five years ago… ha! almost exactly five years ago. This barricade that I did not know I had built. I knew something was different, something was wrong with me… but I did not realize that in my attempt to “prove” myself, I had shut off all real emotions. That is why I could not write truly for the last five years. I only rambled on about the superficial things in my life, some insightful spiritual things, and most times, I did not write at all. With a single book from him, an act of true kindness, the barricade was torn down, the flood gates opened, and tears came down. And when the smoke cleared, the water receded, he stood there, firmly in my heart.

I know that this time of radiation therapy is absolutely about him. His health, his spiritual connection with God, his psychological growth… but a change in me has occurred as a by-product. I rediscovered myself, the way I used to be so expressive, so soft. He cracked this hard layer that I had worked to build. But I am more mature through his pain, and through the vats of tears that I’ve shed for him.

Can heat expand time, too?

Last Saturday, I found out that a dear friend of mine has cancer. Thankfully, it is in the earliest stage, so 8 weeks of radiation therapy could supposedly kill the cancer cells. He has already gone through two weeks… this is the third week, third day of therapy, of gradual weakening. He is mentally strong, but those killer rays may break down his mental barrier. I will see him this weekend, and I am afraid.

I’ve known about his illness for 4 days, but it feels so much like 4 years! I want to help him, but I do not know what he needs. I ask him, and he says “I’m fine.” I am fired up in my body, my mind, and my heart… I want to do something! But he does not answer my phone calls, my emails, my text messages. And all that fire generated from God knows where inside of me doesn’t know where to go. So here I sit, in flames, counting minutes as days, hours as months, days as years. Because this heat has done nothing but expand the molecules of time.