2 Days Over Email, and the World is Changed

Is it possible that in the course of just two days your whole world can change? That colors can actually look different? That reality can shift so meaningfully that it seems as though you’ve finally just awoken to the full potential of being alive?

I have a good friend, a single mom, who tells me she has met someone who makes her think so. And if you could have heard her voice, or seen the sparkle in her eye and the glow in her being when she described it to you, you would believe her too.

“I’ve reconnected with someone. Someone entirely unexpected,” She told me. “He lives right now in a suburb of Birmingham, England.”

“Oh no, that’s a long way from where you are,” I said. “G.U. He is a continent and ocean away.”

“Yes, but, it doesn’t feel that way. I’ve exchanged more emails with him in the last 48 hours than I have with some of my dearest friends my whole life. I feel his presence throughout my day. When he’s sleeping, I know it, because I miss him more.”

This was a bit confusing to me, but intriguing to my hopeless-romantic self, so I asked her to tell me more.

“My cheeks are in pain, I feel like I am drunk, and I am scared to death…and it all makes me feel like I am the luckiest girl in the world.”

Who is this man that has turned my friend into a crazy talking woman, who- despite verbiage to the contrary- seems more at peace and beautiful than I’ve ever seen her before?

“He’s from Roswell New Mexico, and when I met him three years ago we were both very different people than we are today. Life is strange. I don’t know why, or even how really, the past has bridged in this way and here we are in each other’s life again.”

Technology, I think to myself. Not always as cold or depersonalizing as the rap it gets. I bet they reconnected via some form of social networking. Linked In? Facebook? iHeart?

“I loved him before, like a brother, but life happened and we lost touch. We moved to different places. He got a divorce. I had baby. Now, here we are, waking up and falling asleep to each other’s emails. And, it scares me to voice this, but its the truth: now I might fall in love with him.”

At this point I am speechless. As a modern single momma, I know it’s no joke when a fellow single mom who loves her life as-is, believes there is even a remote chance of real-history-and life-building love. And this kind of feeling after just two days? Okay, she might really be crazy…But to her credit, and to the credit of Love in general, it is possible, right?

Perhaps her buzz will wear off, and the physical distance between them will not be any closer, and she will have been wrong about her intuition. But looking at her and the elevation of her spirit now- without even checking facts with the man she is sharing this experience with- I have the strange feeling that they’ll both be okay, no matter how their story turns out.

This is how she describes her man:

“He is someone who spiritually grounds me, personally uplifts me; a man I stand in awe of and respect; a man I want to rip the clothes off of; a man who makes me feel appreciated and perfect just as I am.”

If I ever met a guy who made me feel all that, I would swear all the colors in the world look more brilliant too.

I will keep you posted on her story because I think it gives hope to us all. For now, here in Oregon, it’s just me and the Frog Prince.

To that man in Moseley, England: I hope I meet you here in Oregon someday, at barbecue at my friends house, where you have your arm around her and you both look as divine in each other’s company as I imagine you might.