IT'S WHAT TIME DOES

Who would have thought that something was cooking up when we met 6 years ago. Although I felt the spark, but I ignored it as a fire had just quenched from within me. I needed nothing as at that time, but thinking about it now, if only I had just waited, if only I knew she was on the way, everything I ever wanted and ever dreamed of, perhaps I wouldn't have had to be broken the way I was before meeting her. I remember coming to camp with my best friends. It was the 2nd year of a heartbreak that took 5 years to heal, so I came with no expectations whatsoever, but the universe saw beyond my heartbreak and wishes and was preparing something better for me. If only I knew, I could have guarded my heart and probably kept it for her. 3 years later we spoke, and she said she was in a relationship and I was getting in the way. Then I still had my pride and all, so I felt I was better off without her.

But then whenever I see her, I remember camp, I remember being tired and wishing someone would help me get food. It was her first time seeing me, my sole called friends wouldn't help me despite knowing I got worked up trying to secure them accomodations in camp. She was there by accident, with a spoon full of food in her mouth, I didn't even notice her until I asked her friend who had been all over me the whole time to help me get food since it was free but the cue was long. According to her, the cue being long was the reason she couldn't help and I looked at her and thought, So much for a guy you claim to have a crush on I thought to myself. Although I was quite older than all of them and saw them as kids in their teens, one person stood out when she volunteered to help me get food.

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I casually agreed and at a point forgot about it. An hour later she came sweating profusely as though she had been running miles. Here's your food, sorry the meat has finished… I looked back in awe and shock not just because of what she said, but because she left her food and spent over an hour helping me to get mine. In my heart I wondered who I was for someone to take me this seriously. I was just a guy with nothing to offer, I felt like I owed her, but with no idea whatsoever as to what I should give her. I remember spending all night thinking of what I could do for her, so I wrote her a letter sharing my heartfelt gratitude for her kind gesture and gave it to her the day we were leaving camp. How could I have known that was the beginning of something special. I didn't just make a friend that day, I made a life partner.

Within the last 6 years we became casual friends, and then good friends, we lost communication at a point, got into bad and worse relationships, were broken by the people we loved, and now have ended up together. What an irony life can be, if I never believed in faith, our love story is proof that natural occurrences can become something special if we allow things to play out as they should be. I remember chasing someone for so long who only ended up using me to while away time waiting for someone else. Now I think back and I realize that if only I had a glimpse of the future, I would have waited to meet you. It would probably ruin everything the universe had planned on a second thought, but I'm currently happy that I am at peace knowing I'm in love, and I am loved. At a point I wondered if I would ever get someone to love me this way, but I guess I just needed to wait 6 years for that prayer to be answered.

She became my answered prayers, and in 9 months has fixed every part of me that was broken in time. It was not an easy fix I must say, there were parts I didn't want fixed because of how much they hurt, parts that I never thought could ever be fixed, and parts that I never knew needed fixing. When we met the very first day, she fixed me a meal, and now she's fixing my life. It was all a matter of time, and I'm happy to have lived to see this time of my life as it is currently the most beautiful time of my life. I can't wait to see what the universe still has installed for us with the time we still have at hand.

THIS IS MY ENTRY INTO THE INKWELL CREATIVE NONFICTION PROMPT #115

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