Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode #78: My long-lost love about to be rekindled

Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures as a single father who lost his perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life…. or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

 

Episode #78. My long-lost love about to be rekindled 

That was the first time I saw Alicia gussied up from head to toe. She looked like a princess that stepped out of a fairy tale, waving her hands back to hundreds of people in line to see her and sing a paean to her blinding beauty. Her charming smile was such a perfect finishing touch to Alicia’s dolled-up style. She looked at me and said “I’d like to forget about my interminable suffering at home tonight. Do I look ready to enjoy the party?” Of course, she did. Actually, I was more excited than she was like a little kid cavorting and doing the angel dance in the first snow in the midst of long hiemal boredom. Although I knew she was wearing a home-made dress which was patched up with some ragged cloth thrown away in the back of the salvation army store, my eyes were glued to her shiny look. My love for her was billowing like a cloud!   

 

She was my high school sweetheart long time ago when the soft and mellow feelings of my teen years would become inspissated by our friendship. Alicia was always a smarty student who would head up assignments or projects at school and never cared about the new fashion style in the mall or any new release movies in the theatre. The only place she’d spend hours in town was the corner book store where she was able to make money as a part-time clerk and read as many books as she wanted at the same time. Over the weekend, she worked as a volunteer in the salvation army store where I willingly applied for the available volunteer spot to be with Alicia. Quite often times, she found a warm sweater or a nice pair of blue denim pants for her ailing brother and jobless mother in the dusty piles of donated clothes. Then she’d say to herself “Devil’s own luck!”, giving me a mischievous grin. I loved the way she led her life as a good high schooler, but I would see deep sorrow or frustration in her eyes now and then.

 

In every class we took together at school, she was the one with the most critical and challenging questions for teachers or important points to discuss with classmates. However, outside of classrooms, she became a girl with few words though. I wished to share her burden in any ways I could even though we were both high school kids, but Alicia would push me away by saying “You are more like my brother than my real one. Thanks, dude. But you don’t understand my situation. I need to study hard and get admitted into a top tier college, not just for myself, ….but for the sake of the future of my thoughtless mother and poor younger brother as well. I don’t have time to think about my own joy and fun. Don’t wanna encumber your mind with worries about me. You know what I mean…” I felt bad, seeing her sigh wistfully from time to time. Asking her out for a snack or even for a study meet-up after school was not thinkable.

 

Ten years had passed since we graduated from high school, and I happened to hear about Alicia from our mutual friend Ted in our high school reunion. “I saw Alicia in New York last Summer. My wife and I went to see a Broadway play, and I dropped the pamphlet when I saw Alicia on the first page. She became a musical director. Such a bookworm who never seemed to enjoy a tune or dance back in high school became a musical director!!! Can you believe it?!!” Doubting my own ears, I found myself hurrying out the party. I became the excited high school kid again who was in love with a quiet, nerdy girl head over hills on that prom night. I said to myself with her contact numbers in my hand, ‘Devil’s own luck! Hey, Alicia, I don’t wanna encumber you with my own troubles, but….now it’s your turn to help me end this interminable hardship and loneliness in life!’

 

Expressions

1.  to be gussied up: to be dressed up/ to be embellished

    2.  a paean (to …): a song of praise

    3.   to get dolled up: make oneself attractive with makeup and fancy or stylish clothes She got (all) dolled up for the party.

    4.  interminable: never-ending

    5.  to cavort: to jump or dance around excitedly

    6.  hiemal: of/related to winter

    7.  to inspissate…: to thicken/ congeal

    8.  to head up …: to lead…

    9.  devil’s own luck: extremely good luck

   10. to encumber someone with something: to weigh someone down with physical/ physiological burden

   11. wistfully: with a feeling of vague or regretful longing