Everywhere

Every time a tour ends, I feel like I'm caught in the middle of the opening scene to Love Actually. I watch the students get off the coach and meet their parents in the school parking lot and there's hugs and kisses and I love yous like these kids have been gone for years. I realize how lucky they are to have parents like that, to be loved like that everyday of their lives. Then I too am smothered in hugs and I'll miss yous and You are so cools and it's like the four days we spent together have miraculously turned into four years. Suddenly, I'm Hugh Grant narrating that "Love actually is everywhere".

On the way home from QC today, I watched The Notebook twice. Twice because there were two coach buses and just me as the tour manager, twice because I chose to take turns sitting on the two buses, twice because there were more girls than boys on the trip and twice because, despite how much it makes me cry, I couldn't bring myself to look away. Now, it is by no means The Best Movie Ever, nor is it my favourite, but such magnificent love is captured in that film that watching it every now and then must be good for one's heart and soul.

As for me, I turn into a puddle of sap and sobs and all I can think about is how wonderful it is to have someone to love like that and how I once was crazy for a boy just like Allie was for Noah (and how I know this girl is for her boy). Funnily enough, I met a Noah of my own once. He was sweet and fiery and read to me; we went for walks and he was sincere and he cupped my face just like that when we kissed. This boy even looks a bit like Noah does in the movie. Shame I wasn't the right Allie for him.

Then I think how neat it is that the heart can feel so many different kinds of love, sometimes all at once. There's the not-so-obvious love between members of wacky Asian families, the caring love between close friends, the great love that makes your heart ache for someone when they are gone. How funny it is that I can say that I love my kids after a mere three or four day tour. You can call it a quik-stik emotional attachment to all things cute and splenderful, but I call it a love of potential because I know that they are capable of so much and that they will grow up into even greater people and do wonderfuler things.

I can totally fall in love in a few days. These kids can put such a smile in my heart and I really do miss them after the tour is over. They remind me of things past and the possibility of things to come. There's hope for them and there's hope for me too. One day, I too will grow up into someone great and do wonderful things. Somewhere deep down, I think I love me almost as much as I love them. Regardless, this type of love or that, my heart swells all the same.
8:32 pm