Perhaps, This Time…
It’s been a while since I’ve felt what I am feeling right now.
The world aligning with my expectations, my endeavours slowly bearing fruit, and my heart, almost unexpectedly, falling in love.
I must admit, falling in love scares me to the bone. I have tried, so many times, to understand just how fleeting love can be. One moment, you feel it; the next, you don’t.
I find people to be rather transient. Not in the sense that life is fleeting, but in the sense that you can never quite depend on people to stay. Sometimes, people leave. Sometimes, they grow apart. And sometimes, even the most beautiful connections become memories.
In the circle of people I hold close, only a handful have been around for nearly a decade. Perhaps just one! And even that friendship has had its fair share of ups and downs. The rest? My oldest friendships are about nine years old.
But recently, as we crossed into the year, I remember feeling an overwhelming need to be more intentional with my friendships. Yes, we are adults now… there are careers to pursue, responsibilities to attend to, and countless other things competing for space in our calendars. But more than anything, I wanted my friends to know that they are not placeholders in my life. As I have felt in some friendships. Like they are only there until something, or someone, better comes along.
Have I attained this? I would like to believe that, for most of them, the answer is a resounding YES!
Because this year, I have experienced love in measures I didn’t know were possible.
From my friends, I have experienced a kind of love that makes me certain that, through the different seasons of life, I will have these people by my side. And they will have me by theirs. Never as placeholders, but as people we have consciously chosen, time and time again.
From my family, a kind of love that feels like a guarantee. One of those beautiful gifts life offers without asking us to earn it.
And then, there’s romantic love.
I must admit, I have never been particularly lucky in this department. Somehow, it has never quite favoured me. But for the first time, I feel at ease. I feel peace.
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Perhaps because I am already so overwhelmed by love that I no longer need romantic love to feel whole. I am not waiting for someone to come along and complete me. But, truth be told, it would be glorious to fall in love.
For now, the people I carry in my heart are enough.
And yet, there’s someone with whom my heart seems to find a certain kind of peace. Someone I feel I could trust with the tenderest parts of me. I feel like my heart would be safe with him.
He doesn’t know this yet. Or perhaps he does. I really cannot tell. But opening up, especially after everything, is no easy feat.
The things I have been through could have made me give up on love altogether. Yet, here I am. My otherwise strong heart still beats a little faster when we’re together. My cheekbones grow tired from smiling, and my eyes never seem to tire of looking at him.
It’s quite something, isn’t it?
I know I said I don’t need romantic love to feel whole, and I mean it. But I must admit, there is something beautiful about the possibility of having all the pieces of this circle filled: family, friendships, self-love, and romantic love.
Not because one makes up for the absence of another, but because each offers a different kind of belonging.
And as I slowly, cautiously, learn to love again, I find myself making a rather earnest prayer: that this time, I will not have to teach my heart how to recover from another disappointment. That if I am to open it this excitedly and expectantly, it will be met with the same tenderness, intention and sincerity. That whatever grows here will be allowed to grow fully, wholesomely and wholeheartedly.
Perhaps I am asking for a lot. Perhaps I am simply learning that it is okay to desire a love that is gentle, certain and enduring.
So, as it is, I want to believe in love. Not the kind that consumes you, makes you question your worth, or asks you to abandon yourself to keep it. But the kind that gives you room to breathe, to grow, to be entirely yourself.
The kind that feels like coming home, without ever having to lose yourself to belong.
And if there is one thing I hope to carry into this new chapter, it is that may I never become so afraid of losing love that I forget to experience the beauty of being loved.
And perhaps that is the greatest blessing of all. To find a love that feels as though life is not asking your heart to be brave anymore, but finally giving it somewhere safe to rest.
