Where I am pt 2

I’m wary of how much I choose to share on this space. I know my posts have been so abstract recently, pertaining to particular individuals, lots of inside references, charming linguistic embellishment and shards of the deepest parts of loose thought (I’m doing it again, aren’t I? The abstract thing…).

Maybe it’s because I’ve been in a bit of a weird place over the last few months. I remember when I first started blogging and people used to compliment me on how relatable my writing was. Since I made that transition to writing as though no one was reading, I began to let go more and my mind broke free and my writing got weird and fewer people complimented it. None of it was deliberate, simply the organic progression that took place in me figuring myself out. Plus… I just like playing with words.

And now? I feel like I’m touching base again, my feet are slowly finding their way back to the ground and I’m feeling tremendous peace within myself. So as much as I could make this post today an abstract one… I won’t. I’ll say it exactly like it is.

Only three weeks ago, a person walked into my life who turned my whole world upside down, infiltrated every part of my brain that I chose not to share anywhere other than here and stayed. I wasn’t looking for that yet. I didn’t want that right now. After all the bullshit I went through last year, I was entirely anticipating a relationship-free, single, contented life for the foreseeable future. ‘Foreseeable’, meaning the few palpable months that are left of my time at university. With finals coming up and not the foggiest where my career may take me in the next few months time, I can guarantee that there’s been no part of me that actively sought out a relationship. Sure, I jumped on the Tinder bandwagon as is the norm in our strange, strange society now and got bored after a couple of weeks of swiping (although the dude who spoke to me in bad poetry alone was intriguing) and yes, I engaged in the odd fling. Nothing worth writing home (or here) about.

Since I was old enough to speak I’ve been  completely mesmerised by the idea of being in love and of being loved in that way. In short, I was a hopeless, adoring, wide-eyed romantic. By nature, I’m quick to see the good in people, quick to trust people and ready to compromise to avoid conflict and maintain happiness. Yet my naïvety has been pulled apart by a series of experiences and lessons learnt over several years.

I’ve learnt that you can’t trust everyone but that doesn’t mean you should lose faith in people.

I’ve learnt that it’s totally okay to wear your heart on your sleeve but you should also be selective about how much of yourself you give to people who aren’t necessarily ready to give it back to you.

I’ve learnt that the two keys to a loving relationship are a baseline level of compatibility (the greater that is, the easier things will be) and a willingness to make it work. Normally it’s a lack in one of those two domains that cause relationships to fall apart. The willingness isn’t about making massive sacrifices for one another, because if you have a good enough baseline compatibility, you shouldn’t need to… but about the small daily adjustments that you make when you fit someone else into your life. I see my parents doing it all the time.

I also learnt that you absolutely can get what you want if you believe strongly enough that it will happen to you.

I like to think that the culmination of learning points enabled me to mature from the hopeless, adoring wide-eyed romantic to just the adoring, wide-eyed romantic. Romance, perhaps, without the naïvety.

And this person fits into the above worldview like the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle that I knew was there but wasn’t looking for just yet. One thing I’m usually confident about is the fact that I tend to know what I want and recent changes in my governing belief system (which I will detail in posts to come) mean that I’m also usually confident about getting it. I’ve not publicly shared this thought before but I also believed with complete and utter confidence that there is someone there for me who is right in every way and that said person will walk into my life in exactly the right time.

I even wrote about it. Then I took the post down because I thought it made me sound nuts.

Since my last relationship, complete with its messy and drawn out end stage, I made a promise to myself. That promise was that I’m not going to take any further commitments lightly and that I will not say yes to something unless I am absolutely doubt-free. When you understand yourself to a great degree and are content with your life as it is, but you know, deep down, that something good is coming for you- it does. It just does. And I was right. Rhonda, despite all my reservations, was right. Paulo Coelho was right. MC was right. I was right.

People often think they know me but they don’t really. The way in which I animatedly speak about things, appear to lose myself in situations and use words in a certain way means that people think I’m still that hopeless romantic. What they fail to realise is that I know myself so well. I squeeze learning points out of my every life experience and my wisdom is more expansive than I make out.

And without a hint of ego in this statement… I know I don’t need anyone. I’m exceptionally happy alone. If anything, I’m reluctant to give up my singledom because of it. But this person… this person, unlike everyone else who thinks they know me, is getting to know me on a totally different plane- the plane in which I know myself. This person bears an uncanny resemblance to the post I took down because it made me sound nuts. And this person has made me fall in love in a way I did not know was possible. In a way that extends so so far beyond the honeymoon period.

This feeling, this one of incredible peace, is in knowing that this is the person I have been looking for my whole life and I don’t care what the sounds like in writing, because I just know.

And that’s where I am pt 2.