My story… on trusting my instincts

In my 36+ years on this planet I’ve grown a ton.  I’ve travelled the globe, swam in all five oceans and moved half way around the world on my own.  I’ve ran away from things, I’ve ran to things.  I’ve ran and I’ve stopped.  Most important of all though I’ve learned to be comfortable in my own skin.  In silence and solitude I like who I am.  I like myself.  I trust myself.

I spent many unhappy years searching for my place in this world, trying to find my space, my inner peace, myself.  The big thing I’ve learned through this journey is to always trust my gut.  My instincts.  There have been many times I’ve ignored them only to be shown they were right and other times where I’ve followed them blindly and came out all the better for it.  Heart overriding head.  Proven correct time after time after time. 

My first real wake up to this was back in high school with a boy whose name I can’t even recall.  I remember a conversation with him though – on the phone – asking him to be careful as I had been shaken from a dream where he was on the water and bashed his head on the rocks – it didn’t turn out so well.  In hindsight I’m not sure why I told him this – maybe a case of better safe than sorry.  Imagine my surprise then when a week later he called me back after a day spent wake boarding at the cottage – the shock and disbelief in his voice as he told me about the stitches in his head, crashing into the shore after letting go of the rope.  A moment in time.  And though this is the one that stands out the most – the first – there have been many more instances along the way – like picking black 22 on the roulette wheel a few weeks ago, as a near stranger placed his bets, tripled his money.

The thing is, my gut isn’t always speaking to me.  There are often weeks, months where it doesn’t say a thing but there are other times where it screams aloud.  A solid difference from my daily hopes and dreams, wants and needs.  A feeling rooted deep of just knowing.  Sensing.  Feeling.   Of seeing the signs laid before me, an intense sensation deep in my belly that I can’t understand or explain, that comes from out of nowhere.  Intuition.

With him it was there early on.  Very early.  I’d barely known him a month, it felt like three.  Three months felt like years.  History.  In those early days, in the first moment that he tucked me under his arm – I knew – I’d been there before – in another lifetime perhaps.  But more than that – this place – the one that I fit in so perfectly beside him – it felt like home.  The place I belonged.  Past and future all at once.  Real.  It wasn’t too long after that in an unexpected moment long before we ever got together that I felt like he was the man I was going to marry.  To be fair, I’d uttered those words before – to my girlfriends in years gone by while gossiping about the latest boy on my radar but there was a distinct difference with him – it wasn’t a want or an urge, it was a feeling.  Not something consciously dredged up from the recesses of my mind but something rooted deep within my soul.  I can see now though how telling him added too much pressure to us – gave him every reason to doubt, to run – in how paranormal it was – though he is a boy who believes in ghosts.

So where is all this leading now that the path for him and I has diverged, that we are no more.  It’s leading me back to trust.  Trust in those instincts I’ve honed through the years.  Trust in a random moment of writing a few weeks back – as the words flowed from my pen, an urelated image floating through my mind.  A man on a beach, barefoot.  Khaki pants rolled at the ankles mirrored by the cuffs turned up on his white button down.  Trust in the series of leather bracelets wrapped around his right wrist – the browns in similar shades to the hair on his arms, on his head.  I couldn’t see his face in that vision so brief, so clear - but I could feel the sparkle in his eyes reflecting at me, the stunning smile emanating the laughter from his heart.  My future wrapped up in that image – such a contradiction to my rational mind.  To letting go.

I can’t shake it though – these combined series of moments.  Interweaving through the months, through my being.  I trust them as much as I trust the words that I uttered to him in a moment of sadness not long ago – my belief in the happy ending – the belief that I’ll have the loving relationship that I crave, that I deserve.  A full partnership, solid and real and lasting.  It’s echoed in that image.  There was a moment last week, a blink – where the image evolved.  I could see my feet in the sand, the bottom of my white silky dress.  The daisies.  His hand reaching back towards me, to pull me along into the laughter and lightness.  My life.  In a flash it was his face, his sparkling eyes and stunning smile.  An iteration of the feeling from so long ago.  Head and heart warring – knowing to trust my instincts, struggling to let go.  Letting fate and the spirits guide my course.  Trusting in the picture laid out before me – the partner, an equal.  The child(ren).  Solid foundations underneath us.  For all time.

I have no idea what my future holds but I trust it will be beautiful.  It will be full of laughter and happiness and love.  I trust that I’ll have my moment in the sand, with the boy who will grab for my hand, will hold it forever, will look at me with sparkling eyes.  I trust the universe.  I trust the subconscious voices.  I trust my instincts.

My story... my name

I can count on my fingers the number of people who call me by my full name.  Mother, father - if they're not calling me kid or if I'm in trouble.  A best friend.  There are a few others too - constants in my life from many years gone by but as for the boys - the ones that have come and gone through out my history - there have only been three.  Three of the many that have used all the letters.  The three full syllables.  Anyone who knows me knows my name is a mouthful, incorporating half the alphabet.  I often miss letters writing too quickly when I sign off.  That tells you something.

But these things have never deterred those that have mattered.  Those that I matter to.  My name rolls off their tongue in recognition of the importance - of me to them, them to me, the relationship.  I notice this too.  Always.  Maybe because it's so rare - so meaningful.  So me.

I remember with him - introducing himself but his full name, not the short form.  Introducing me to his family, to his friends with a version of the short form of mine - one of the many iterations and that stood out to me.  Always.  Unusual given our situation - our connection.  But I dismissed that too - I mean those other three boys are no longer around so perhaps it was just in my head - this meaning I've given to that.  Meaning where none need be.  But still I noticed.  Still do now.  It's such a little thing in the list of it all but still it's there.  Fresh in my mind.  Two extra syllables that mean all the difference.  Rarely left his lips.  He had pet names for me though - that sometimes still come out - otter, little Canadian - and I did cherish those - held on to them too.  I still do.  The held meaning, hold meaning but still, I long to hear my full name roll off his tongue.

I want my lover to use my full name.  The person I love.  The person who loves me.  I want to hear my full name on my lovers lips. 

My story... on hope

I’m the girl who wants the epic love story – not easy, but real.  Too many romantic comedies have shaped my past – the good flirtatious fun, the dramatic break up, the change of heart and finally boy on the girls doorstep with stereo (or flowers) in hand proclaiming his love.  The happily ever after. 

The rational part of  my head tells me that that this isn’t real, isn’t how it should be.  The romantic in me can’t help but hope. 

With him we had the good flirtatious fun.  Friends knowing before he did how much he was into me.  Seen from such a distance.  The simple times.  And even now the disbelief of those who know us - the shock when they realise the news - we are not together.

The break-up has shifted us now, into a new place.  An unknown.  I miss him - my best friend - but I don't know how to be just friends.  We never really were just friends.  There was always that potential of something.  I don't want to be just friends.

So here I sit.  Learning the hard lessons.  Remembering the good.  Regretting the bad.  Stuck in this moment.  Ignoring the calls and texts that still come my way.  He can't let go.  I need to.  I have already told him I'm an all or nothing girl.  He wanted nothing.

But I'm still a dreamer.  Every night as I drift off to sleep in the bed that we shared, a part of me still has hope.  I can see him there, standing on my porch, white daisies (or coffee) in hand, whole in himself and happy on his own, ready to win me over with declarations of love.  I know that’s all an illusion.  The story never ends that way.  They never show what happens after the ‘happily ever after’ do they? 

In my sleepy mind I imagine him doing something he never did when we were together.  What right do I have to believe that it might happen someday.  It makes no sense to picture a possible future that has no base in reality or my gut.  Just a random vision that looks good to me now.  Something I never even knew I was missing when we were in the thick of it.  But of course I'm the girl who wants the man who buys her flowers.  Doesn't every one?

I know though that it doesn't work that way.  The world evolves, he moves on.  My life continues.  It only took us six months to arrive here, this new place, this shifted place - where he lives north of the river and I'm still in the south.  In six months we went from simple and easy and flirty fun to open conversations and cold hard fronts.  Revealing and recoiling all at once.  Contradictions and change.

The what ifs and wonder rattle through my head - how I should have seen the signs, how it could have been different, how it could have been better, how we could have been strong.  But I am complicated and he is stubborn.  I am unrelenting and he is hidden.  Hard work between the two of us.  The wrong time and place I can't believe - fate is a funny mistress and brought him unexpectedly into my life last October - early summer days - there was a reason in it all.  We were destined to fall into this place.  Meant to be where we are.  Here and now.  That's all we have left.  Memories and this moment.  And in this moment I want someone standing strong beside me.  Not a series of back and forths, on and offs.  Unknowns.  I want one love.   One true partner for better and worse, for forging a life together as partners in crime.  Through the good and the bad, the exciting and emotional.  Working together to achieve our wildest hopes and dreams, to weathering the storms of life - always hand in hand, the same side.  A team so formidable that even Batman wouldn’t stand a chance.

But reality is not the movies.  And you can't change the past.  You can only stay until after the credits.

A good friend once told me that - stay until after the credits - you never know what might happen, what you might see, what is to come.  And it's where I stand now, in the middle of the credits waiting for the endless list of names to roll, the musical selections to be shown, the tiny text that can barely be read at the speed that it scrolls.  Fully in the midst.  And I wait... I don't know what's coming next - no expectation or thought.  But a belief that there will be something epic.  I have hope.

My story... on love

I’m not an expert on love – in fact the opposite is more likely true.  I’m the girl it took 35 years to tell her mother ‘I love you’ out loud, holding tight to those precious words for the depths of emotion that they convey and the power they always held to destroy me.  I hid from it.  For 35 years I let others get close but never too much.  I could never open my heart to them – I’d run long before they could ever penetrate my inner fortress.  Learning to love myself set me free though.  Taught me how empowering - not soul destroying that love could be – even when unrequited.  

I have only loved anothers soul twice in my lifetime and from this distance I question the first.  I was young then and guarded.  I ran from him eventually too – love then was more a thought than a thing I felt in my gut.  With him though - this time - it just was.  With him it was real.  It was selfless and shocking and came at me out of left field.  It was easy and freeing and will always remain in my heart.  He showed me that I can love and in time I’ll find someone who loves me just the same, without expectation or restraint.  Without asking me to be anything other than who I am, for all that I am.

I clearly remember my ‘what the fuck’ moment the first time those words ran through my mind – I’d only known him for 3 weeks.  It felt like a lifetime and caught me off guard.  It was an early Saturday morning - I woke him up with my frantic texts seeking advice and the words I already knew  but needed another to actually voice.   

“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t” – Erica Jong

He was supportive in his response and also quite charming.  He told me in the perfect ways why I shouldn’t and then followed up with an ‘I’ll kick your ass if you do’.  It was then that I realized that he knew me – my needs, my ways.  Firm and funny.  And in the instant that the third text breached my mind a flash followed – ‘I love this boy’ and I couldn’t deny it was there.  A fraction of a second as the words scrolled through my thoughts, an unfiltered knowing.  It never went away.

My story... the start

There are lemons on the tree now.  And though the sun is shining it grows colder by the day.  A new season dawns.  Winters come calling.

Every corner of every street is lined with memories of him, a cloud of sadness weighs over me as I do the things we once did together.  Trying the best I can to breathe new life into our old traditions as the tears blur my eyes.  I cry for the beauty of what once was, what was real, what was fleeting.  It feels like he’s dying but rather it’s just a little part of me.

But this is not a sad story.  It’s a story of our glorious six months.  Of 223 straight days of talk and texts and telephone calls.  Together.  An epic torrent of shared emotions that left heartbreak in its wake as only real love can.  This is my story.

It’s a story of connection and contentment, of finding just what we needed in each other through the heat of the summer months.  It’s a story of hope and hurt and family.  Of sparkles and strength and real life.  It’s about the lessons, learning.  Of growth.

This isn’t a story about trying to win him back or for finding the answers to all that went wrong though I can see the signs in hindsight ever so clearly.  Blinded for a while by my eternal optimism but know that now, in this moment our paths have diverged.

This is a story about faith, about discovering what I want, what I need and more importantly what I deserve.  It’s about learning the lessons that any relationship presents to us and about moving forward.  With him I had an amazing adventure but I know that there are many more still to come, my life will be a beautiful journey.  I trust implicitly that I will have everything I can dream of and that these are just stepping stones along the way to the great love of my life.  Because I will have one.