May Take to Another

Not too long ago, I "got back out there".  Initially I told myself, I was going to date the old-fashioned way, picturing casually getting malts in an ankle length skirt without all this pressure of will we be together forever, or is he just trying to sleep with me? But really, I set out that way because I was downright terrified of the prospect of letting someone in my heart again. And I fully doubted anyone else could get there.

It's still a bit surreal sometimes that it hasn't just been a long week since I've seen him, or even that I didn't dream the whole thing up, start to finish. So when it came to accepting that he had run away for good, I thought maybe my way forward was just to try. Ground myself in reality by moving forward in some way. So...

Swipe left, swipe right. Swipe on your ex to find out he swiped right (interested) on you...? Never mind that confusing nonsense. Then another right swipe, SUPER right swipe on a joyful, handsome hottie that to be honest I thought to myself was out of my league. There's no way he'll be into me, so what does it hurt? *swipe* But in real life leagues do not exist, which I keep forgetting. Simultaneously, I still told myself – and this guy – I was not ready to put my heart out there, but wanted to connect with someone again. 

Independent of starting to chat with a new man, I realized something else that I've realized before but had since forgotten. See, I thought about my closest friends. My best friend I've known since we were in first grade, I love her dearly. Another friend I've known for several years, she too has claim of significant space in my heart. Yet another I've only grown close to in the past couple years, but I can be fully honest with her and admire her greatly. All are very different people that I deeply love and no one love supersedes or negates another. So then, no matter how significant my love for my last partner was, it doesn't mean that there isn't more available for someone new. 

Now, don't get ahead of me, I am not saying I've found love. Rather that I was pleasantly surprised to find myself genuinely intrigued by someone new. And a little less afraid – and maybe even a little excited – of the possibility that my heart may take to another. 

What Reverence

What reverence I have for big, deep, vulnerable, altering love. I'm not eager to find it again, I have a healthy respect for the risk that it is. I see it as a far off, distant future that could be. No imaginations of what it will look like and who it will be - only haze, and a sense of openness but not quite desire. A quiet longing, but a knowing fear. A caution to do everything I can to not have it only to lose it again. A hidden, buried thought that if I don't want for it, I will be okay. I tell myself I have safety within myself; I can be okay no matter what...but love had me awestruck at its heaviness, its weight. Losing love makes you sure you'll never want for it again, build around you a fortress, impenetrable and therefore unaffected by comings and goings. Yet appreciating love, even that which is lost, makes one long to know it again someday.