29.

29.

There I was, getting cosy with the idea that love loves to love and that it’s totally OK if this guy that i am in love with is not in love with me. I sent another text that he never replied to. One morning I woke up feeling kinda’ sad about that. I had been on a “self enquiry” spiritual retreat online at the weekend, and my teacher was teaching me about desires and relationships

“If you feel diminished by this guy, then that’s not good. When we keep going towards people that don’t love us back it can be because that kind of “love” is familiar. Familiarity feels comfortable even though it’s not comfortable to feel unloved and unwanted. You can learn to stop going towards these people and go towards the ones that are into you”

The problem is, the ones that are into me, are usually nice, really really nice, I just don’t fancy them.

That morning after another of my text messages went unreturned despite the blue ticks telling me he had read it, I flashed back to a guy I had met in the summer in the sea. We had got talking. I had never seen anyone smile so much! We stayed in touch when he went back to the UK, but I didn’t take it seriously on account of the fact he was 25. I wanted to reach out to him. After my water bottle exploded on my phone I lost many of my unsaved contacts. I didn’t know if I still had his contact. I had been leaving it up to him, but things had gone quiet since I started seeing Noah. I went into my icloud contacts and there he was.

“Hey!”

He wrote back, excited to hear from me, explaining he had had a difficult year, not wanting to get into the ins and outs of why he hadn’t stayed in contact but making it clear he was delighted to hear from me again. We arranged to video call and two hours later my cheeks were hurting from laughing. Yes, he was an extremely pretty face, so I was surprised and delighted to discover he is also super funny and entertaining, and he is also very into me. He loves listening to what I have to say, if he talks for too long, he asks about me. He is also very happy with my appearance and he loves to be in contact every day which I love. He spoke about spending christmas with me.

What do I have to lose, I thought?

Noah is clearly not interested. I shall spend Christmas alone at this rate. What’s the worst that can happen? We don’t get on? He doesn’t like me? The sex is awful? His mum lives in Malta, so if it really turned sour he could spend christmas with her instead. I checked the flights. There was one from Scotland to Malta for £12! I booked it for him. Happy Christmas, I said. Come spend Christmas with me. If you change your mind, it doesn’t matter, but I’ve reserved this ticket so that they don’t sell out. I’m finally at that age where I think, I overthink everything. Who should I marry? When shall I have kids? If I think it over anymore it’ll never happen. Always trying to get [it] right, get things perfect, and yet life is just one long list of desires, once one is satisfied another arrives to be satiated. I know I want love, I want kids too. The only thing making me unsure of this guy is simply that I assumed my love should be an older man. But who cares? If he’s fit, healthy, fun, loving and full of energy what more can I want? It’s unlikely I’ll ever find a man to take care of me financially, I’ve always been the one to be bringing home the bacon, and I don't mind, I’m happy in that role. I love that he’s already getting dreamy about our future together, different from the guys I’m used to who feel like they always have one foot out the door. Let’s see where this leads. I know I could be disappointed, maybe the flight gets cancelled because of Covid, maybe he changes his mind or gets scared, but if that happens, nothing is lost. You would think doing a spiritual retreat online I would renounce all my needs and desires, but what happened instead is that I feel far more at peace with my desires and instead of denying them, I honour them, knowing that they are of me but not me. Desires will come and go. If I trust that life is for me and god has everything in His hands then I have to believe that for both the good and the bad right?

If he doesn’t make it for christmas there will be something or someone else waiting there for me, and if he does come, then who knows….maybe this is the love I have been waiting for….two weeks to go, let’s wait and see...