September is in healing.
I met a friend after many years.
We only ever hear about each other through a mutual - carrying scraps of our lives back and forth. Anyway, we finally meet. At a wedding, no less. Love in the air, rose petals, open bar, yada yada.
We’re catching up and then he leans in with -
“So… what about you? Are you in love?”
Aarrgggghhh.
I told him - “I find it… difficult. For someone to choose me. Every day. All of me. And to stick to it.”
Which, in retrospect, isn’t an answer at all.
He looks at me - bold, polite, irritatingly hopeful - and says,
“Why are you losing hope? One must never lose hope. Don’t give up just yet. Love is so beautiful.”
And yes, I agree. Of course I agree. But it still landed like a brick to the chest. Because, like every other romantic on this bloody planet, I actually believe love is everything. That it alone can fix the world.
I’ve been practising this whole “choose yourself first” mantra, you know, like a responsible adult. But the truth is - it feels like it’s come at a cost.
And I haven’t given up. Not really. It’s just humiliating to admit how much I still want it. How much I’m afraid of reaching the point where I stop. Where I’m done.
I’m fine on my own. I am. Until I’m not. Until I want someone to drink morning coffee with while the sun barges in through the curtains. Until I want someone to try new recipes with. Until I want someone whose voice is the last thing in my head before I fall asleep. Someone worth travelling across miles and miles for just for a bloody moment.
And in my head, I’m already there. Calling them in the middle of the day with impossible things,
“Hey, skip work, let’s sit on the beach. Or buy an ice cream. See you in ten?”
And I know myself well enough to know I’ll be jealous of the wind that gets to brush through them when I can’t.
So yes. September is in healing.
And maybe, just maybe, I’m ready to welcome love again.
With open arms.
In all its terrifying, wonderful, ridiculous element.
There’s something oddly intimate about the way people hold their smokes. Like secrets cradled between fingertips, like they’ve loved and lost and lit it anyway.
