Love

You think you are special.

And it breaks your heart each time someone doesn’t treat you like you are. The audacity of their contradiction. The fear they may be right. Causing the collapse. Not because you are a narcissistic person — the popular catch all for any personality trait we dislike — but because you are human. And hope you’re unique. Told you are. Told we all are. One of a kind. No one else like you. Unknown and misunderstood, except perhaps by that other special person.

The one you can’t find. The soulmate. Twin flame. The one movies and books told you is out there. The one that just ‘fits’. Like some missing puzzle-piece that will complete you. No, sorry, not complete you. That’s an unhealthy way to think. To add to your already abundant life — that’s how you’re suppose to think. At least according to all the self-help literature out there. But deep down, you know you feel like a part of you is missing, an incompleteness despite all your achievements. That brings you shame. The shame of this contradiction. Perhaps you’ve caught yourself out in this lie. It’s all bad either way. Like you’ve failed in some life test. You are special — special people don’t fail. Especially not at self-awareness and actualisation. You know better than that. You’ve spent enough in therapy to know better than that. And yet. The hollowness. The yearning for someone you’ve never met. Or someone like someone from a dream. But you have admitted it to yourself. Are admitting it to yourself. That must count for something, right? You’re aware. Intentional. That deserves something. It at least deserves a break. Let off the hook. Just this once. To have what will make you whole. To have what will make life make sense.

So you just need to find them. Like a treasure hunt. That golden haul at the bottom of the vast ocean. Where could they be? There is no lack of cartographers. So many experts, all claiming to have the correct coordinates. The most updated version. Psychically-based. Psychologically-designed. Physics-informed. Astrologically accurate. You’ve bought all the maps. Navigated their prescribed journeys. Gone on quests. Each map led you, perhaps, to what you thought was the one. But each was wrong. You didn’t find the one. You found frogs and beasts. Many disguised as princes. Kissed them all. Gave them a chance. And another. And another more. Hanging on for way longer than you know you should have. And there you go, the prize was just another thing to berate yourself over. Building up a stack of undeniable proof that you’re not that special after all. Just like every other person, bonding yourself to the wrong one, tenaciously holding on, trying harder, working harder, loving harder, giving more, accepting less, accepting less than less. Until there isn’t anything left, not even for yourself. Not even enough to fuel the embers of the fairy-tale. So you slink away to hide under the duvet or another dark corner. Becoming more familiar and greater friends with the darkness, each time taking longer than the last to repair, reset, reload. Until that abyss becomes your ‘happy place’. That waiting place you didn’t even realise you have parked yourself in.

Then you meet them. Again. The one person who wasn’t a frog. Or a beast. Or a dream. The case study, you believe, that formed your fantastical ideas on love. It didn’t end because either of you wanted it. It was a Greek tragedy, a tale of parental objections at a time when parents could object. Back when you were both just kids, really. From different parts of the world, different cultures. The reality of you, not being a nice Greek girl from nice Greek village, hitting your potential future father-in-law like a concrete wall of unyielding objections. You had arrived with all your belongings, with more to come on a cargo ship he had offered help clear customs quickly, on your love’s proposal, seemingly endorsed at the time by the whole family. They had a change of heart. It happens. Greek boys don’t go up against Greek fathers. You understood that. Or tried to. Because you had no choice. There were arguments in a language you didn’t understand but had the volume and vibrations of anger, fury, fear, guilt, and despair that you did. And there was the blood — all the blood your love vomited one evening. Blood that covered the bathroom floor where you found him silently sobbing, from stress and exhaustion. Blood that showed it was time to leave. Because you love him, and one of you needed to be strong enough, for the both of you, and let go.

But that was over three decades ago. You have both since married other people, had children with other people, and in your case, divorced other people.

Over the years you would meet for coffee whenever he was in any city you were living in at the time, and where he happened to be on a business trip. It wasn’t regular, perhaps just once every few years. An hour to cram updates from a thousand days. Yet you’d find yourselves with no interest to relate life’s going ons, not when the space between you overwhelmed with kindness, love and loss. And he is kind. And tender. And that’s what you remember most about him, though you remember everything.

The way his face lit up whenever he saw you — you could not avoid seeing it. The way his face lit up still.

The way he cared for you on your first date when you had a sudden attack of gastritis. He took you home and laid you on his sofa, brought you pillows and covered you with a blanket while you quietly moaned and dozed the pain away. Him sitting next to you, silently reading, while reaching out to stroke your hair every time you made any sound of discomfort or pain. He did that all night until you felt better, and could stand up. Then he sent you home.

The way he waited for you to come home from your first day of work placement, with a lovely sauce bubbling away on the stove and handmade pasta having all over the living room on various makeshift implements. Because you like pasta, a lot. So he learned to make it from scratch.

The way he’d come back to you, after you’ve had any rows, with a trinket, like a Happy Meal toy. It was to make you laugh. And you always laughed. Not to apologise, because not every disagreement is about wrongdoing. But an affirmation of love and steadfastness, to open up the dialogue again.

The way he would talk about anything with you, as long as you needed, even on topics that made him want to run. He’d stay. And listen. And talk. And silently take both your hands in his, when he felt himself anxious with discomfort, and he’d put his forehead to yours. And you’d both pause, and breathe, and reaffirm your love, before carrying on, if it even needed carrying on. You remember that.

The way he’d whisper to himself “Lulu-mou”, when he’d kiss you on the top of your head thinking you were asleep.

How his eyes were oceans so deep and wide you could swim in them forever. Just like they said in magazines about love, that you’d thought was nonsense until you saw it, no, experienced it, in real life. In eyes that were looking at you. Eyes that looked at you now.

You weren’t young 20-somethings with lifetimes ahead of you. As you held each others’ hands (chastely) across the table, smiling with gratitude for the few minutes you have to share the same space again, you were two middle-aged people with a lifetime already behind you. You have been apart longer than you have been together, and that’s how you understand romantic love can transform into something deeper, quieter, calmer, warmer. But only if that first flush was real, respectful, conscious.

And it was.

And you remember. Each time you see him you remember. Like an intracardiac injection bringing you back to life, to you.

You remember you were loved, as you were. You simply had to be.

You remember you were special to someone, not related to you by blood.

You remember someone saw your strength, your love, kindness, weaknesses, generosity, silliness, your imperfections. And loved you for all of it.

You remember someone respected your relationship so much he stayed single for years, waiting until you moved on first. You remember he did so silently, without you knowing, without anyone knowing, until one day you called him to let him know you were getting married. He didn’t know you wanted him to stop you. So he wished you happiness, and that same day (as you found out years later), he had gathered up your mutual friends and invited them to celebrate. He was quiet, they said, pensive. They’d asked him what they were celebrating, and he replied “Lulu is happy now.” And he didn’t say a word for the rest of the night. You remember he was wrong, but he didn’t know that. And that doesn’t matter.

You remember almost a decade later, your second husband of 2 weeks came home from work to let you know “your ex is looking for you”. He’d called every single place he knew you had worked at, called every mutual friend from university to try to find you. His only beloved sister had cancer and it brought home to him the fragility of life. In that moment, he sought you out. Looked all around the world for you. To see if you might still love him. If you might want to spend the rest of your life with him. But you didn’t know that. He didn’t tell you when you finally spoke on the phone. He only said he wanted to say hello. And see how you were. And to congratulate you on your new marriage. You could sense it wasn’t that but you were too afraid to ask. Too afraid to raise the question “Do you want me to come back”. Because you’d just gotten married. It wouldn’t have been fair or right or respectful.

You remember how lucky you are, how special you are, to have had that kind of love and respect in your lifetime.

For that, you will always (try to) be grateful.