She Was Sea

I can’t help but wonder how it will end. Because end it surely will. I would be a fool to hope otherwise.

I don’t believe in love anymore. That, I’m certain of. I don’t think people love the way they used to, with that incomprehensible, soul-consuming kind of devotion that seems to belong to another time. Maybe that kind of love was always more romantic fiction than reality, but somehow my heart never got the memo. When I care, I know no end to devotion. I think of their every whim. I remember the smallest things. Their worries become my worries, their happiness becomes something I want to protect, and somewhere along the way, I begin belonging to them more than I belong to myself.

And I’ve realised that this is how I want to be loved too. The way I love. In that ridiculous, inconvenient, all-consuming way where someone matters so much that you instinctively think of them before yourself. The annoying way I care so deeply that I often become an afterthought in my own life.

It feels almost like a cruel joke to have met him, and yet meeting him has been the most wonderful thing to happen to me in a very long time. And when I say a very long time, I mean over a decade. I prayed for something like this. For someone like this. I just never imagined my prayers would be answered on these terms.

There is shame in it. Guilt too. And beneath all of that, this quiet sadness over the doom that seems to wait for us somewhere ahead. It wouldn’t be fair for this to last, even though there is nothing in this world I would want more.

I knew I was falling for him long before I was willing to admit it. I think I knew from the first time I caught him looking at me that way, when something in his eyes tugged gently at something in my heart. But falling for him wasn’t sudden. It has been slow and real and wonderful. Evidence-based, if I may say. I didn’t fall for an idea of him. My feelings grew because of the way he treated me, because he kept showing up, because of all the little things that slowly became big things in my heart.

There was even a time when I probably should have lost every feeling I had for him. Instead, somehow, I forgave him. Maybe because somewhere along the way I stopped needing him to be perfect. I know we are flawed. I know no one is perfect. Not even him, despite how convinced I once was that perhaps he might be, until he very unceremoniously popped that bubble and reminded me that he was painfully human too.

And still, my heart aches.

It aches because somewhere deep in my soul, I think I understand the inevitable. I can almost see the version of my life where he is no longer in it, and perhaps what hurts most is knowing that one day I may actually have to live it.

Why did I have to meet someone so wonderful after all this time? Someone so strangely close to everything I had once prayed for, so perfectly imperfect in all the ways a person can be. How could something that feels so much like an answered prayer arrive with an expiry date?

Every moment with him feels no less than heaven to my heart and soul, while every moment apart carries this endless longing to see him again. He has consumed me in ways I never expected. I have quietly belonged to him for so long now that sometimes I wonder if I’ll remember how to return completely to myself.

And despite all the ways he shows me that he feels something just as deep, I still wonder if he really does. There is always room to doubt a man’s feelings and intentions. After all, he too is a man. A wonderful, beautiful man, but a man nonetheless. There will always be an ocean of women, fun, temptation and lust. So why would I be special? And even if I am special now, how long does special last?

A man’s wandering eyes found me once. Perhaps one day they will wander again and find another, and then another, and then another.

And as pathetic as it may sound, I’m still glad they found me.

Because I will say this again and again, simply because it is true. He is the most wonderful man I have met in my entire life. That is thirty-three years of disappointment, heartbreak, and learning all the ways people can make you feel insignificant, and somehow this man came along and made me feel more loved than I ever thought I could be.

I don’t say that because he has explicitly told me he loves me. He hasn’t, not quite. He has said it in vague ways, in words that dance around the thing without ever really naming it. But love has never meant much to me as a collection of words anyway. People can say anything. What matters is how someone makes you feel, and about that, I am certain.

I know what I have felt before. I know what loneliness feels like, even beside someone. I know what it feels like to question whether you matter. I know what it feels like to give far more than you receive. And I know that this, whatever we choose to call it, is the most loved I have ever felt in my life.

And somehow, that is the most heartbreaking part of all.

Because I finally found the feeling I had spent years wondering whether I had imagined. I finally know that it exists. I know what it feels like to be cared for in the ways I had always wanted, to be thought of, remembered, wanted, missed. And now I also know that having something beautiful does not necessarily mean you get to keep it.

So I’ll try to be wise enough to enjoy what is instead of mourning what hasn’t even ended yet. Only God knows whether something this wonderful will ever be written for me again. I got impossibly lucky and terribly unlucky with this one. Lucky because I got to feel something I had almost convinced myself I would never experience, and unlucky because somewhere in my heart, I know it is temporary.

Maybe I don’t have to be this sad about it yet. He has given me no reason to be. Maybe I am borrowing grief from a future that hasn’t arrived, mourning the ending while I am still standing in the middle of something beautiful.

But I’m a writer.

If I don’t grip onto the rawest feelings of my heart while they are still bleeding, how will I ever write?

Personal

We stole kisses between the waves and held each other close for warmth. It was too dark to really see you, even when you were only inches away from me. I could barely make out the silhouette of your face against the night, and somehow, not being able to see you made me feel you even more. Your hand finding mine beneath the water, your body pressed against mine for warmth, your lips finding me in the dark. The sea carrying us while an entire universe stretched endlessly above our heads.

There was something almost unreal about it. Just the two of us floating beneath a sky overflowing with stars, holding on to each other in the middle of something so vast. The ocean beneath us, the universe above us, and somehow, in all that endlessness, nothing felt more significant than the person whose hand I was holding.

I don’t think I have ever felt closer to another human being than I did in that moment. There was something so beautiful, exhilarating and impossibly intimate about floating beneath an endless sky with your hand in mine. The kind of moment you wish you could preserve exactly as it was, untouched by time, so you could return to it whenever the world became a little less beautiful.

And somewhere between the stars above us, the sea beneath us, and your arms around me, I thought about how strange it is that a person can begin to feel like a place.

You really are my haven.

And I’m so glad you led me here.

Personal

Because I believe so deeply that what’s meant to be will always find its way to you, maybe I’ve never really fought hard enough for anyone or anything.

Because why must you fight for something that’s meant for you?

Or maybe the few times I did fight for someone or something, only for it not to work out, the heartbreak was so unbearable that somewhere along the way, I decided I could never put myself through that again. Maybe it became easier to believe that the things meant for me would stay, and the things that left simply weren’t mine to keep.

And that’s exactly how I see this. I don’t know where it’s going, or what it will eventually become, but somehow, you make even the uncertainty of it beautiful. With every touch, every look, every little gesture, you make me feel how deeply you feel for me. There are things you never have to say because I see them in your eyes and feel them in the way you hold me. And so, even though there is something heartbreakingly uncertain about us, being loved by you makes all of it feel strangely whole. It makes whatever this is, however long I get to have it, feel entirely worthwhile.

I’ve had relationships with far more certainty and commitment, and yet no one has ever come close to loving me the way you do. It’s the kind of love I spent so much of my life dreaming about but never quite believed existed until I found it in you. You’ve somehow made my solitude dull, when being alone was something I once genuinely enjoyed. You’ve made your absence feel lonely, when I used to think my own company was more than enough. Now, every moment spent away from you feels like it’s missing something. Like there is a version of life before you, and then there is this one, where everything feels a little fuller simply because you exist in it. I’ve found love in you. I’ve found hope in you. And somewhere along the way, I think I found my whole world in your arms.

Personal

This is one of those times life has surprised me so pleasantly that I’m in absolute awe of it. You meet one shitty guy after another, the ones who say all the right things but somehow manage to do all the wrong things, and eventually, it’s bound to take a toll on you. You begin to wonder if perhaps the things you dream about simply don’t exist. Maybe those connections you’ve spent your whole life believing in were inspired by too many books, too many stories, too much of a hopeless romantic heart. Maybe they belong in fiction and not in real life. And so, eventually, you stop looking for them. Maybe it’s time to get real. You stop letting your hopeless romantic heart drive the car and, for once, you put logic first.

And that’s when I met him. When I wasn’t really looking for any of it. Meeting him was one thing, feeling that connection with him was another, but I still wasn’t convinced. It was just another good time, one that surely wasn’t going to outlive the next sunny day.

Except it did. Shockingly.

And every day after that, he kept showing up. Without missing a single day since we met, he kept showing up until somewhere along the way, it became a habit. Months passed and nothing changed, except that we grew closer. I knew how foolish it would be to expect anything, so I didn’t. I was simply enjoying this temporary happiness that I was certain would eventually flee. But then came one gesture after another, each somehow surpassing the last, some beyond even my wildest dreams. And here was a man choosing me so completely in every moment he could, making me feel seen, heard and loved without ever having to say too much, simply by doing all the right things. It felt a little like culture shock because, for perhaps the first time in my life, I was experiencing the kind of love I had always dreamt of. The kind I had eventually convinced myself didn’t exist. And now, much to my surprise, I have to acknowledge that it does.

Whatever happens tomorrow, I know that right now, this is the most seen and cared for I have ever felt. There is something incredibly beautiful about genuinely feeling adored by someone. Not having to search for it between the lines or convince yourself that it’s there, but simply knowing because of the way they treat you. And I didn’t think that was possible for me. I didn’t think I was the kind of girl someone would cross oceans for, the kind someone would go out of their way for just to see her smile, the kind someone could make feel so undeniably special.

And maybe that’s the most surprising part of all of this. For once, I’m not wondering what he sees in me. I’m not questioning why me, or waiting for him to realise that perhaps I’m not as special as he thinks I am. Because somehow, through the way he loves me, I finally feel like THAT girl. And he makes me feel THAT way.

Maybe the world is healing.

Personal

He’s loved me more than anyone has ever loved me in my whole life, and maybe that’s precisely why it makes me so sad.

Part of it is that somewhere inside me, I still don’t feel like I deserve it. I often fail to understand why he would feel this way about me, why he would choose to be this patient with me, this gentle, this caring. And sometimes, when I can’t make sense of it, I find myself wondering if perhaps this is simply who he is. Maybe he loves everyone this way. Maybe there is nothing particularly special about me at all. Maybe I’m taking something that comes naturally to him and making it mean more because I’ve never experienced it before.

But then there are all the ways he has loved me that feel impossible to dismiss. He has loved me through my mood swings, through the difficult moments, through versions of me I struggle to love myself. He has been patient when I expected frustration, gentle when I expected distance, and present when some part of me was already preparing to be left alone. And through all of it, he has made me feel more loved than anyone ever has in my entire life.

The strange thing is, he has never actually told me he loves me. At least not in those words, not in that way. And yet, this is the most loved I have ever felt.

Maybe that’s what makes it so damn sad. To finally experience the kind of love I spent my whole life wondering about, to finally know what it feels like to be cared for so deeply that I don’t have to question whether it is there, and still not know what I get to do with all of it. To have something feel so much like love without ever being able to call it mine.

Maybe some of the greatest love we experience in our lives doesn’t arrive with the certainty we thought love was supposed to have. Maybe sometimes it simply arrives, holds your hand, loves you in every way that matters, and leaves you wondering how something that makes you this happy can also make you this sad.

Personal

“Making you happy makes me happy.”

He says it while holding my hand, and it is such a wonderful thing to hear. Not simply because someone said it, but because for once, I know he means it. I feel it in the way he holds my hand, in the way he looks at me, and in all the little things he does without ever needing to be asked. Being with him feels like being in his haven, like I’m somewhere I am wanted, cared for, and adored, and it is so unimaginably wonderful.

Because I had never met a man who treated me like this. And after a while, I had started to believe perhaps I never would. Maybe the kind of love I had spent my life dreaming about asked for too much. Maybe the bar I had set existed only in my imagination, and eventually I would have to accept that real life simply didn’t work that way.

And then I met him.

And somehow, he has undone so much of what life had taught me until then. Things I thought I had to accept, things I thought I had to settle for, things I had convinced myself simply did not exist. He heals parts of me without even knowing they needed healing, simply by loving me in ways I never imagined I would get to experience.

I could write endlessly about how good and wonderful a man he is, about all the little ways he makes me feel loved, and I still don’t think I could quite capture what it feels like to be on the receiving end of it.

Sometimes I look at my life with him in it and think, I’m living a dream.

Personal

I wasn’t entirely okay growing up. I had issues, more than I knew how to carry at that age, and there was so much I was quietly struggling with. There were times when my mind went to terrible places, when I thought about doing all sorts of horrible things just to make everything inside me stop hurting.

And then I grew up. None of my troubles really went away. If anything, they grew with me, becoming heavier and more complicated as life did. And sometimes, my mind still went to those same dark places. Except now, there was something that stopped me. Him. I just couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t leave him behind in a world where I had done something like that. I couldn’t bear the thought of what it would do to him, because I knew he still needed me. And somehow, knowing that became reason enough to stay.

But somewhere along the way, life turned itself around. He stopped needing me, and I started needing him more. And every time I did, he was barely there.

Even then, I don’t know, I think some part of me always believed things would eventually be okay. That no matter how distant we became or how much changed between us, there were certain things we could never become to each other. There were certain ways he could never hurt me.

But to have felt the amount of pain I have felt because of him, through the things he has done and, sometimes, through all the things he chose not to do, has broken something in me I don’t quite know how to explain. Because this was the person who, without even knowing it, once gave me a reason to stay alive.

And now I find myself wondering why I fought so hard to stay at all.

Personal

We often ask, what is it that draws you to someone? Is it their looks, or is it their personality? It seems like such a simple question, yet I’ve never found it to have a simple answer.

You know what I think? Neither.

I think it’s how they make me feel. It’s not their looks, and it’s not even their personality on its own. It’s the way my heart feels in their presence. The quiet sense of safety, the excitement, the peace, the way they make the world soften around me. In the end, I don’t think we fall in love with faces or personalities. I think we fall in love with the feeling of who we become when we’re beside them.

Personal

Growing up is hard.

Whenever I think about what life has been like growing up, Wild World by Cat Stevens is the song that always finds its way back to me. I used to listen to it endlessly throughout my adolescent years, long before I understood why it made my chest ache. Looking back now, I think I was mourning something I couldn’t yet put into words.

The older I get, the more I realise I never loved that song because it was about someone leaving.

I loved it because I wished someone had loved me enough to say those words to me.

To tell me that it was a wild world. To tell me it would be hard to get by just upon a smile. To remind me to take care of myself because there would be people who wouldn’t. To look at me the way the song does, as someone still so young, still worth protecting.

Instead, I learnt all of those things on my own.

Growing up is hard because no one prepares you for the day your heart breaks at the hands of the people you loved most unconditionally. As children, we believe there will always be someone standing between us and the world. Someone who will make sure we get home safely, who will notice when we’re hurting, who will protect us simply because that’s what love does.

I always believed there would be at least one person who would keep my heart safe.

Life had other plans.

Every man I have ever loved has broken my heart in one way or another. But the heartbreak that stayed with me wasn’t the kind that arrived through romance. It came much earlier than that. It came from realising that the people I believed would always protect me were just people too. Fallible. Distracted. Human. And sometimes, painfully absent when I needed them most.

I think that’s why Wild World still makes me cry.

Because somewhere inside me there is still a little girl who wanted someone to see the world before she did. Someone to tell her to be careful. Someone to remind her that smiling wouldn’t always be enough. Someone to remember that she was, above everything else, just a child.

We spend so much of our lives believing we’re meant to outgrow that child. I don’t think we ever do. I think we simply learn to become the person we needed back then.

And maybe that’s all growing up really is.

Personal

For as long as I can remember, ever since I had my own room, one thing that absolutely drove me insane was my mom quietly opening my door. I know she means well. She’s checking if I’m sleeping, and she opens it so softly precisely so she won’t wake me if I am. And if I’m actually asleep, it never does wake me. But it’s when she does it while I’m just out of the shower, or getting changed, or lying in bed scrolling, when I sense the door being eased open, something in me just snaps. My entire nervous system dysregulates in an instant. Like every cell in my body goes on high alert before I even consciously register what’s happening. It honestly pisses me off so much, and what makes it worse is that I can’t even fully explain it in the moment. I’ve told her to knock, multiple times, and sometimes she does. But you know how parents are about knocking. To them, it isn’t their child’s room. It’s their house.

Anyways, the point is, I finally figured out why.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit. Because on the surface, what is there to figure out? Your mom opens your door. Big deal. Except it is a big deal, and it has always been a big deal, and I could never articulate why without feeling ridiculous. The same thing happens when I’m startled out of sleep. One time I woke up and my ex was just sitting in my room and it scared the shit out of me, my nervous system took literal days to settle from that. Days. From someone just being there. And I remember thinking, why am I like this, why is my body so dramatic, why can’t I just be normal about these things.

But it isn’t dramatic. And I’m not just being difficult. There’s a reason.

The real why. The reason I can’t stand my room being opened without warning, without consent, without any sound except the soft betrayal of a door, is because that is how he used to do it. Predator behaviour. He’d open it quietly, so deliberately quietly, so as not to wake me or anyone else up. So no one would know. And then he’d come in and lay his dirty hands on me. I was just a girl. I didn’t know the world. I didn’t know what was happening to me or that I was allowed to make it stop or that any of this was something I could tell someone about. His claws were too sharp for someone who didn’t even know she needed to protect herself.

And yet my body knew. Even when I didn’t.

That’s the thing about trauma. You don’t get to decide what it latches onto. It doesn’t care how many years have passed or how much healing you’ve done or how far removed your present life is from that small, terrified version of you. My body catalogued that sound. The specific quiet of a door being opened by someone who doesn’t want to be heard. And now, 17 years later, every time I hear it, it sounds exactly the same. The threat response is identical. It doesn’t matter that it’s just my mom on the other side. My nervous system doesn’t wait to find out.

I lock my room a lot now. Not because I’m hiding anything, but because I can’t afford to be thrown off like that. When it happens it sets me off so badly that it takes a long while to feel okay again, like genuinely okay and not just functioning. It happened recently and I sat with it afterward, trying to trace back why something so seemingly small was doing this to me. And the further back I traced it, the darker it got, until I reached the reason. The harrowing, awful, very specific reason. The one no little girl should ever have.

Because even a door opening without your consent is a nightmare when your body has been trained to fear what comes after. It’s going to war with no warning. Standing in a room not knowing if the worst is coming or not, and just having to wait and see, and having no power over any of it. Your body remembers that powerlessness. That’s what it’s reacting to. Not the door. Not your mom. The powerlessness.

And now you’re exhausted. Tired of being on edge. Tired of that low hum of alertness that never fully goes quiet. Tired of flinching at things that should be nothing. Tired of explaining yourself or not being able to. Tired of a body that still hasn’t forgiven the world for what one person did in it, a long time ago, when you were just a girl who didn’t know any better.

17 years on and the door still sounds the same.