This story is for my fellow love addicts stuck in intense unrequited crushes, who can’t seem to find the “right person”, have no idea what love is, unconsciously believe they are not worthy of it, confuse rejection with love, and have anxious avoidant attachment styles. Those who are desperately looking for love, need it like air, but are looking in the wrong places.

You are love. You are looking for yourself. What you are looking for is within you. I hope you find a way to find it. To see, finally. Oh, and – I love you ♥️

Her and Him

Being is dying by loving.

— Meher Baba

They met in her soul country, full of vibrant colours, art, food, and beautiful people, two decades ago. They were a part of a loosely formed group of young people united by love of travel, partying and zest for life. This was her tribe. They had the best parties, not a single day was sober, fun was unbridled, joy on tap, she could be herself and she had not felt this alive for a while.

He was younger, a minor by American standards, barely an adult by European. Cute in a teenage, boyband sort of way, with bronze blonde bangs and deep eyes with a twinkle. He would have been absolutely her type, if he was older. But there was no time to dwell. Life was beautiful and full on, and she was too busy having fun. 

After they parted ways, as is always the case, she was back in the reality of a full-time job, but also living fully, surrounded by amazing friends, crushing on new people, partying, exploring, discovering. 

Unexpectedly, he stayed in touch. There were emails, some flirty, some existential, photos from travels (mostly his), stories of dating and love conquests (mostly his). Both had their hearts broken multiple times and were on their life journeys. They recommended books to each other, had deep philosophical debates, occasionally he gave her really good life advice. Their chats made her feel better – they either discussed deep stuff that she did not have many people to discuss with, or his dark sense of humour made her smile. 

They were sort of there for each other, a long-distance virtual friendship if you can call someone you barely know a friend. He was a virtual constant in her life. And at times, truly, a rescue line – he was there as she healed from different break-ups. She was not sure he knew that. 

He was younger, but felt older, an “old soul”. He was no longer a shy teenager, more like a modern Mr D’Arcy – tall, stylish, handsome, well off, opinionated, smart, and very in demand. He went through different nationalities, continents even, in his dating pursuits, in the process becoming a modern Casanova, a master of Tinder, a connoisseur of x-rated selfies. Was he also a love addict in his own way, loving the process, the quest, terrified of commitment, or was he a maximiser with high standards, looking for true love? Or perhaps, he was just enjoying life, sipping it slowly, as we all should really. 

Years passed, and she was being consumed by the fires of love addiction. He was an easy (and last) target. She needed someone who would reject her, someone who she could safely get hooked on with no possibility of reciprocity. He was a memento of the once in a lifetime trip and unforgettable time, something to obsess and hurt over endlessly to the backdrop of intoxicating fantasies. 

His messages reminded her of who she was (full of joy and fun), not the suburban housewife and mother commuting to her boring ass work for hours each day. He was a reminder of the time of spontaneity and aliveness, far from the routine she had been living day to day. She found herself increasingly more desperate, grasping, wanting, suffering. Staying in touch now felt like torture. It was time to let him go and heal. 

She confessed her “love” and prepared for the depths of the earth to open to gobble her up into an embarrassment chamber hotter than the fires of hell where her sorry ass would burn for eternity in the ‘I am an idiot’ section. 

But he did not respond like everyone else. Of course, he did not. He was kind. He said that she was projecting and told her to keep her shit together. The only man who looked beyond the bullshit, stayed calm, and yet told her what needed to be said. Did he really see her in the ‘namaste’ sort of way? She cried. 

As she went into a complete breakdown which kickstarted her long-term recovery, his messages stopped. Which was as well because she had to go cold turkey anyway. All messages, emails, contacts, photographs – everything was erased. Social media accounts deleted. All memories and bridges burnt. The missing was there, viscous and deep. An addict missing her hit – desperate, yet necessary. She still wrote to him, letters and poems, just never sent them.

Her healing methods were radical and they worked, gradually. On the bad days, she fantasised about the mobile screen lighting up and the box with his country code saying “hi”. She wanted their connection to mean something, she wanted this to be real, special, not yet another illusion, she wanted him to need her, to really need her, to be “the one”, she wanted to fill the emptiness with love. She wanted the fantasy to be true for once. 

In one of her fantasies, they were on a terrace of an old building overlooking the night city skyline. He smelt like expensive perfume and champagne. She had that feeling that she had when they were at Las Fallas and she watched the flames dance on his face. When she held a steaming cup of magic mushroom tea close to her face in Apeldoorn. When she danced to the rhythm of the Lebanese drums in Montreal. When she partied with her friends in a rooftop bar in Almaty. Expansion. Anticipation. Playfulness. Awe. Aliveness. Naughtiness. Fun. The real her. 

She gently brushed her fingers through his hair, over his face. She felt his breath on her lips. As she entered that place in between the worlds, she felt the pulsating intensity – the intersection of the past and the future, the present alive with possibility, a gap in the space-time continuum pregnant with creation, light and love. 

Time stopped. The energy between them was luminous, pure, not neurotic, based on grasping or fantasies, not coming from her Self. She was love, he was love and they were one and the same. She loved the light in him that was inside of her. Two lovers for the sake of love. The light hunters. And ultimately, one. 

She looked into his eyes, like she dreamt she would so many times, and she saw everything – all the beauty, the light, the love, the creation, the emptiness, the darkness, the void, all of it. She saw the mushy purgatory where lizards darted through the intestine-like slippery undergrowth and snakes intertwined into balls to the soundtrack of hellish laughter. The black cell like fractals pulsating in the breathless dimensionless world. The millennia of forms and shapes transforming into each other, dying and being reborn again and again on the canvas of existence. The bright white light that calls you to merge with it, but also the silent, deep void surrounding it. 

In him she saw herself – everything and nothing, a cosmic giggle, a universal jester, a fellow soul, an eternal, infinite deja vu. Mahakala, playfully smiling back at her in the toilet mirror. 

The dark energy of grasping was gone. She was empty, completely empty. And finally free.