When Journeys Align

“This push and pull.
It is so tiring. It’s exhausting. How quickly we reconnect, then it gets intense and then we separate.
For a while. “Let’s cool off.”

I wish we could maintain that intensity and still go on with our lives. Side by side. Living in parallel. But, together and near.
Maybe we’re not ready yet.
We were mirroring each others’ flaws before,
Atleast now, we’re mirroring each others’ efforts to grow.
We could be something someday.”

“For now, I like how…somehow….. even with being apart, we are always ready to seize the moments in which we find ourselves lovingly intersecting.”

When two lovers first meet, they’re always in a mode of dependence, don’t you think?

Dependence on each other to feel good, to feel loved. And they fill each others’ cups naturally. No effort.
Love feels like a drug.
Want more? You got it.
Some more. And then some.

Would be nice if that went on.
But, Life.
There are other things one needs to do.

They do….get on with life, ie. Each on their own, making time to do things separately now. Important things we call “adulting”. (Yeah, those double air quotes).
One day they decide to mesh their lives into one. Commitment means legitamising things, it seems.

Not realising they have now given an open armed welcome to co-dependance.
Meshed. So tightly enmeshed. “We’re in it together, together in everything we will remain.”

But Time does things.
Time – the medium by which Life teaches us what we need to learn.
It is also a tool that we can use to our advantage to make the most out of our learning experiences.
It is also a measure of how far we’ve come.
Time is great.

They spend time together and manage expectations.
Expectations met.
Expectations lost.
What was lost is allowed to not be salvaged.
And what was met? – It starts to be taken for granted.
The gaps between expectations, they get bigger.
After all that while, they can’t see eye to eye.
They could, actually, fall apart.

Hanging by a thread now.
They live like partners.
They function like a team.
They attend to their duties and responsibilites(such heavy words) in auto mode.
One day to the next.
Over time, they do everything like it’s nothing.. operating like a well-oiled machinery.
And because it is a machine, the job gets done faster now and there is a lot more extra time on their hands.
It’s called “me time”.
Finally.
It’s what they needed BEFORE they met.
They postponed it so far, but now it has happened organically. Because it was always meant to happen.

Finally, they use the time to look inside.
Realising that life, will always go on. It is not going to wait for all responsibilities to get done so we can finally do what we always wanted.
We must do it all WHILE life happens.

Someone important once said that life is not happening TO us, life is happening FOR us.

It has all happened the way it was always meant to happen.

Now, for the first time in their lives, they decide to ask themselves – “How do I love myself? What version of Me would make Me proud of Me?”

A real lion, hunts.

“What is that one thing that makes me who I am? That which brings me into my own power? That which makes me FEEL invincible, inside and out?”

They want to find out.
So they start to connect with things and people that mattered to them when they were younger and untouched by the weight of the world.
Their parents, their siblings, their childhood friends.
The ones who cut through the bulls*, and show you who you have always been. The ones who know the naughty, but also know the nice, like no other. They help you rediscover parts of yourself that you may have forgotten, but they never did.
It’s a great feeling to be known. Truly known, by our own.
This feeling is not nostalgia. It is bigger. It is getting back in touch with that pure, unmistakable energy of our youth. That familiar part of us that was, once upon a time, bursting with enthusiasm and a love for life… a genuine love for ourselves and for all that we could achieve “when we grew up”.

They tapped into it.
All their ideas, hopes and dreams.
It, almost magically, brought them back in touch with a version of themselves that they loved.

They found purpose. They found clarity.

From then on, in everything they did, it was in service of THAT vision, that version, of themselves.

Single minded focus now.

Sure, life got in the way many times, as it usually does.
But the attitude had shifted.
“That’s discomforting, but it’s not a problem.
I’m an adult. I can handle it.
Solved. Done. Gone. Neeeext.
Now back to nurturing myself.”

And just like that, one after the other, brick after brick was laid and they built themselves. Slowly, but with unflinching determination because that goal was all they could see.
Untill, they made it their reality.

There, they were.
They were finally there!

They smiled to themselves knowing fully well, that what they were seeking from ‘The One’ to fulfill for them, was always within their own selves.

“Funny how all that inner work, leads us back to our own selves.”

That’s the power of solitary energy. Team work does make the dream work. But one has to take SOLE ownership of one’s life.
Like a solitary wave(physics) that never dissipates, no matter the disturbances in its path.

“When you don’t have another, you still always have yourself. And if you can’t count on that, there’s nothing in the world you can count on.”

They had each built their own Self,
side by side.
Two people,
now inter-dependent.
Not enmeshed,
but intertwined.
Growing separately,
but hand in hand.
Powering through,
supporting each other along the climb.
Their goals separate,
but their journeys aligned.

“There’s only flowers up here. Some rain, coz there’s always the weather to blame….
But oh, the warmth of this divine sunshine!”

“Maybe we’ll get there someday. This push and pull will cease to happen.
We will be happy and whole within our own selves.
Then, and only then, will we be one again.
One day, that version of you and me WILL manifest.
Let’s never stop doing the work that’ll get us there.”

“Push and pull.
It’s tiring. It’s exhausting.
But you know how Harry met Sally?
It’s like something I heard somewhere – ‘Right person, right time, right circumstance’.
For now, I have me.
And I’m happy riding on my solitary wave,
glowing in my solitary energy.”

Someone famous said – “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

As within, so without.

“But what if we’re wrong about this? All of this! Our path, our journey, our destination. “

“This push and pull is all in the mind. It is born of the ego.
If I simply allow my purpose to be my beacon and use it to light my path and lead my way, then there is no doubt in my mind that whatever and whomsoever is good for me will, eventually, come to me. And it will align itself with what is good for everyone.”