Just Like Lightning

Here’s the thing about my single year of solitude: It wasn’t a year to NOT date. Rather, a commitment to not date for the sake of dating. And I stand by that. I don’t want a plus one to parties and a fellow Netflix junkie. I don’t need someone at my disposal to text 24/7 and make definitive plans with on a Saturday night. I’m fairly new to the post-college, semi adult world of dating, but I’m confident status and security isn’t what it’s about.

This time last week I would have told you that my year without a boyfriend taught me more than who I am: that it taught me there are multiple ideas of a beautiful life and the only true love that exists is covered in fur.

This conclusion, bred from a few years of disenchantment and misdirection, was vaguely misguided. I’m not the same girl I was when I moved to Auburn, so I can’t understand now why I fell in love the way I did then. One week ago I would have said it was ill founded and immature (actually it probably was). But if I could go back today and catch myself before I fell, I wouldn’t. Regardless of my questionable rationale, I would never deny myself the experience of falling in love. Even if it is 6 months brief and near terminally heartbreaking.

In my disillusionment, I forgot to believe. I had crushes and liked people because they were close. I went on dates with boys who were handsome, self-involved, and half-heartedly tried to light my fire with a damp pocket match. I learned to say yes to first dates and no to second ones, turning my experiences into stories instead. I learned that my writing scares most boys and intrigues a few, and that I don’t care and will do it anyway.

I was content with the idea that relationships are about finding someone compatible and all that textbook garbage. And I wasn’t interested.

That was until a brief, blinding white hot volt of electricity charged me from head to soul.

And just like that, my year of self-guided misdirection violently evaporated like sweet tea condensation in the summer heat.

So what happens next? Maybe everything. Probably nothing. But I’m living my life bright-eyed, slightly sideways and completely off kilter. Because I know that somewhere tucked away in their little star-studded corners of the universe, there exist people who can wake me up with 100 million volts of electricity.

Just like lightning.