A Romantic Love Affair

Running away from home...

I needed something to feed my soul this morning. I began rummaging through my deep collection of unread books. I found a book with daily messages and so I flipped to today, June 27. In so many words, it read write down the ways that life is loving you right now. Something in my heart moved. It talked about learning to get comfortable receiving. And I quickly realized life was pursuing me. Heavy.

And I was running away from home.

Making this list was way too easy and I could have kept going. I won’t even go into all of the ways, but I will highlight one. Time. I was getting back all of my time. Maxine Waters would be so proud. Life was allowing me to reclaim my time. I prayed for this, and it was here, asking me to embrace it.

How many spaces have you been in that have taken everything out of you and poured very little in?

I sat with the sunflower leaves anticipating the bloom and the white roses this morning. What I learned in five minutes is for another read. But I envisioned myself as a flower. The flower doesn’t need water so that we can prune it and squeeze it of its medicine, though we tend to.

I’d like to note that I’ve been refraining from plucking all the petals from the rose bush which has not been an easy task.

The flower needs water for its growth, because it is thirsty, & for its life source. It needs it for its nourishment. And it’s important to realize the potent medicine it has from just existing. But as for me, I was getting my time back so that I could get the deep nourishment I needed, that I had prayed for so many times in hidden messages of asking for my desires. This was not about doing. It was about being.

How often are we allowed to just be in spaces without feeling the need to DO to earn our position there? To be loved and cared for simply because we exist…

This season I am being poured into. Watered. The problem? I never really learned how to receive. I never really learned how to fully lean into faith. Though the last year has been my greatest teacher, I had yet received the moment of deep realization of it was for this. I had been conditioned to believe that I had to work hard for my peace. I had to sacrifice to be in a state of moderate peace at that. Life had been telling me to surrender. & I was running away from my lover.

Life wanted to love me deeply, intentionally, & in the ways I needed it most. It had invited me into a playful love affair and I who needed to be in control, prepared couldn’t trust it.

I thought about the things I called into my life over and over again. Community. Fulfillment. A partnership. Freedom. I had been asking for support for a long time, a silent cry for help. I had been begging for someone to hear that I didn’t want to carry this load, the heaviness that I felt life was by the way that I was living it. I was lying to myself or ignoring my truth because I couldn’t see another existence. I couldn’t fathom it. It was reserved only for the privacy of my daydreams. Expansion. Life was asking me to expand. Because love does that sometimes, right?

Don’t we all dream of a lover that introduces us to new parts of ourselves and this world, who knows us on a soul level?

This experience was uniquely designed for me. Life had been listening in ways I didn’t even know how. I thought of the last year and the word that continued to resurface was alignment. & the phrase that kept coming back to the surface was “remember yourself.” Who you really are… Life wanted to dance, sing and play but with me. I thought that was reserved for everyone else EXCEPT me. Crazy right? Self-worth, another topic for another read.

Life was reading beyond the words that I said or even wrote, and it listened to my heart, and it called to it. It spoke so gently of change and even brought it in gradually, over the years. It was patient, kind, and all of the things that scripture talks about.

Answered prayers don’t always look the way we imagine. But I realized my expectations had been exceeded. I only expected what I had control over, what made sense to me, but life said no. This is what I have for you. You deserve more. You deserve what your heart calls for. This is what you were created for and it’s about time you stopped settling for less.

Isn’t that what we all want? Someone who truly hears us. Who listens even when we don’t speak, who knows when we are weary, who holds us through the dark nights, and weeps when we do? We call in someone to explore life and freedom with, someone who makes us feel at home, like family. Accepted. Valued. Assured. Loved to the deepest core of our being.

And life was holding up a mirror to me and grabbing my hand for the journey.

Life was romancing the hell out of me and I was fixating on what was next. All of the movies tell us to be present in the moment when that love comes. The rom-coms show the chaser and the runner. Others call it the twin flame connection. I wonder now if I’ve always been my own twin flame lover. I know it sounds crazy. But life keeps calling me home to myself for a romantic love affair. This was spiritual. I had always been the runner and life was chasing after me.

The connection I feel is otherworldly and honestly sometimes I feel unworthy. My mind reminds me that I am in this world and my heart remembers that I am not of this world. I don’t know if there will ever be words for the intensity of the love and intimacy I have felt in the last season.

A surprise at every corner, showing me more of who I am, asking me to release who I thought I was. I reflect and I see how intentional life took me to the next step and waited on me until I gathered the strength for the next one or let me hop on its back to get there.

I used to think what kind of love makes someone leave everything they know and choose to start again in an unknown land. I saw this type of woman depicted in the movies, chasing a lover, and I promised I’d never be her. I wanted myself to remember that my dreams mattered. I somehow knew I was born with my own divine purpose. But this love that has allowed me to leave it all behind, knows me more than I know myself. It leads me closer to my purpose.

I’ve always struggled with dating because I never had a person who I trusted enough to go to who could hold me or even truly hold my hand and that’s a conversation for therapy. But my reality is that I have always had a community of people in every season that were everything and then some. Abundance. I have always had a deep connection with myself, and I’m devoted to her. She deserves to not be left behind. And that is what made me go. This love that I have allowed to enter my life agrees.

& I know this sounds like it all worked out in the end. I took the leap and landed in a bed of roses. But in reality, I haven’t landed yet. But I needed to know I had wings. And that is the true freedom I have received. I’ve started waking up asking whose life am I living, instead of wondering how the hell am I gonna pay rent this month and wtf did I do?

I have this urge to make sure everyone knows that everyone can feel this, and I’ve been fixated on how to create a space for this. But I know that I must embrace it and speak its name loud enough for everyone to hear. I’m not gonna lie, I like myself ALOT better now.

And for my black girlies, don’t believe the hype. Black girls receive divine love too. This one is for us.

I get emotional sitting here, wondering why me? And I know your answer may be why not you.

But what I do keep hearing, '“it had to be you.”

And so what is it that I hope you get from this? It has to be you too.

A promise ring & a journey with your heart. It won’t lead you astray.

With Love,

Marasia Simone.