I’ve started to develop feelings for someone who makes me feel completely and utterly myself. Instead of trying to define the situation, I’m practicing detachment from the outcome. Being okay with whatever happens, because whatever is meant for you can never be lost to you. I am trusting that this process will reveal exactly what kind of person he is, what sort of connection we have and whether this is the real deal. I still believe that what I’m looking for exists, because if I do, then chances are that there is someone else out there like me. It’s taken me a long time to get to this level of mindfulness but I’m glad I’ve been given the chance to practice it after so much time reflecting. Now it’s all about flow Es.

I’ve dreamed of doing this since I was little, and now the day has finally come. So I’d like to write a little reminder for myself when the days seem too foreign to find warmth in.

In moments when you feel alone Es, remember this is about your experience with the world. Your friends and family will be there when you return. You will miss the life you knew, until you come back to the new life you’ve created. And you will continue to create more beauty for yourself, day by day, brick by boring brick.

The future was never meant to be lived with the echoes of the past taking up space. Live. Dream. Be bold. Be brave. Face the unknown and believe you can conquer the impossible.

Because we all can.

Loneliness does not discriminate. It does not consider your age, relationship status or how many connections you’ve made throughout your lifetime. Many people dear to me have been struck by this feeling, and when you’re in the midst of it, it’s easy to forget that you are not alone. It is all-consuming, piercingly loud despite the physical quiet.

How cruel this existence can be sometimes. How devastating it must be to feel like you have no one.

I know how fortunate I am to have met so many genuine people since my move to Victoria, and I am incredibly blessed to have a network of close friends in a city that is still somewhat foreign. Slowly but surely, Melbourne is becoming home.

Sometimes, I think to myself, ‘there must be something wrong with me’ or I ask, ‘am I unloveable?’ as though a relationship is the saving grace to me feeling this way. And then I realise they’re just irrational fears and projections, not the truth. My standards in love have always been high and I still hold out hope that the best is yet to come.

I have made difficult decisions to uproot everything I know so that I can have the life that I ultimately want. I have challenged myself to grow as a person and to face the ugliest parts of myself. I have worn my heart on my sleeve and taken countless chances in love. I have been brave enough to walk away from men that promise me the world but give me fragments. I have been both the heartbreaker and the heartbroken and each time has taught me more about myself.

I am still learning. I will continue to be a student until the day the world ceases to be tangible to a human me.

I am not interested in leaving a legacy but if I am able to make a positive impact on someone’s life once in a while, then that would make me proud. Last week, a regular at the poetry and prose session admitted that he had no friends. It wasn’t a plea for help, nor a call to pity. He spoke his truth as though it was all he’d ever known and I was simultaneously saddened and humbled by his statement.

Perhaps to this gentle soul, loneliness does not pervade his thought process and he finds calm in being alone. Or maybe it’s been a byproduct of circumstance and he has had no choice but to accept the reality. Either way, I would like to be friends. When I listen to him read children’s poems, I am taken to a far simpler time. And for a few minutes, I remember what it was like to know nothing more than a sweet, youthful innocence. It’s really fucking nice.

We all deserve to feel connection and it is up to us to be the change we want to see in the world. Let’s start with sharing a bit of our time with a stranger. You never know whose day you might make brighter with your presence, and vice versa. Loneliness. Does. Not. Discriminate. Invest in your relationships and never stop making an effort with people you love.

I often find myself spending a lot of time in deep reflection but the past couple of months have made it hard to do so. With so much newness and travel, I have been absorbed in the present, taking in everything this magnificent world has to offer. And honestly, it’s been so fucking nice.

I’ve shared unforgettable experiences with some of my closest friends, and swum with whale sharks in the beautiful reefs of Exmouth. I’ve met fellow travellers from all around the world, each with tales of faraway places I haven’t the slightest clue about. I’ve eaten new foods and been fortunate enough to glimpse other local cultures and their ways of life.

I’ve explored rural Vietnam on the backs of strangers’ motorbikes, and trekked through the rice fields of Sapa in torrential rain with mud thicker than I have ever seen. I have scarred pieces of my skin and farewelled items of clothing on my journey, but in return I have gained so, so much. It’s humbling, and it’s inspiring.

A few months ago, I decided that I would spend half of next year making my way through Europe and South America. Never have I been more sure of that decision. Though it means I will have to make some sacrifices in the meantime, the end goal is worth it. This will be the opportunity of a lifetime and I can’t wait to see these plans come to fruition.

I am constantly reminded of how lucky I am to be able to live life in the way I have always dreamed of and I am so grateful for all the beautiful people around me. I really do believe that when you put out good into the world, life rewards you. So I try my best to be kind whenever I can.

But sometimes that means letting go of people in order to honour yourself and what’s best for you. You might unwillingly hurt others along the way but there’s only so much burden we each can take on. I have had to say goodbye to Ryan as we weren’t ready for the same things. I’m sad that it had to come to this, but being friends really wasn’t an option. I hope he knows how lovely a man he was and I am so grateful to have known him, even if only for a short period.

I sit in yet another airport gate as I write this, watching planes descend upon the tarmac. And I’m ready for more.

I have learned some very difficult but necessary truths from this journey with Nate. Sometimes you try your best and it’s still not enough. That’s not a reflection on you and somewhere out there, my person awaits. I now realise I dived head first into a losing battle from the very beginning. Trying to build a future with a man that had idealism at the forefront of his search for his forever partner meant that I could never live up to his expectations. I destroyed parts of myself trying to understand his paradox of wanting to find the one, but expecting the demise of everything good in his life.

I’ve learned that feelings are not static, and that people use their trauma to excuse poor behaviour and mixed messages. That really impacted my sense of self-worth, because how could someone say to you one day that you’re the most special person they’ve ever met and that your voice is their favourite sound in the world, and then have zero regard for your feelings the next? That they’d never connected with anyone like this before and they’d told their friends that you could genuinely be the one?

It was the loneliest I have ever felt while being involved with someone and I often wondered to myself what the point of staying was. Being with Nate felt like having someone without ever really having them at all. I couldn’t confide in him about anything, his efforts would be inconsistent, and making plans felt like pulling teeth. I lost the space of calm that I’ve always prided myself on, and I started to long for his attention which he would give in fleeting but grand moments.

He knew all the right things to say, but when it really mattered, he couldn’t live up to his promises. Caught between trying to appease the person whose behaviour was so hard to read, I began to lose myself in the cognitive dissonance of what I now realise was his disorganised attachment at play. The constant highs and lows left me in a permanently confused and anxious state of mind and I didn’t know who I was anymore. He was a master manipulator, operating under the facade of being a hopeless romantic with a troubled past.

Nate was always chasing the big feeling, and hoping that he’d know when he felt it. But I am better than that. I know that true connection takes time, a lot of work, communication and commitment to cultivate into something real. I’m not searching for one in a million, I’m looking for enough. Because to me, that is a high but realistic bar. If your idea of love is based off your feelings in the moment, then you can’t possibly know what it is. Because feelings are fickle, and they will fail you once the initial euphoria of getting to know a person fades. You have to choose to be present with the person each day otherwise every relationship you pursue will be a dead end.

Looking back, perhaps we were both sold on a fantasy of each other given how this all started. A whirlwind romance while I was abroad, with both of us taking express but virtual courses in each other’s lives and pasts. Of course we would have filled the gaps with our imaginations. I never felt fully comfortable in his presence, and even less so in the inbetween moments, always uncertain of whether he still had feelings for me. Even with more exposure, it never felt more natural and I realise now that I was longing for the dream of this man as I’d painted him in my imaginarium.

I will miss the initial days of our little story, where I looked forward to receiving messages from him, where we never ran out of things to say to one another, and where our very beings were so aligned that there was never any room for question. But beyond that, he gave me nothing but the promise of a fantasy. He played with my feelings carelessly and excused his poor and inconsistent behaviour constantly. He had to control the narrative, and even after a mutual breakup, he managed to make me feel like I was the one who’d been broken up with. We’d emotionally bonded over a lot of his past traumas and that created a false sense of closeness.

I’ve read somewhere that it’s not about how someone feels about you, what matters is how someone makes you feel about yourself. I never felt like I could be myself in his presence and it’s heartbreaking knowing that I put myself through that for as long as I did. Though it’s been hard to leave, my journal entries speak the hard truth. That there has never been a moment where I have felt certain about him. Next time, I need to trust my intuition more. Because if something doesn’t feel right, it usually isn’t.

It’s taken a while for my heart to catch up to what my mind already knew. That there was something dark lurking beneath the charming facade of this quiet, introspective man. I’m glad I got out when I did, because I don’t know who I would have become if this continued on. The past week has been filled with a lot of self reflection, and I’ve collapsed in tears after asking a million unanswerable questions. But moving on is a choice, and the first step is accepting that things did not work out irrespective of the reason. I’ve asked myself two important questions to keep me grounded when my thoughts start to loop: Was I happy in the relationship? Did I feel like I could be 100% myself? The answer to both is no, and that’s all that matters.

I once thought he could have been my great love, but I now realise he came into my life for a reason. To teach me some important lessons about myself and relationships. Next time, I’m not settling for anything less than I deserve, because I am enough. I should have seen the warning signs earlier but I won’t make the same mistakes again.