If I believe in nothing else, I believe in serendipity. I believe in those unexpected moments in life that can lead you suddenly in a different direction, that can force you to see what you were too busy looking elsewhere to notice, that can turn you slightly until you notice a new path you hadn’t been privy to consider before.
Knowing I would eventually want to date again, to feel connected to something deeper and more poignant than myself, I reactivated my online dating profile. I immediately had to find three-year-old messages from Rango and delete them, to find his own reactivated profile and block it. I wasn’t willing to dwell on what was before. There were a few passing new interests, but mostly it seemed like more of the same again. Sometimes Harley found it a useful vehicle to remind me that I could get hurt again, ever.
But then…. But then.
Days of talk. Constant, funny, respectful talk. Flirt but no innuendo, no offers or requests for late night sexting. Just getting to know one another.
And then… a great first date. Really wonderful date.
And, thus, a serendipitous moment of possibility. Of opportunity.
Yes, possibility and opportunity with this man, but also possibility that I am, just maybe, worth time and effort. Opportunity to not be the same and do the same that I’ve done before, to slow my own roll and allow connection to unfold organically. To discover someone else but also to discover things about myself, to examine my own new ways of looking at the world, whether external or internal.
Consciously, mindfully, I have chosen not to throw myself headlong into someone else. I didn’t drop my baggage suddenly at his feet and dare him to step over it. I didn’t dig deeply into him, demanding to find his damage and steel myself for what might come.
Though I did caution him that a deep Google search for me would reveal this life, of Stephanie Quinn Jackson, the writer who bears witness to the cacophony. It’s a thing, for sure, to have so much of the last seven years laid out for the world to see. Love and joy and heartbreak and fear, the incessant and sometimes brutal self-analysis that is Muchness and Light. He replied that he would rather not search for me. He’d rather learn it all from me directly.
Even if this goes nowhere, even if it ends after a couple of great dates, I have been privy to the serendipity of possibility of future, of opportunity to not be bogged down by the past, sorting and resorting my own baggage over and over in simultaneous delight and dismay.
But I am also fucking terrified. At this moment, there is an unexpected someone with the ability to hurt and disappoint me. Sure, there are other people I care about who could theoretically do the same, but those are people I already love and trust. I made the choice to accept the opportunity to be vulnerable to hurt, believing so deeply that serendipitous moments should not be ignored or taken for granted. I chose to accept the possibility of hurt because it also comes with the possibility of not hurt.
Dating me offers him the same. There is possibility that I will bolt, revolting against fear in reaction to my past. But where I have been plagued by ghosts so many times before, I have come to realize that my ghosts are my own fears, deep inside me, trying to protect me from future hurt. When I let the past fall away and listen carefully, it is variations of my own voice that I hear whispering, cautioning me that hurt is possible and to avoid whatever might feel like an imminent threat.
My insecurities are real, anchored in a very difficult past, and I am still learning how to calm those voices. He, or anyone who may come after him, certainly has his own insecurities. It doesn’t seem possible to be human and not have uncertainties about yourself that can derail you at times.
What I have come to understand is that my partners in previous relationships have blamed me when their insecurities flared. Sometimes in reaction to my shit, and sometimes in reaction to something I was never privy to, they relegated me to the role of villain, of fallen superhero, and made me the patsy for their own emotional shill. They would tell me I was wonderful and that they loved me, while they formulated an exit strategy. They compartmentalized me and rationalized losing what they said they wanted and loved most, rather than face themselves and deal with their own shit.
But what happened before is not what’s happening now. I get to choose what happens next. My future is not necessarily determined by my history. I am not doomed to repeat my past, because I am still, constantly, learning those lessons.
I didn’t stop trying. I didn’t shut down my heart completely and stubbornly refuse to embrace serendipity. I didn’t kowtow to my fears, and I won’t be blamed again for anyone else’s.
I am worth knowing. I am worth talking to and discovering and sharing. I am worth loving.
I’m worth the risk.
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