flowers from darkness
The road home is long, & we squeeze each others hands tight. Despite it all, I am still giddy in love. I find my glimpses of joy in the texture of his hair through the tips of my fingers, in the wind dancing through my curly unkept hair, his smile & classic taste in music. Through it all, I am happy just to BE here, with him, with Sadie. Together. Each time we stop for driving breaks & we seperate for little moments, I ponder on the distance we are about to have between us. & I am sent on a whirlwind of feeling. There is always a deeper knowing that guides me home.
Roey our wonderful friend is awaiting our return in Melbourne. It’s three days before new year & soon I fly to Perth to see my family before going off to India. It’s nice to see her again. I trace the details of her gorgeously cute face, & feel so fricken lucky. This girl has held my heart, dreams, goofiness close since the day we met in preschool. Hailing from the same hometown
I feel everything. & I am not quite sure what to do with it all. It’s a rainbow, but not only of the bright happy colours. I know this is good - to go there to my deepest parts, try - but still fail - to hold space for the ugly bits. How to transform all that I feel into love? I just don’t know in this moment. Sometimes I wish I could feel things less intensely.
In the same space that the disappointment & darkness lives, lay bittersweet silver linings. Our mutual feelings of sadness & complete emotional exhaustion see us coming together & laying in sweet nothingness. It’s a forehead-touching, eye-gazing, still, warm & sweet skin on skin, taking in the floating specks of dust that are gloriously lit up by sun streams through curtains of our old, oversized victorian bedroom kind of nothingness. The beauty in returning early from our Christmas trip is we get the time we have so deeply been craving from the depths of us, just not in the way we planned for. Isn’t that always the way?
I leave tomorrow. To WA. I am deeply ready & excited to see my family. To be in my hometown. There has been strain over the years with the distance between us since moving away. It’s as if a mirror has been shone unapologetically on the things that needed to change, on our differences. The unsaid boiled & bubbled fiercely inside when I went away. & finally, after 4 years, I am starting to feel home with my Mum, Dad, brothers & where I come from. & this time it’s healthy, because I have found my real home in all of it & have chosen it again & again. The happiness is explosive. I have often said when I am sad I feel I need a whole other body to process the weight of everything. It’s the same for this happy feeling.
I am sitting by myself, sipping a spiced chai after seeing the beautiful children I have cared for over the last 2 years as I realise - I feel giddy. The wind brushes my cheek & the sunshine kisses my entire spine - suddenly the darkness lifts & it feels as if it was all a dream. Time & space really do wonders.
I decide to surprise Matt with a plane ticket to Perth. & I realise, here is where I have transformed it all into love. The cheeky, wild kiss of spontaneity has danced it’s challenge into my ear & accept! Oh the magic!
x
The morning we leave the butterflies in my stomach are having a party. Leaving Melbourne means not coming back for 2 months, facing fears & going off on my own away from all I have ever known.
Matt & I race each other through the sky on different planes & I am so content & giddy thinking of him floating somewhere in the sky next to me.
I stumble off my plane & my heart is in my throat with next level anticipation. Finally the one who has completely turned my world upside down & the right way up all at once, is going to meet my family.
My parents come to my terminal first. They always do this thing where they pretend only one of them is coming & like dorks they all hide (not very well) when they see me coming down the terminal escalators.
The part that always melts me most is when my Dad’s eyes unfailingly well up at my arrival. His girl, home again. Even if only for a little while. We are getting better at the art of treasuring the small bits of time we do have together, with hope the future holds our magical vision of having months of this at a time.
We walk hand in hand with all our happy tears back to the car & drive to the next terminal where Matt will be getting in. It doesn’t feel real yet that Matt is here too.
When we arrive we see him straight away & I just melt at everything about him. I look next to me to my Mum & I see her eyes glow at the sight of him. She loves him already - a rare occasion.
x
It’s the week we needed all year. It was so special for me to see my love get the rest & zone out time he needed. Most of the time when Mum & I or the family go out for spontaneous coffee dates, matt would stay & enjoy the home I grew up in. Do his own thing. I love this about him. The way he so unapologetically serves what he is most needing first before tending to outer needs.
x
& just like that, we are sitting on the beach - the whole family there except my older brother - on our last night. I try to keep my mind off India & my stomach from dropping quickly down to through every layer of Earth. It would also be the last night I would see Matt for 2 months. I am so glad & sad. We have never spent more than a weekend apart.
We wake at 4.30am & I feel so nervous I could vomit. Every part of me screams with fear.
I spread my wings anyway.