And then there were 2

The words of my dearest one when we were all alone in one night in Manchester. We’d gone from a group of 5 to 2 and when it became the 2 of us it those where the words he used. Those words, were the starting gun of a beautiful evening. The start for me, of magic. That evening was the most divine I have been probably ever. Instinctive, joyful, perceptive. So beautiful. It proves magic does exist. Love is magic, when your heartbeat is raised and you can see and hear and feel so much more than you normally can. That’s magic. You have taken on superpowers. Love is apparently a superpower. Someone’s presence can be a drug, marriage for me is just the legalising of that drug. Making it a socially acceptable addiction.

I want to say, I can never go back to the girl in that evening, that girl is as dead as the fantasy. But the feelings remain, an imprint on my brain is all she left behind.

And then there were 2

I got to be young. Can you imagine it? I was young, playful. Life was, like a movie. A romance for 25 minutes… I have a young soul, an innocent one, and it was exposed. How beautiful. Romance isn’t mechanical, isn’t outwardly expressive. Joy takes the form of playful arguments and trading bits of the soul. I remember so much of that night, yet so little of years of my life. I can tell you how I felt about what I wore, I can tell you to the inch how tall the streetlights were, and how that affected the lighting and how it cast shadows across his face. I can tell you how many times he looked at his phone. I can tell you almost word for word what we said.  I can tell you so much about how my heart felt light as a feather, and how all that went before, didn’t matter. That was the key. That nothing ever mattered. I was present, I wasn’t thinking about anything else, other than his words. That has never happened before. Not with such intensity. The woman who was wearing all leather that night, she was someone I’d never met before, and she loved everything.

I was living abundantly for the first time and that night was the apex of my love story. . I have no access to his social media, he’s very conservative in terms of his online presence. So there are no photos of him. All I have is my imagination and that night.

I don’t want to focus on him too much. It was beautiful, and I miss the beauty of it. But instead I want to talk about the person I was. A woman just peeping through. The woman who will never again, be put back in her box, she knows what to demand. Intellectual curiosity, cheekiness, fun, authority, passion, handsomeness, gentleness, inherent goodness. Let’s face it, there was deep emotional connection for me. He spoke to me and levelled with me in incredible clarity, he spoke to me as if I could understand, and I could, only for the first time. When I say that, I mean his accent is that of those I had when I was growing up. He still speaks like someone straight out of my memories. Hence it resonated, everything he said became so much more impactful, because he could speak to the woman and the inner child. That’s why I can tell you about so much that night. It was like being in a foreign land and finding someone who speaks your language. Your mother tongue falls gratefully out of your mouth as you speak, knowing you’ll be heard and understood for the first time. Its an incredible feeling, because often people confuse muteness with stupidity. But it just means you can’t communicate in a way that can get you heard. Doesn’t mean you’re stupid. It means you are conserving energy.

He has a way with people, like something I haven’t seen before. I know he probably has this effect on so many other people, but it is nice to be spoken to as if you are the only person who matters in the room. Not because he hasn’t got any other option but to talk to you, but because he does…and he still wants to speak with you.

The truth about life that everyone wants to rob you of is that there are far too many moments of clarity. Too few moments when you realise what you want. “Oh…this makes sense…this makes me feel alive” People are settling, but when you see and understand that which makes you feel truly alive, why people write poems, songs, plays all about love. You finally understand why a man would bring a lady a rose every day to court her. You understand why someone would toil for hours in order to put a smile on someone else’s face for a second. Why that smile is as vital as the oxygen in the lungs. I genuinely thought myself immune to those feelings, the urgency, the addictive nature of seeing someone and that person making your day. Anything even a smidgen lower than the power, the intensity of feeling will not do. Because I have tasted the fruit of the gods and so no darling you can’t take me to Mcdonalds.  That’s not real food, it can’t really sustain you, and I’m a romantic, it will kill me. Its not poison, its starvation. I have opened my eyes to the new me.

The me with so much love to give. So utterly romantic, who desires to be cherished, adored, looked after. Previous versions of me was going for “please don’t disgust me…” and still men were failing to meet that low bar. Now my bar is “enthrall me, enchant me, excite me.” If you can’t produce a soaring height of feeling. Love really should be measured in terms of how far off the ground that person makes you levitate, if your shoelaces still scrape the ground the marriage shouldn’t go through. I pray for a love that is a force of nature, a love that is as is a misquote of 1 Kings chapter 19 verse 11-12 Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that my beloved replaces God, he does not.

11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

My love will be as follows.

“I soared like an eagle up to the mountains, my love flew with me in the mountains. When the earth shattered beneath my feet, it was my love’s hands that I clung to for comfort.  I felt the wind in my wings, my love was with me as the gusts blew, holding me. I felt an earthquake, my love was steading me during the earthquake…then…my love spoke, in a still small voice of calm…”

That is love to me. With me in everything. Holding me, and then…the still small voice of calm, in the chaos of life.

Then there were 2.

The second piece of theology comes from a song… my favourite Christian song… In Christ alone.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!

Yes my loves, this is what love should feel like, the heights of peace being so important.

I have cried so many times. Alone. Sometimes it feels like that “fears stilled…strivings cease…” will be on my last breath. But I live in the hope, that there will be a day that I can stop shaking, stop trembling, have someone hold me until the fevers end Then the rest of life won’t be so much “striving” but far more “walking in love” taking the struggle out of life, because I no longer have to do it alone, allowing me to see the wonder of the earth… To take on a different form. The virtuous woman, the woman who is not cold anymore, but alive, to touch, to feel, to embrace all that here is in life. She can only do that when she’s not shaking, and she can only stop shaking when she’s not in shock from all the trials. So treat my heart like you would a first aid patient… wrap it warm, insulate it from perils, elevate it, and most of all, keep talking. Soothing…hushing…

The third quote comes from Songs of Solomon Chapter 8 vs 7

“Many waters cannot quench love,

Neither can the floods drown it:

If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,

It would utterly be contemned.”

A friend tried to destroy me. She tried to destroy the happiness these memories brought me, but many waters cannot quench love my dears. The memories came back. The feelings came back. Why? Because it had so much resonance within me. I am capable of incredible passion. Being an analyst, I have to detach that part of myself. Instead my loves, I got to be me. Bea, Bea is a woman of ardor, a woman who is intuitive. The part of herself which needs growth is that part, because that part is the part that steps into love. I don’t want love quenched. I want it burning, let it warm me. I don’t want feelings smothered to make you comfortable. Your comfort is not my concern. I don’t want something beautiful drowned. This earth doesn’t have enough beauty, why would we kill the little we have? Why race to hell? Why not build a staircase to heaven

So this wild romantic finds herself letting Kylie Minogue’s “on a night like this..” soak into her consciousness.

On a night like this… I wanna stay forever…

On a night like this… Just wanna be together…”

Could any 2 lines describe more perfectly my thoughts on the night of the 28th of November? I couldn’t get bored of his conversation and I was souped up on love drugs that my brain didn’t want to see anyone else. Its so amazing how the universe really does give you perfect moments. When I talk of “heart soaring moments” I mean this. We didn’t encounter a soul..in the middle of Manchester, after an England game. The world really did belong to Joe and Bea that night. The heady pleasure of having the world at your fingertips and being able to breathe with your whole lungs as air had just taken on a new sweetness. Is hard to describe. But that is how life should be…24/7. Not just a beautiful evening, but a beautiful life. If it is possible once, then its possible a million times, forever.

 I now understand what it means when the Yanks say…

“If it isn’t a hell yes… then it’s a hell no.”

No matter what else this life throws at me, I will always have that night… when there were 2. Two souls, two heartbeats. One man, one woman and a night when that was all that mattered in the universe.

I hope and pray, you all have a night in your lives that are so beautiful as mine was on the 28th November 2022.

I also pray for many more nights like that to come.

Grace and Courage.

Annetta Mother Smith.