i want to feel loved without feeling like i was begging for it.
the afternoon of the eclipse : tucked in bed, hot water with lemon, rose water toner and under eye masks, honey hair oil, healing frequency music, glasses on, contacts out, leggings and an old tank top, all the way in dream land.
“I had a newsletter go viral.” I know it’s been a while since I last saw him, and I never want to be the person that’s trying too hard to prove that they’re happy. But he’s been too involved in this whole process. It would be wrong not to share.
And it’s true about the latter. I am happy.
He smiles. “Not surprised, Emily Mais. Maybe just more surprised that it didn’t happen sooner.”
I roll my eyes. “You wanted it to be one about you, didn’t you?”
“Well. I feel like I’m intertwined in all of them. In some way.”
He’s not wrong.
“So. How does it feel?”
“Being somewhat famous? I’ve always liked my nickname. OFM.”
I smile. Our First Muse. But when I look at him this time, it’s different. It all feels different. It’s almost as if…the energy of desire is gone. And not desire in the physical sense - I don’t think that will ever go away. But, desire in the “I would do anything to change the circumstances between us” sense.
I can’t tell how I feel about this. It’s like when the shine of an object eventually wears off. Or when you become thankful you never got what you actually wanted. But he’s right - he’ll always be a part of me, and a part of this, in some way.
And for that, I am thankful.
I close my eyes and rest my head against his shoulder. The navy blue zip-up fleece against my cheek. He leans his head against mine for a split second and squeezes my knee, but I know his eyes are semi-glued to the hockey game in front of us.
A dynamic that never gets old, a dynamic that never changes.
Home.
In his perfect world, we’d have kids and a house in High Park. I feel like he’d want a son that he’d drive to hockey and watch practice on Tuesday nights.
But I’d hope to have a little girl. I was not built (or born) to sit in hockey arenas.
Or, maybe, we wouldn’t have kids at all. We’d run around the world together. He always wanted to write in Havana.
“A balcony. A cappuccino. A cigarette. And you.”
My eyes are still closed, and my head is still resting on his shoulder. “You were right, you know.”
Now, I know his eyes aren’t glued to the game anymore.
“About what?”
I pause and look up at him.
“That night. When you told me that I needed to have some sort of semblance as to what I want.”
I want to feel loved without feeling like I was begging for it.
In the evenings, I set all of the dimmers in my apartment to their lowest setting.
I light candles. I listen to Lana. Pink Champagne is my new favourite.
My bed is always made, and my clothes are always hung. And sometimes, I’ll sit on the edge of my bed. And I think of how some evenings always start here. A washed face, pyjamas on. And then we dream. And when we dream, we always end up somewhere entirely new, somewhere entirely different.
“I met someone.”
“Ok, Emily. I don’t know if I want to -”
“No, but let me finish. It was the first time…in like, a really long time. Where I just felt, more open. And more hopeful. Like, I started to believe in it all again.”
I know he wants to pry. To ask what he does, or what he did - for a living.
But instead, he asks, “Is he nice to you?”
“I mean, the timing of it all was off. He needed to focus on himself, and I’m starting to realize that I want someone to focus on me. On us.”
“So are you with him or not?”
“No.” I respond. “The whole point of this story was to tell you that I’ve figured out what I wanted.”
I want to feel love without feeling like I am begging for it.
final eclipse thoughts:
I’ve added Lorde’s Buzzcut Season to my I-Am-Staying-In-Bed-Contemplating-Life playlist. It’s when she sings, “And I’ll never go home again….and nothing’s wrong when nothing’s true/I live in a hologram with you”
My spiritual healer said to me - you can never go back to who you were. And it’s something that I’m currently thinking about on the evening of the eclipse. How none of us truly ever go home again, rather, it’s definition keeps on changing - and we have no choice but to change with it. Those grand finales from the universe.
I have this thing that I personally love. And it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen from a select few. It’s when people call me delusional, or when they tell me to take off my rose-coloured glasses.
We can’t repeat the past, this I know. But we can still study it. Fall in love, fall out of love, and find the common thread that weaves everything together.
So, for this letter, I decided to write a dream of closure. I wore the delusional comment with a badge of honour, and imagined what it would be like telling OFM about my recent fling with MFB.
A lot of the times, I find myself in situations where people ask me what I want.
I often respond with, “I don’t know.”
But what I do know, is that I am finally believing in this:
I want to feel love, without feeling like I am begging for it.