WALLFLOWER

"Love is precisely what comes after all that. When the spell is over. 

Then, during dinner, you're happy to be quiet, because you're at peace. 

To love someone, you must really know them. 

How can you love someone you don't know?"

- Damian (Berlin)

Not a single post in 2023. What a year. From flying across the world for Coachella which was a dream ever since I was 18, to quitting my career as a lawyer, and moving out of home and into my own for the first time. All whilst continuing to build my two businesses. 2023 was wild. In 2023 I completely forgot about my blog. That is until a friend hit me up at the end of 2023 asking for some advice about how to start/grow one. And today, the first month of 2024, I revisited it. My last post was in May 2022. So the question is, what has changed in the last year and 8 months? 

With everyone getting engaged and married this year, and my life crisis not too long ago, I'm constantly analysing my position on love and partnerships. Re-reading my last post saddened me: "Fantasising the moment I would meet 'the one', romanticising it all. But at 18, my family showed me that 'love' could kill you and at 19, my first relationship made me realise a relationship alone cannot keep you fulfilled for the rest of your life." Now 7 years into a relationship and everything has settled into peace and comfort, I question whether romance is dead or alive. Love is one thing, romance is another, just like lust and also passion. They can all be mutually exclusive.

What saddens me is I remember my childhood. Wanting a prince-charming, a big wedding, a to-die-for kind of love. But as I got older, reality and the experiences of life dampened me. I see on social media the love I once fantised about but we know what they say about social media... But a part of me still wants it, and wonders if it's realistic. I've become so hyper-independent that I question whether I subconsciously still have walls up from the trauma I've experienced at 19. And whether those walls will ever come down. When I get engaged? When I get married? When I become a parent?    

I've always hoped life would make me better, not bitter. But I've learned that life experiences can have subconscious effects on you no matter how hard you pretend you're okay and have moved on. How great would it be to live life with the naivety of a young child, in blissful ignorance. At 29 now, and turning the big 3-0 at the end of this year. I'm just tired. Tired of overthinking, of being self-aware, of being so analytical. I'm tired of social media, of the conscious and subconscious comparisons I make with others. Of being hyper-aware of my own shortcomings and weaknesses. Of battling them. Sometimes I just want to shut off my brain.