When You Just Know

The rivers of life and an unexpected call from Love.

I’ve been down with a migraine for two days, requiring lots of resting and hydrating. Now the week seems to be gone.

It’s grey outside. Rain pours down timidly every now and then, with gusts of wind making the leaves swirl and the windows sing like a thousand whistles. It’s cozy inside my bed, these magical electric blankets feel like a bear’s hug. It’s difficult to wake up, I don’t want to wake up. I roll around for a bit longer. I’m a sleepyhead and I enjoy slow mornings. Not a luxury I’ve been able to enjoy in this way until now, and I want to seize every second of it.

My partner walks in with a warm cuppa tea and a sweet good morning in his lips. I’m becoming quickly spoiled. I feel grateful.

It was only six months ago when I came here for the first time, to this flat, to this small Scottish seaside town. I came to visit a friend, my best friend whom I hadn’t seen since before pandemic. We’ve had history together, one which we both hold dearly in our hearts.

It was a short visit, which turned into a whole new (and unexpected) experience. We sat there together, in the middle of the night, chatting about things, catching up about life.

“It’s really nice to have you here”, he said.

“I’m really happy to be here”, I replied.

“No, really, it’s so nice to have you here”, he said with a deeper tone in his voice.

I smiled. My heart skipped a beat and my thoughts knew something else.

Love knocked at my door again, right there, in the middle of a fresh Spring Scottish night.

Love came back after five years. After a spacious time of being within, growing, unlearning and relearning, processing and healing in the silence of oneself.

We sat there, surprised, smiling at each other, gazing into each other’s presence, silently for a few seconds, hearing the sound of feelings, and feeling the heart’s thumping coming through. A rush that quickly turned into calmness, into this knowingness that needs no words. Into a hug of certainty, of clarity, of opportunities. The hug of love.

I had been living intensely in the last few years and decades, taking every opportunity, and seizing every dream. I had been flowing through my own river, happily and with no regrets. But there was something different about this point in time. There was calmness. There was the absence of doubt. There was joy and a sense of inner peace. There was a whole yes in my body and in my soul.

When the waters have been a rafting experience for long, you come to realise you’re exhausted. The adrenaline rush has no appeal anymore. You approach the edge to take some rest, to let your thoughts and your whole existence catch some fresh air. Then, you discover the silence, the peace, the calmness. You feel something else, on your own, and it’s suddenly more attractive than anything else. More precious than any sprint in the realms of space and time.

You look back and you see yourself. She’s happy, but tired. She’s a young and energised dreamer, smiling back at you, nodding and waving at you. Signalling you. There’s no need to rush anymore. There is a new way to keep enjoying the flow. You stare at her in awe, with deep amazement and eternal gratitude. With tears in your eyes, you understand the signal. You smile back with all your love. You are ready to move on.

So you grab your raft and slide back into the water, embracing the river with this new-found calmness. It’s a new journey from here.

The waters of life will continue, both calm and messy, but the state of the heart has changed. Every experience, every thought, every feeling has transmuted. And so she flows forward, with a smile on her face and joy in her heart, knowing that the work doesn’t stop, but certain that this new-found joy and ease are now the captain of her ship.

Life changes when you change yourself from within.

She understood that love is a root we all hold inside. All those times she felt alone, distant from the world outside her door…it was only an illusion. An illusion of her strained heart which couldn’t see the love that she was.

She’s on the move now, knowing that she is love, that she is everything she wants to be. Sailing and walking, while she discovers her own voice in this new world, her world. She sees her old fears from time to time. They won’t go away and it’s okay. Now she knows. She holds them tight and shows them love, so they too can rest as they go.

It’s been six months since Love showed up to share the journey and light the way. Love showed up to enhance all the other Love that she had been nurturing and harvesting herself for so long. Love showed up when they were both ready to hold each other’s hands and sail together again.

It’s been six months, but also twelve months, and five years, and ten, and twenty, and forty. This might be the midpoint of her life, in which a new life found her, changing everything she knew about herself, into actually discovering who she really was all along.

The One.

That’s the magic of such certain moments in life…those when you just know.

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Credits: Photo by Jason Yoder on Unsplash