The Beginnings of a Timeless Love Story

There is a beautiful man sitting next to me. Possibly the most beautiful I have ever seen. No. Actually, he is THE most beautiful man I have ever seen - playing League of Legends in between researching the heart's electro-magnetic frequencies...

While typing this, I was overwhelmed by the sensations in my body telling me that I would do anything for him. You know, racing heart beat, butterflies, raging hormones - all that. 
It's a bitingly cold, rainy and windy autumn day in May. Wellington is a prime little city for this kind of weather. Robed in no less than 3 layers of clothing, beanie, scarf, gloves, sitting under a heater, I can't quite comprehend what my life would have been like back in sunny, tropical South Africa had I not followed my heart, or rather, this beautiful man sitting next to me.
I have vivid memories as a teenager creating a list of who "the man of dreams" is. Not knowing what I was looking for, I started listing the usual qualities you would think of for these things - good-looking, great personality, good sense of humour, etc. Boy did I get just that! And only that...
Every person has a "great personality" in essence. They just all may not gel with yours and vice versa. I later learned that being absolutely specific about what you want was the way to go. 
This relationship ended, of course. (Thank God)

So I updated my list and added in more specific qualities or traits that were missing which, not surprisingly, resembled a good chunk of my previous relationship. It came with a lot of challenges that I convinced myself to accept, which kept me from being who I so much desired to be. The relationship lasted approximately 2.5 years. 
I was left with myself, wondering what I would do with myself, remembering dreams I had of leaving South Africa, travelling, living 'the life' and painfully feeling the doubts that any of that would happen because I couldn't see 'how' to get there. I was forced to discover myself. My "the man of my dreams" list converted to my "ideal relationship" list and more details were mentally added to it. After many discoveries and realizations, one lesson became clear as day - that we are reflections of our most personal relationships because 'like' attracts 'like' and so I needed to be that ideal person in my list first. There is a quote by Neale Donald Walsch that perfectly reflects this idea. It stayed with me after years of reading his books and I still treasure it to this day; "Be who you are looking for and who you are looking for will find you". This quote had started making a whole world more of sense and I began to genuinely practice this wonderful truth everyday. Since I had made that life-transformational commitment a year ago,I find myself, in this most amazing moment, to be sitting next to the most beautiful man in my world and he is my husband.

And this is the beginning of our love story...

Our Beautiful and Life-altering Adventures of Love :)

The Stepping Stones:

As little kids we are innocent of any knowledge and experience of relationships. We become fascinated with feelings of "liking" someone in a different way from our friends and family or "having a crush" on someone. It's all very exciting and new! Without any conscious understanding of love - it is in children that you witness the innocence of love in its purest form.
Growing up, reaching puberty - just on your way to your teens - you find yourself anticipating the utterance of those three beloved words from your sweetheart, as a signal that you are special, and you think, "so this is love?" - still not understanding the depths of love and relationships, you still experience the deep ends of pain that brings. It leaves you confused, but you never give up on this mysterious feeling everyone calls love.
Just into high school, your hormones are raging, you find more people attractive and crave that special attention. You are blinded with emotions and excitement-still waiting eagerly to hear those three words-it seals the deal. 

Now you are in love.

A little while later you are left with a breakup out of nowhere to deal with. You can't understand why it happened. It caused you so much of pain and a whole new level of confusion. You thought you had this whole 'love-thing' figured out. You begin questioning it. Is it really what it's supposedly made out to be? Why can't you have it? You develop your own answers. Answers that really do make perfect sense to you and that you are satisfied with in that moment. Suddenly you have gone full blast into another relationship! Giving your all, your heart, and maybe even yourself. You know this will last, this is worth it.
Disappointment. Its heart-wrenching. What went wrong? Why? Nothing makes sense to you anymore. It's hopeless. You won't find love. You start finding fault with yourself, thinking something must be wrong with you. Love is not meant for you- its bullshit. It's not what everyone makes it out to be. It's 'over-rated'. That's what they say. You stopped believing in fairy-tales a long time ago anyway. But, deep down, subconsciously, that yearning for love is still there. 

So nearing the end of high school- we've been through enough relationships to accept that the "one" will enter your life or will happen to you in perfect time. Maybe. So we wait. Patiently.
Entering college with the same beliefs. A whole new world-a whole new life-a whole lot more lessons.
So, we've waited. We've rejected a few or more attempts being made onto us (which would have made our hearts dance a few years ago-but we've learnt what we don't want anymore). Becoming very selective about who we allow into our circle, we still have that yearning to be loved-yet know what we have been through in the past, we're skeptical about relationships now. Still questioning its system. But human nature gets the better of you and your past experiences of heartache and hurt somehow fly right past you without a single notice and low and behold, "Mr Right" has fallen into the palm of your hands. I mean, your old enough now to establish who Mr Right is, right? You are overwhelmed with happiness. You are experiencing a whole new, fresh, intense series of emotions and you think life can't get any better than this (when in actual fact it can, but you're not aware of this just yet). You have fallen love! Wohoo! Hooray for you! You look back and feel silly about your past relationships-what were you thinking? This is the first time you are experiencing so much of care and sharing and a different feeling of love from your past. This must be it. It has to be! You go out of your way to please each other. Attending to each others needs. 
Suddenly, you find yourself quite unhappy. And you can't understand why. He/she IS the one for me! I'm tired of looking for relationships! This has to be the one! You convince yourself that it's just part of the deal. You will get over it and live with it and put up with it. It's all good. I mean, so many other couples do it right? Put up with each other. It will fade. You are happy. You are just being selfish. You are afraid this will turn out a disappointment like the rest of your hopeless relationships. 

But...as you grow as a being. As you learn and become wiser and more clear about what you want. And know that what you want is what you will get and you will not settle for less - why should you? You stand up for yourself, for what you believe. You are brave and so mature now than ever before. You have learnt what you needed to from this relationship. You are grateful for it. It was good. It was what you both needed. But you can't stay in it anymore. Not if you want to soar and be the free spirit that you are. I'ts too constricting being in this relationship. You end it.
You have learnt plenty from your past.
You know exactly what you want-because you finally know who you are- with the help of your past.
You still haven't given up on love. In fact you're excited about it! You know that you will be with the one that is meant for you and you thank the Universe for that person - who is still yet to come.

You stop looking.

You learn that the essence of love and of relationships are about being the best of who you are in relation to your partner. You allow them to be exactly who they want to be, choose to be, strive to be. And they allow you the same.
You realize its not about need, but about giving. Giving without expectation from your partner. Its about learning from each other and giving each other wings to fly!

You stopped looking.

You realized that you needed to "be who you are looking for and who you are looking for will find you".
Your beloved appears into your life. Somehow. You didn't see it coming.
You find yourself in contentment, a sense of peace envelopes you in their presence. 

You need nothing from them. 

Just the need to give them love. Your beloved allows you the freedom to love yourself-which in turn allows you to love your beloved. For you realize...that you can only truly love someone by loving yourself first - or how would you be fit to love another? 
You know now that love doesn't need. It only exists. In you. It is radiated through you unto them and them unto you.
Holding hands has never felt so complete before.
You learn that you have been through so much of pain in the past but had never given up on love. You had been patient with it. Exploring it. And you understand with great clarity now, that you have been molded by these experiences, into being someone that is perfect for your beloved and your beloved has been through their pains and heartaches. Your beloved has been molded too...to be perfect for you. 

True love does exist.

You just have to be patient with it.