So, we had spaghetti and meatballs and we talked. God, it was so easy. It was so nice to be with this person after so many “mistakes” and wrong ones. He was genuine and he was real and he was sweet. I could feel it. I’ve always had good instincts about people. I pick up on red flags and off vibes right away. I know if there’s a real shot for a future with someone. Generally, I don’t suffer fools gladly. Although, I regretfully admit, there have been times that I would know the truth about someone, but still string the person along just to kill time, to have a distraction from myself. I could be very careless with people’s hearts. Ugh…that’s so horrible…I had no idea how deeply self-centered I was.

But he was something…I remember his boys were asleep when I got there. He went back to check on them numerous times throughout the night. It was very touching. Everything about his life situation at the time, spoke to me. It reminded me so much of the way I grew up, raised by a single dad with twin boys. My mom ‘sometimes’ in the picture…same as theirs.

The night came to an end, and he didn’t make a move…not a kiss, nothing. I was kind of disappointed and confused. I began to wonder if maybe he wasn’t that into me. He ended up texting me later that night, something along the lines of, “Just so you know, I’m kissing you the next time I see you.” It made me laugh.

The next time we hung out, he did. He kissed me…I hate to say this, but it was kind of awkward. I don’t know what I was expecting, but no one had ever kissed me like that before. I’m more of a bite your lip, all or nothing, passionate kisser. The way he kissed me was slow and deliberate and soulful, passionate all the same. He playfully demanded a redo.

He came over a few nights later. I surprised him with a little adventure. Admittedly, in my own way, I was testing him. I had discovered by then that men who are afraid to get dirty or don’t connect with nature, just aren’t for me. I took him to a lake nearby.

It was late spring, early summer…the weather that night was perfect. I asked him if he liked nature, hiking, water…he said anywhere near the water was good with him. We sat in the grass, watched the stars…talked about them. Listened to the croaking Bull Frogs…counted their croaks and wondered about their language. We moved to under the cover of a Willow tree, our legs dangling over the water, holding hands. It was surreal, like out of a movie…I remember getting a strong sense of déjà vu (and I told him)…I had absolutely done this before, somewhere, at some time, with him (didn’t tell him this part). Reluctantly, because he thought it would be cheesy to tell me in the moment, he said that déjà vu meant that you were exactly where you were supposed to be…on the right path. We kissed.

We went back to my house…physically inseparable. We sat on my couch, facing each other, my legs draped over his. I was so happy…falling, falling, falling…in love, so in love. I completely knew it and, at first, I wasn’t scared. I found him endearing. He was so smart and really sweet and a great dad and a hard worker and he was creative and he had dreams! I could fully be myself with him. It was so amazingly refreshing, like rain at the end of a hot summer day…He was truly incredible, and I was smitten.

During this first week of us talking, I believe it was the very day we started, he lost his job. The next day or so, he was out for a ride on his motorcycle and stopped for coffee. He was sitting outside drinking it when a hawk swooped out of nowhere and grabbed a squirrel. The hawk flew to the roof of the coffee shop, right where he was, with the squirrel in its grip. He sent me a picture.

“The hawk possesses many hunting skills. When pursuing prey, their most common skill is to swiftly follow its efforts to get away. Once the prey is caught in the Hawk’s mighty talons, it is then dismembered with their sharply pointed, powerful beak. For us, this may indicate that we may be able to run, but not hide from our destiny. For, eventually it will catch up with us,” Ina Woolcott.

Things between us seemed to come together effortlessly. With him, life started to make sense. I became hopeful for the future. We were together every single spare moment either of us had, which was never enough. He took a job delivering cabinets (I think it was cabinets). He would come to my house, and we would stay up all night, into the early morning when he would have to leave for work. He would get no sleep for days. We would stay up, listen to music and talk or make love or play games or drink tea or go to the lake. And I loved it…every second of it. We referred to it as “Our Universe.” It was a place I never wanted to leave and always longed to return to…the only place I had ever been that could put a lump in my throat out of pure awe. I had found home in a person.

(And that was my first mistake…my home was never him. My home was always me. I just needed him in order to see…)

Less than a month in, he texted me, “I think I love you.” We talked about it later that night. It was a mostly logical, very “adult” conversation about love…”We have kids. We need to be responsible and smart. This is crazy. It’s too soon. How can we love each other when I don’t even know how you treat your mother or if you’re a good tipper or not?” Blah, blah, blah…love is the most illogical thing I can think of and here we were thinking we knew something. We had no idea what our love was going to turn into. We ended the conversation and went back into Our Universe. After he left that early morning, I started thinking about our rational love talk and realized I didn’t like it. I texted him right then, “I love you and I don’t care.”

It’s an interesting point, in retrospect, that whenever we tried to connect via our minds using logic or the like, the connection would get lost or at least unsteady…it’s a phenomena I have never experienced with any other person. When either of us came from this place, we would automatically send some kind of invisible alarm to the other one and eventually scare them off. It was as if we couldn’t recognize each other.

Our minds house our fears, self-justifications, lies, memories of past pains, our egos…all things untrue. Our Universe could only exist when we were coming from our hearts and from the truth. From our truest selves following our intuition…when we were leading with our souls.