I chased a butterfly and found... a lesson.

I chased a butterfly (intuition) and found… a lesson. 

And boy did it suck. 

I’ve been in a season of practiced celibacy, solitude, and silence for some time, channeling that energy into healing and creative projects. In the past few weeks I’ve felt myself softening, ready to open up, ready to let the sunlight reach the parts of my skin I’d been hiding during the long, harsh winter. 

Ready for birds. And for bees. But, I suppose I wasn’t ready for the sting. 

I met a boy that stopped me in my tracks and took my breath away- literally. As I was performing a poem I’ve had memorized for some time now, we locked eyes and the words fell out of my brain and I shut down instantly forgetting everything. 

Taken by surprise, he was a beautiful soul and I treasured every moment with him, every word he spoke felt personal. Like he was reading me before he knew me. 

Connection does not come easily for me, not with men. I am a well-guarded tower and this man scaled my walls before I even stood a chance. 

We spoke for hours a day, for weeks. I have only ever felt this seen by one other person- one who wounded me so deep I nearly lost myself. I didn’t realize I wasn’t ready for that level of intimacy just yet, wasn’t prepared to extract what came before to be fully present with what is before me now- this beautiful man who deserved a chance at a blank canvas. 

We said we would take the scenic route, careful not to fall into old patterns of rushing into things too soon. I wanted to take the scenic route, but unfortunately my heart moved faster than my feet. 

Feeling that depth of vulnerability brought a wounded aspect of myself to the surface, one I’ve been working with for some time in parts therapy, a hypnotherapy practice inspired by Gestalt. His ability to see right through me and his care for my being brought forth the wounded teenager in me. 

She and I have been healing our relationship. I’ve been making amends to her and my inner-kid for ways I betrayed us by self-abandonment in the name of love. I told them I wouldn’t get into a relationship until I won their trust again. Until I proved to myself that I would not self-sacrifice and fall into old ways of people-pleasing anymore. I wanted to honor that pact I made with them. 

When I started to feel that tightness in my chest, the anxieties surface about how rapidly I was falling for a boy I did not know, I didn’t want to listen to her. I wanted to tell myself that this is a classic abandonment wound, fear of intimacy and attachment, you’re running again, babygirl. Take off the running shoes and let this good man love you. 

I thought I could. I thought I was ready. 

However, years ago I decided that I could not date someone who has a pattern of making and breaking plans, running very late, or says they’re going to be somewhere only to disappoint me. I loved a beautiful woman for three years, and after she consistently proved inconsistent, I made a firm rule: three strikes, and you’re out. 

Meaning if in the first few weeks of seeing one another, we make concrete plans and you show up hours late or not at all, I do not want to make plans with you anymore. 

I don’t wait. And I won’t chase. 

It’s not that I want to have rigid rules, but I also don’t want to feel like that 8-year-old foster kid, sitting on a lawn, waiting all day long for a visit with a mom who swore to her she’d come on THIS Saturday, at THIS time. I can’t go back to the time when I was so assured in her to show up that I’d wake up early, finish all my chores, and sit bored on a lawn by myself while the other kids played and I spent Saturdays waiting for a mother who never came because I could not abandon the belief that she would... 

Because she loved me, after all. 

Waiting for hours or days takes me to an emotional age regression I didn’t want to be in because I can behave in ways that don’t align with my current being. 

Like a hurt child who feels unimportant, and I just don’t want to feel that way. So, I know that poor time-management and unrealized expectations just doesn’t feel good in my body and so I don’t date people who have this behavioral pattern. 

Not because they’re bad, but because it feels bad in my body. 

I told my inner teen that I hear her. That’s what she really needs. We aren’t going to abandon our standard of treatment for anyone, babygirl. 

If I’m being honest, I almost did. I wanted to be with this one with a beautiful heart-space and brilliant mind so badly that I overlooked the third time rule, but my anxiety got the best of me anyway. 

She reminds me that we are looking for the total package, like Dorothy, we want COURAGE, brains, and heart. And I am afraid my soft heart scared the poor boy away. 

Alas, such is life. I am still here, with the sun on my skin, only temporarily stung but not recoiling, not running anymore because I can trust myself and my choices more today than I could before the boy with beautiful eyes taught me lessons I’ll never forget. 

You were my favorite lesson, my dear friend. I will always treasure you.