in honour of Taylor’s Version of “Speak Now” coming out today.
I started a playlist the day we got together for the first time. We had just met the day before. I had known who you were for maybe three weeks, but I had not given myself the space to think or feel anything besides curiosity, and attraction to how pretty your smile was. From afar, you were like a picture-perfect image of something I might as well have imagined while drawing plots of love stories I could be a character in. It seemed so out of my reach, though – until that night when we walked back together after class, and found out we were neighbours. I saw sparks fly all the way home and, as I went upstairs, I called my best friend, and told her that I thought you had seen them, too.
To be honest, at that point, I don’t think I could fathom the thought that you hadn’t felt something as well. My brain was moving faster than the speed of sound, supersonically connecting dots until I could convince myself to fall asleep — which I didn’t, by the way. I navigated that day on a 2-hour nap, trying not to pay attention to you in the classroom, unaware that I was on my way to another sleepless night. We talked until dawn like it was the easiest thing in the world. You told me we should dive into one another, I told you “let’s fall slowly.” I was holding you close, with your head on my chest, and I loved how it felt. I didn’t want to rush it, and ruin it. I wanted the slow burn, I wanted to take my time, I swear to God I did, but I gave into hurry too easily, and it was all Taylor Swift’s fault, when I listened to “Snow on the Beach”, a few hours after we parted ways. It came out last year just a few days before I got my heart broken for the first time in years. I was so upset by all the frustrated expectations I allowed myself to nurture, and the song became a symbol of all the things it seemed that I couldn’t have at the time – someone that I wanted, wanting me just the same. But it happened to you, somehow. It had felt so impossible, and, on my way back home, later that day, I think I could barely believe it was really happening. So I made that playlist.
And it would have been an okay thing for starters, but I kept adding other songs to it, I kept having ideas about what you could mean to me. That’s when it got out of control. Those songs became projections of who I wanted you to be – but I barely knew who you were! I don’t want to ask you yet, but I wonder if you could tell, during those first few weeks, that I was not taking it slow, like I had said we should, like I had asked you to do. I was much more eagerly looking forward to my imaginary plot, but these first few weeks were not like the perfect beginning I had envisioned, and you didn’t play along the lines of my story, and I panicked when I couldn’t read you as easily as I thought I would. I kept listening to those songs, and thinking of made-up memories of times I expected we would come to live together, and I got increasingly frustrated with how slowly time was moving. And you weren’t every single definition of the person I had imagined you would be — and I was convinced you had to be like that, because the person in my imagination would never break my heart, and I couldn’t stand the thought of getting hurt again.
I’m glad I took the wise advice of the people around me, aware of my anxious habits, who care to let me know when I’m about to let the voices in my head break apart something that could be good, just because I have no chill. I was so infatuated, and so, so scared, with a tempestuous mind that pours down like a cloudburst. But you made your way, through the lightning and thunder, and you met me there. Doing your best, and being so kind to me, with your peaceful, steady voice, you helped me weather through the storm in my head. And, as the sense of urgency stopped pounding, and I could breathe properly, I could finally appreciate how the appropriate measure of the time we had spent together could be enough for the day.
Today, when you texted me in the morning, I felt a shift that I hadn’t known in a long time – when an infatuation turns into a little seed of a feeling. It felt good. Without the magnifying glass of anxiety, I can feel everything more clearly, including the pleasure of realising a picture of you, but also how I honestly still feel so scared. I have no idea how you feel, even though I can tell that you like me, and that you respect me, and that you think about me when we’re not together (which is a silly thought, but one that means a lot to me). Honestly, I don’t want to say it out loud yet, but I do think I could love you, but I know there’s a lot of waves I must sail through first – because, if this seed grows into love, I want to love you and who you are, and I don’t think I’ve seen enough of you to get there. I’m scared but I want you to see me, too, and I want you to feel like you could love me, too. I overthink too much, but I’m aware of the mess, and I hope you can see through the cloudy skies when I’m gloomy and struggling to find the right words. Gosh, I still feel so silly around you, so worried about impressing you, wondering what you think of everything. I am still learning to read you, and trust you.
That playlist I started on day 1 looks much smaller now, which is only fitting for what this little time represents. It’s short, but it’s meaningful, because it doesn’t stem from my ideas of who you should be, but from the things I got to see, hear and touch with my own eyes, ears, hands and lips. The thoughts in my head spiral out of control with ease, but the feelings all through my body will keep my cool for the whole of us (I mean, all the different parts of me). But I feel safe, like I can finally take a small step back, and let it be. There are no guarantees, there is no assurance that things will end well, and that none of us will leave with a broken heart, but I feel less and less concerned about how it will end, and more and more appreciative of today, the time we get to spend together, the memories I get to keep – the way you laugh when we’re talking about something stupid, or the way you look when you open the door for me to walk in, and the fact that you care that I like it when you hug me, even though I don’t like hugs. I think I’m falling for you, so things are, indeed, going according to plan.
Photo by Michael Behrens on Unsplash
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