Authenticity

Ever since I was a child, I thought love was magical.

I thought the moment I found my soulmate would be triumphant,

an otherworldly experience and until then I would be lacking.

The moment would feel like every problem being solved.

The feeling would be a warm embrace in the chill of early autumn.

The embrace would be sincerely by someone who knows exactly how to ease my soul.

The emptiness I felt in my chest being without the true feeling of love, carved into my existence every day.

A part of me didn't know if love was real.

Or if soulmates existed.

Occasionally, my thoughts would berate me with the notion that it was childish to think soulmates are real but the child-like wonder I felt inside of me was too obnoxious to ignore, especially after I saw her.

Our eyes locked as she stood parallel to me.

20 feet away but my gaze etched every detail of her into my minds-eye.

Collecting each fault her parents had gifted her.

Mesmerized by the way her body moved so surely.

I stood still for a moment as the pocket watch in her eyes swung back and forth and hypnotized me.

A powerful energy assembled inside of me, beginning in my hearts center and then pumping through my veins.

My hand gently held on to my face, catching the warmth that now gathered in my cheeks.

A smile arose.

It was me.

Misguided in life as a girl blooming into a woman.

Craving confidence from the ways in which I was told I should physically look and mentally be.

Needing reassurance from those whose opinions went against my own thoughts.

Dimming my own light in order to hide amidst the crowd to avoid being noticed for my own inauthenticity.

I continued to stare at my reflection and each minute I did I felt more and more admiration for myself.

I fell in love with the attributes that others told me to hide.

I fell in love with the energy I exuded.

The other half of myself that I so desperately needed could no longer be silenced by the way I was told I should be and could no longer be hidden away.

Once the walls had fallen and I saw her, truly for the first time.

I fell in love.

The feeling of existing without my other half wasn't the lack of another's soul but the wholeness of my own.