I didn't think I would fall in love again. Not really. Not like with Connor. Maybe a gentle growing thing, something sensible, someone I might come to care about.
I will preface this by saying that she is no longer in my life like she was, but I wanted to write this anyway. I wanted to make space on this little honest blog of mine to write about how I loved her. To write of a summer unexpected and wonderful. She showed me so much about myself and what I want and what I deserve. She is, as so many of the people I love are and were and always will be, a rushing rocky whirlwind thing. She was not going to be forever.
It wasn't something I went looking for. I had sort of forgotten that you could meet organically, through mutual interests or work or people you know. I wasn't on any particular apps, the last person I had dated had faded with lockdown uncertainties, and I had not thought that this summer would bring anyone new into my life.
I found her on the farm. Blonde, which was also unexpected. A little grubby round the edges, passionate about growing and community and the world around her. She loved to cook, to swim in the sea, to walk and camp and cycle. She had a box in her caravan that was full of craft supplies, she collaged cards and cut linograph hedgehogs. Somehow I managed to make her laugh, somehow something just clicked. I thought she was one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen. For me, she just glowed.
I don't know how to date women, but she does. As I got flustered like a fifteen year old and walked the long way home just to speak to her a little bit longer, she took me by the hand and made me feel like I knew what I was doing.
We took care of each other in the months we were together. There were many tears as we shared our lives, space to grieve, space to grow. And we had fun! We ran into the sea in the evening sun, lay on the beach together under the stars, made gnocchi and gyoza from scratch, made pancakes at 5 in the morning when the sun was up and there were no curtains to shield us from the light.
She taught me how to change the inner tube in my bike tire, about companion planting and no dig farming. She didn't mind that I was a bit messy, a bit too organised, that I cared too much about my job and the families I work with. I think maybe that I taught her that she didn't always need to be alone.
It's funny, because I think I thought that being with a woman would make me realise if I was gay or not, but it just made me realise that the gender binary is arbitrary and that I don't really care either way. It's not the answer I was expecting, but I suppose it is an answer.
We were always in different worlds, hers revolved around the seasons and the sun and the weather, as mine revolved around deadlines and processes and paying my rent on time. There was never a promise of forever. I think I was waiting for it to end even as it started.
I wasn't expecting romance or love this summer. I didn't need it. I didn't search for it. But I'm glad we met, I'm proud of myself for loving her and letting her in. It has given me hope that love like that exists, that I can still be knocked sideways by someone. And one day it might be by someone a little more solid, but for now I'll take the joy that came with sharing my life and being held and having someone to tease and laugh with even if she was, as she says herself, scatty and a little hopeless. It meant a lot to me and I am hopeful that more things will come along that mean a lot and take me by surprise and take me on adventures. And I believe they will, maybe when I'm least expecting it.
