You were in my chart

 You were in my chart. The stars predicted your return.

At a time when I was skeptical about the natal chart reading for the month that I got from Sparkles, you messaged me.

I’m not sure what prompted you to ask me to trade, but just like that, you were back in my inbox again. No prior contact. No soc med connections. I do not even know your phone or email address. And suddenly, my mind was filled with what ifs.

What if this was the time God had made for us? What if He really wanted us to be together?

As much as I was afraid to admit it, I had hope. (Although as Bane implied in The Dark Knight Rises, hope poisons the soul. Hahaha)

Little did you know that it was a season when everything felt grey. So when you made me laugh with that familiar dry humor you’ve always had, it was the first time in a long while that I genuinely smiled.

I never told you this because it is too dramatic, but you came back during a time when I was so lonely. For months, I couldn’t even taste the food I was eating. And just like that, the pizza at A Mano that I shared with you became the most delicious meal I’d had in so long. Maybe you wondered why I paid for the entire thing. It really was because it was the first meal I had genuinely enjoyed in a long time.

For the first time in so long, I felt something familiar, something I hadn’t experienced in what felt like forever. I knew what it was. It was happiness.

I even felt guilty while eating at the buffet because, for a moment, I had forgotten the grief and loneliness that had been consuming me for months.

So when you said, “One month,” I hoped. I waited, excitedly.

Then you stopped reaching out, even after saying you would. Again. 

But this time, I wasn’t the same girl I was five years ago, the one who would wait and cry over every feeling you disregarded. You see, the man who once treated me as his “Dream Girl” literally ghosted me. Lol. You know what I mean.

So when you went silent, I told myself that maybe you had been placed in my life again simply because God wanted me to feel, even just for a little while, that happiness was still possible for me. That He could still bring it back into my life. Besides, I didn’t expect anything from you. Historically speaking, there really wasn’t much to expect. Haha.

You have always been my sketchy little secret and, for some time, my regret. Because had I waited, I might have fulfilled the promise I made to my younger self.

Now, before October even began, I had already gotten my reading. It kept saying that someone would come back. That my heart would be happy again. That someone wanted to tell me how sorry he was for treating me badly.

I found it strange because I had already crossed you off the list of possibilities. You never reached out, and I had already let you go. I had made peace with the fact that you weren’t the man I wanted and that this wasn’t the life I wanted for myself. You know, the kind of connection where we're always just one conversation away from becoming strangers again. The kind where you don’t even want to share your surname, for whatever reason. A connection that leaves me wondering whether you’re even single, though I genuinely hope you are, because I would never want to be the reason for another woman’s tears.

Then five planets went into retrograde, and as woo-woo as this may sound, I couldn’t help but feel that the universe had brought you back into my orbit again.

Out of 30,000 Pokemon runners, who would have thought we’d lock eyes while claiming our race kits? I recognized you, or thought I did, by those familiar Neko eyes I had always loved to see staring at me. You didn’t make yourself known, even though I smiled at you.

So, once again, I let it go. By now, I think I’ve perfected the art of letting you go. You’ve given me plenty of opportunities to practice. Lol. Just as you seem to have mastered the art of detaching without considering how I might feel. Practice makes perfect, right? Hahaha.

Then you messaged again. This time, you asked to be added in socmed. You shared more details than before. This time, I am already more cautious. I wouldn't want to be caught in this again but you have opened up again. You suddenly answered questions that I never imagined you would. So I thought God would spare me the hassle of modern-day dating. I thought maybe He was finally handing you to me on a silver platter, a gift I had once hoped for.,,, but maybe not. You said you will leave again.

Or maybe, in time, I will finally let you go for good.

Maybe, in His own time, it will be our time, when you are already brave enough to accept that happiness with me is actually in the books for you. 

Or maybe God will bring another man into my life, someone who will love me again even more deeply than I sometimes feel I deserve.

When either of that happens, I hope my heart hasn’t hardened too much. I hope I haven’t become so accustomed to letting go that I forget how to hold on to something good.

I hope I will be open to being loved without having to forget my past. Without feeling guilty for the happiness I find again. Without fearing that opening my heart to someone new means betraying the love and the life I once had.

And when God finally brings the secure, emotionally available and courageous man, could be a future you or someone else, He has appointed for me, I hope I am ready to receive him.