realizing things

I started this year with high hopes, looking forwards to launching a new business venture, moving into a new home with my girlfriend of two years, and most importantly of asking her to marry me and continue this adventure together. As we all know by now, life moves fast and the world is forever unpredictable. Just a day after my birthday, having just visited the future home to figure out the measurements for furniture we would need to order, my girlfriend finally found the strength to speak honestly and voice her fears and anxieties. Within the course of a day, we went from sharing a beautiful future together, to my realising the relationship I thought I'd had didn't really exist.

Beyond the realms of my domestic world, the pandemic was tearing through Europe and the rest of the world. Within the relative blink of an eye, my life and home has shrunk from one enjoyed with my best friend and my love, to one restricted to this home missing one of its two occupants. Friends and family support via Skype and WhatsApp. The pandemic reminds me that there's far greater pain and suffering in the world than anything I am feeling right now, and that has helped to step back from the moments when I get lost in the realisation that life is not a question of fairness, but a combination of joy and sadness. I try to be comfortable in the presence of both and the unpredictable path that life takes us.