Tag: Love

When the bright light appeared on a clear summers night, that’s when it all changed. There was no direct link between it and the things that happened, but you could feel a shift; like you’ll sometimes notice a general mood among everyone you meet. People are a bit crazy or blanketed with a tiredness that no one can explain. And yet, we joke about the full moon. There’s no evidence and a scientist will laugh you off the side of the Earth, but since when has science ever explained what I’ve felt?

It was quite phenomenal when it happened. No one saw it bloom, it was just there. One second the sky was the usual expanse of darkness freckled with stars, the next there appeared what I first took as a galactic flower resting prettily amongst the constellations. Blue and purple and red, each petal expanded perfectly from the centre, a heart of light shining like the face of God smiling his love across the universe to that house in the hills that my fiancé and I had rented.

We were on the balcony of a huge house in the mountain range behind the Sunshine Coast, enjoying a few bottles of excellent wine from some old estate in Europe. Wine, cheese, fireplace, a few sneaky cigarettes and a couple of sneakier joints under the stars: boom. What could be more romantic? Rebekah and I were a two nights away from being married and we were celebrating in style. 

I don’t remember what we were talking about that night, but I remember feeling the heady rush of ‘having a good time’. A cocktail of laughs, alcohol and escape that made me feel as if I were swerving and looping through a roller coaster in the clouds; bliss. The ultimate, the penultimate and the antepenultimate. Bliss is what I craved most, it was the reason I worked, the reason I woke up in the morning with a spring, I had a goal that was more a gaol in-truth. I worked to go on holiday, to buy things that I absolutely must have, to party, to buy a round for the boys, to surround myself with who I thought I was, but after that night it all somehow felt empty. As if there was a subtle yet cosmically vast difference between who I am and who I am.  

But as clear as the stars shining through that night, I remember the silence we shared before it appeared. Whatever we were saying died gracefully on our lips and a stillness nestled in to hold us. A gentle wind was playing a rustling tune with the dry eucalyptus leaves, and a choir of sleepy cicadas hummed lazily in the faint glow of star light. We looked at one another and as we enjoyed the warmth of our eyes, the light grew and dappled us in a deep conflagration of cosmic insight. And then there it was. A thing so unusual and beautiful and out of this world that I felt a deep unease. Nothing would ever be the same again, I knew it. There was something about it that resonated with every cell in my body and yet that resonance made me feel awfully uncomfortable. I wanted to look away, I wanted to forget, nothing would be the same. 

* * *

I clocked it instantly, a gentle yet irreversible and irresistibly strong change in the tracks, a definitive shift of something. When the supernova appeared in the sky it was as if a new perspective slid in and said, this is how I see things now. 

It must have exploded millions of years ago, its ancient light reaching across time to touch us with what must have been a terrible violence now turned delicate. I could feel it within James as well, this wasn’t a personal experience, it was something that we were sharing. Perhaps we were sharing it with the world. 

Who I was, or perhaps more accurately, this history of what I remember me to be and everything that I chose to surround myself with, it felt fake. As if it were a character description straight out of a writers messy notebook. A feeling so profound that the emotions and thoughts that I’m having right now feel as if they are happening to this person and not me.

But what does that even mean? Rebekah Black, soon to be Rebekah Wood, distinguished nursing student, daughter, friend and co-worker. A person by any regard, but if you added all of those qualities together, it wouldn’t equal me. They’re things outside of me, things I do. I’m somehow me without any of it, so what is that? 

Since seeing the supernova, I’ve been feeling totally confused; emotions crashing against each other like I knew something that I wanted to forget. But in moments, little and fleeting though they might have been, I’ve felt at home. My body couldn’t handle it and it was no wonder that I was sick that very night, spewing up something that I had held in my body for god knows how long. 

James sat beside me as I puked into the toilet and struggled to deal with the nausea. He got water for me and patted my back, but whenever I looked up at him his eyes were glassy and focused on infinity, his mouth hanging just a little bit loose. I puked extra loud and all I got for the effort was three lousy pats on the back, measured like a metronome. I was getting seriously annoyed.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“Yeah…” He replied automatically. But the edge in my voice drew his focus sluggishly to the present and when he looked at me he could feel that I was pissed. “Yep. Um, how are you?”

I rolled my eyes, turning back to the toilet. “Hey,” he said, his tone coloured with hurt. “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

“Well James, I’m vomiting. I’ve never felt like this before, I feel as if I drank 3 times as much as I did and there’s puke in my hair. So to your question, I eloquently roll my eyes.” 

As I spoke, a hardness built in his eyes like a brick wall constructed with every word I said. His whole body froze with accusation. He didn’t say anything, he just left.

Damn it. 

I felt immediate regret for speaking to him like that, but just as he left a spell of dizzying nausea rose up and forcibly ejected from my mouth. I felt a speck of splash back hit my cheek and suddenly I felt justified. Here I was, the sickest I’ve ever been and he just sat there not even caring, looking off into his imaginary land of imaginings, content to give me a pat on the back and think that he’s fooling me. 

I won’t go into the thoughts and feelings I had after that. Suffice it to say, the heat and whip coil snake of anger had reared its vicious head and was snapping at everything it could. But underneath it all, giving that awful snake its energy was a hurt little girl wondering if she was good enough. 

* * *

Morning came without any regard. The light lanced in to expose the coldness in our bed, heating the moisture in the room instantly and turning it into a sauna. I unstuck myself grudgingly, my skin peeling back like velcro as I slowly sat up. My bones ached, my muscles felt heavy and my head swam like a heat wave imitating water. One look at my sweaty pillow and I collapsed back onto it, wishing so dearly that I could stay there forever. But the light, that light would not allow me to dwell indulgently in the sheets. Instead the sheets stuck to me, like they were a many fingered monster entombing me in a suffocating coffin bit by creeping bit. 

I had a cold shower, which helped clear the sleepiness from my eyes, but it did nothing for the ache in my body. My mind, slow and sluggish, was wondering stupidly how much I had drunk the night before. It wasn’t until I came back to the room and I saw Rebekah curled up on one side of the bed that I remembered what had happened: the weird thing in the night sky, Rebekah getting sick, Rebekah being a bitch and me angry and hurt and bunkering down in a dark place and indulging in dark thoughts. A cold hatred iced my veins and I thought, I don’t want to marry her. 

I was shocked by the force and the venom that I felt. This was Rebekah, the love of my life, a person whom I adore with every particle in my body as the beautiful, intelligent and funny woman that she is. But some part of me enjoyed the darkness. Well… Enjoy might not be the right word. Rather, it felt more like all the Disney villains at once cackling over their evil schemes. It was dark and twisted, an awful pollutant in my body and I couldn’t believe it was me. I was a good guy, I wasn’t like those asshole men in the movies who don’t treat women well. I feel terrible even if I imagine that I hurt someone’s feelings, but there I was, wanting nothing more than some dramatic breakup so that she cries and recognises me for who I am.

I backed out of the room. I put the kettle on for coffee and while I waited for it to boil I spooned some Nutella. I checked my phone; Facebook, then Instagram, then YouTube. I giggled at a few memes, then I found an explosion of news articles on what happened in the sky that night. A supernova. I rushed outside to look at the sky, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. I heard the click of the kettle and poured hot water into the plunger, extra-strong. Instantly the house was filled with the rich qualities of organically roasted coffee, a scent that emanates, a scent that embraces you with languid luxury and snuggles up inside you like a sleeping baby wrapped in a blanket. Coffee, coffee, coffee. As I drank it, I started to feel better. The ache in my body dulled to something minor and the unease in my chest lost its megaphone, its voice now barely heard. 

Rebekah found me on the couch, not watching the kids animation on the TV, but scrolling through my phone. She looked like a zombie.

“Morning baby! How are you feeling this morning? Can I make you a coffee? Tea? Breakfast?” I sprung up from the couch. “Why don’t you have a shower? That’ll make you feel like 10 times better, 20 times if you have it cold. How hot was it this morning, hey? I was surprised you could sleep through it, I felt like I was swimming in my own sweat this morning!” I laughed. Well, perhaps cackle is a better description. 

I saw the alarm increase in her baring and I felt how vastly different our states of being were. I felt insane, actually. Every part of me was tingling with an artificial energy that was setting off fireworks in my eyes. With her in the room I noticed just how jittery my movements were, how my mind bounced from one thought to the next like a skipping stone, and most alarmingly, how all my choices that morning were an avoidance of something that I was feeling. She may look like a zombie, but at least she was accepting how she was feeling.

“Woah…” She croaked sleepily. “How much coffee have you had?”

“Not that much!” I shrugged. “Anyway, let me know if you need anything.” As I turned back to the couch, I sensed her pivot and make her way to the bathroom. I sensed her movements express judgement, and I felt a deep seeded rejection. A rejection made up of a thousand tiny paper cuts, each one linking to a memory of someone not accepting me as I am. I felt how that rejection had insidiously pulled the strings of my behaviour for most of my life, masterfully manipulating me to be someone I’m not. In that moment I felt all of it. All of it at once. It was unbearable. 

In the next moment I thought, it’s all her fault.

* * *

The word that comes to mind to describe our relationship that day is tense. There was this dancing tension, where I could feel that we both weren’t expressing how we were feeling, instead we hopped around our emotions, blaming each other quietly for what we felt. 

We had planned to go to Coolum Beach that day, but when I came out of the shower and James excitedly suggested it, I could say nothing else but, “I’m feeling really delicate after last night, James. I don’t really feel like it.” He walked away like he’d been hurt and shut down, and I didn’t know what to say to him to make him feel better. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything at all, I thought sullenly. Better that than deal with his stuff.

After that, we kept pretty much to ourselves, talking to each other only when someone called about the wedding or something had to be organised, and even then the aim was to remind the other that whatever it was, it was their fault. I had reacted to his lack of presence the night before, but he was choosing to perpetuate his hurt like he was defending something. Like he had been told he wasn’t good enough as he is and my reaction had brought that up for him.

I could feel these things like I’ve never been able to feel them before. I perceived him clearly, as if everything he did he was giving me a book to read about it and I could choose how deeply I wanted to read. It was both amazing and terrifying, because there was a book about me that I was choosing to avoid. I knew it was there, but I was indulging in James’s book to distract myself from what I was bringing to the table. 

I perversely enjoyed reading James. I didn’t even need to be in the same room to feel what he was doing. To be clear, it wasn’t like I could suddenly switch on x-ray vision and see his skeleton doing tasks. I couldn’t tell you what he was doing exactly, but I felt the energy behind what he did. It didn’t feel like a foreign ability either, it felt like one eye had been closed for most of my life and seeing the supernova the night before had jostled it open. Bleary and unused, but a part of me and a part of everyone, but perhaps just forgotten or avoided. 

James was fighting. Under the skin that belied aloofness, I could feel a war raging as violent as they come. There was a truth about himself that he could not face, a truth that had him abusing himself. This abuse was expressed through every movement, whether it was what he ate, what he chose to watch, how long he spent on his phone or how he threw abuse at me, subtly and in a way that I didn’t feel I could respond to in any other way than to give it back. Which just deepened the tension and the hurt.

By the end of the day, I felt like a dam about to burst; I was fuming. At the time, I had no idea why, but I thought it must have been because of James and his childish and hurt little book. I had no idea that I was marrying into this. He’s a fixer, a project rather than a partner. I didn’t want the responsibility of fixing him, it’s not my problem. He needs to just deal with his stuff.

“Hey…” came a tender voice. The TV was off and his phone was nowhere to be seen, James was leaning against the wall, looking at me as I read on the bean bag. That voice came in so gently it lifted a darkness that I hadn’t noticed off my back. “What’s up?” He asked. 

What’s. Up?

Part of me wanted to melt, but then that would mean… But he had asked me what’s up, not the other way round. He had the issue.

“What do you mean?” I asked like his question was the stupidest thing ever. 

I could feel him struggle with the aggression. “I dunno. I just felt to ask. We’ve been avoiding each other all day.”

“I don’t know, James… I don’t really want to talk about it, to be honest.” I could feel my body seizing up. James didn’t reply, he looked stiff as a board as well. He just looked at me, his eyes acting like mirrors, making me feel the anger in my body.

“What?” I asked bluntly.

“I hate this.”

“Hate what?”

“This! What we’re doing right now! This relationship…!” He struggled to form words.

I cut in scathingly, “What?”

“Is sucking! You’re making me feel like a stupid little kid; I’ve hated myself around you since last night!”

“I’m not making you feel that way, James. You are.” 

“What do you mean?”

“You’re choosing to feel that way because you’ve got a problem with rejection. And you know what?” I said, tears now coming to my eyes. “I’ve been feeling it all day, how you’ve been hating yourself and it’s actually been hurting me. You hurt me when you hurt you, James. But it’s not my responsibility to fix you.”

“I don’t want you to fix me! That’s so unfair!”

“Well, it’s true! You want someone or something to take it away and you hate me for not doing that. You think I’m making you feel that way? In a way, I guess I am. Because I won’t coddle you or mum away what’s coming up.”

“Why are you being so mean?” He asked incredulously.

“Because I feel like I’ve been tip toeing around you all day, trying not to say anything to offend you. But you’ve just been acting like I’m the problem all day!”

James didn’t respond again. So I went back to my book, my eyes slipping over the words without seeing them. He just stood there again.

“What??” I said again, forcefully. 

“I’m. So. Fucking. Angry right now.” He said through a locked body. 

“Yeah? Why?” I said, like I didn’t care, still ‘reading’ my book.

“Because! You know what?” He said, then let out a furious growl. “You’re absolutely right! I hate myself, I’ve been feeling totally rejected by you and by almost everyone in my life, I’ve been feeling judged, but not just by you, but every time I’ve been judged ever. I’m feeling everything at once and it’s insanely intense! But look at you, perched on your little throne like you don’t have a problem at all when you’re ‘choosing’ to be just as abusive, if more so! Take a look in the mirror, Rebekah. You’ve been acting like I’m the problem all day too.”

He walked away and as he did he said, “Why the fuck am I marrying you tomorrow?”

* * *

Things were banging around me. In simplistic terms, I went and had a shower, but that doesn’t describe how I felt one bit. I moved through space with a force destroying me on the inside, a force that was expressed with the jarring smack of my heels on the floor, the roughness of my clothes as I pulled them off and the loud slam of doors when I closed them. Even the water jetted out like a wall when I roughly turned the faucet. I stood still under the water for what felt like a full minute, but in reality probably only a couple of seconds, before the fury lashed out and I contorted like a cracking whip, punching the air and unsuspecting water. 

I could feel the truth in what Rebekah had said. I was aware enough even then to know that, and to know that what she had expressed had exposed something about me that I had worked most of my life to hide. I could feel every choice I had made to not be me, to be someone that was liked and loved and accepted. I had chosen to be a mirror for society, to show people exactly what they wanted to see, to accomodate them so that I never had to feel what rejection was like. But the pain I was feeling wasn’t the rejection of others, the pain was the rejection of myself. I chose to not be me. With every choice I made to be someone for the benefit of another I rejected myself. 

I sat down in the shower with a thump. The water was cooler down here than when I was standing up so I turned the heat up a little, then lay down on the tiles. The water washed over me with a mesmerising flow and I took refuge in the warmth and holding of its embrace. The anger had vanished in a cloud of smoke and all that was left was an emptiness, a profound sadness that I never new was there. Tears leaked out of my eyes and joined the flow of water. At first I resisted them, but like when you’re incredibly sick, sometimes there’s no holding back a good cry. 

I heard Rebekah open the door as I lay curled up on the tiles. She quietly came over and put her hand on my head.

“I’m sorry,” She whispered.

I enjoyed her touch, but I didn’t say anything nor did I recognise her presence. I wanted to turn around and cry into her shoulder, to tell her everything that I was feeling, to surrender at last, but the anger was coalescing from the smoke again. She is the reason I’m feeling this way, whispered the anger. Make her feel bad for what she’s done to you. The anger’s slithering tail was wrapping itself around me again, but I was over the conflict between it and love. This new understanding of my behaviour was quietly and powerfully waiting for me to stop resisting its irresistible pull. I could even feel a pain in my achilles heel, as if I were stubbornly fighting to stay where I was. But there I was, locked between the two states, unable to express either and by default allowing the anger to win. For there is only absoluteness within love. Anything that isn’t it, isn’t it. 

Rebekah got up and quietly left. I wanted to cry out and ask her to stay, but I didn’t. The water splashed down on me, no longer feeling as comforting. Each jet of water hit me like a needle as I wondered what the hell was happening to me. 

* * *

I boiled the kettle and poured myself a peppermint tea. I automatically went for English Breakfast, but I didn’t feel like anything caffeinated. I somehow knew that it would take me away from the moment when there was too much to consider. 

What were these thoughts that I’ve been having and where have they come from? Like being able to read James perfectly, or even read tea. What was that about and what did the supernova that we witnessed have to do with it? Since that night it had been like a sleeper had awakened in both of us, a sleeper that knew the truth of things and challenged everything we have come to believe or know. 

The kettle clicked once the water was boiling happily and I poured the water into a ceramic cup. I walked onto the balcony and enjoyed the heat of the tea contrasted with the coolness of dusk. It took me a while to notice it, but very faintly and growing clearer with each passing moment, the supernova was rising. Like a watermark stamped at the edge of the screen to let you know who’s business this is: God’s. 

I wondered if there was a book about the supernova I could read and as soon as that thought came through there it was. It was harder to understand, its language almost completely foreign to me, but I received information like an impression. Awareness. Energy. Love. It was so beautiful. It was a gift for us, for all of us. A hand coming down and offering to lift us up without any expectation or pushiness; we could choose if we wanted it, but there it was and there it had always been. It was a reminder of who we truly are. 

Who we truly are… And there it was again. My book. Just there, with no imposition or expectation to be picked up, just allowing space for me to choose either way. 

I tentatively started reading.

* * *

Night was fast approaching. The sunset was glorious and random, as if a child was figuring out what a paint brush was. There were splotches of pastel reds, oranges, golds, purples, blues and a curtain of night sweeping in from the east like eyelids gently closing. Rebekah had her feet up on the deck, leaning her head back and starring at the night sky, an empty tea cup sitting beside her. She was completely still, every part of her body was totally relaxed and devoid of tension. Surrendered. 

My body felt tired and achey, the pain in my joints had returned from this morning. I was a piece of wafer thin china, precious and so delicate that you are afraid of touching it. Standing at the glass doors to the balcony, I felt exposed and vulnerable to the harsh realities of the world so I went back inside and grabbed a blanket. It was dusty from not being used since winter, but at least it began warming my arthritic joints. As I quietly came back out onto the deck and observed Rebekah again, I felt my own body. She was sitting there so gracefully and so utterly in herself that I couldn’t help but be inspired by it. I didn’t exactly enjoy the feeling in my body but what I saw in Rebekah was a way of choosing that didn’t fight it. Perhaps we could live like that, deciding to flow with life, like an exhausted swimmer finally allowing the current to take him to wherever he was bound. 

What I felt was that each ache was actually a place I was holding a bone deep tension. Closing my eyes, I started with the worst of it. My shoulders were heavy and tired, like I had all the pressure in the world on them, and as I eased and let go and gently dropped what I had been holding onto for God knows how long, I felt how truly beautiful my shoulders were. It felt as if rusted mechanisms were being used for the first time in decades, the rust splitting off like I was breaking out of ice, in large, satisfying chunks; an expansive, fluid set of wings now set free to fly. There was a sense of relief, but it didn’t take the pain away. It just allowed my body and myself the space to heal.

I sat myself next to Rebekah and put my feet up as well, snuggling into the chair and blanket, allowing more surrender to the other aching parts in my body. The night sky was almost complete, the sun waving a silvery halo goodbye. Perched prettily at ten o’clock was the supernova, as strange and beautiful as it was the night before. We were both quiet for a long time, enjoying the dying of the light even as the supernova strengthened. I looked at her. She turned her head and looked at me.

“What?” She asked quietly.

“Just looking” I replied. She smiled. We held that position for a minute before she turned away to look at the stars again. I did too. 

“Did you want to say anything?” She asked. 

“Um…” There were plenty of things that I was feeling, plenty of things that I wanted to say that were crashing around my head trying to get a voice. I just wanted to be honest. That was probably the best I could do.

“James?” Rebekah asked after a couple of minutes of silence.

“Yeah, I’m getting there, babe. I’m just trying to feel it.” I said, the snake tightening my chest hopefully.

“Okay, sorry…” Rebekah sat back like I had stung her. I felt bad immediately.

“I’m sorry, I’m just feeling so much tension. A lifetime of hurts that I haven’t felt before. You know, I had a blessed childhood; great family, great schools, great friends. I had it all. In fact, I used to make up lies about having issues just so I could fit in with everyone else. But since last night, I’m feeling everything. And I mean everything. I can’t handle it, it’s insane.” The hurts were building up again in my chest, unbearably painful sadness and self loathing. I pulled myself up in the chair and curled up tightly and I said quietly. “I hate myself. For being like this. And then I take it out on you, like you’re the one doing all of this, but it’s me.”

“It’s not you, actually.” She said simply.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You are such a beautiful man. You are so incredibly caring, loving and gentle. You are simply love and so am I. These issues, they’re not actually you. Yes, you’re choosing them, but there’s a reason why they’re all coming up at once; you’ve made choices, same as me, to not be you and that hurts. And they don’t just go away, they come up again and again until we choose to heal them. We’ve just been given an opportunity to heal them, is all.” There was a moment of silence, before she said, “Woah. Mic droooppp!” She laughed, miming herself dropping a microphone. I smiled tightly. 

I felt a pull, stronger than ever, like a current or magnetism. It whispered, let go. But to let go… It terrified me. So I resisted. I hated myself for not thinking of what she presented, for not connecting to a truth and I hated that Rebekah was schooling me in it. I compared myself to her and hated that she was so light and surrendered while I was not.

She noticed something immediately. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“I felt something shift inside you. You can say, if you want.” She said gently. 

I jumped out of the chair and paced distractedly. “I don’t want to talk about it, because I’ll just end up saying something that’s going to hurt you.”

“Stop fighting, James. Choose something else.”

It was like a nuclear bomb went off inside me. The pull tugged me stronger than ever, but to resist it I had to bring in an equal force. “STOP SCHOOLING ME!”

“Hey!” She said.

But before she could say anything further, I said, “You’re acting all high and mighty, like you know everything and class in is session. How can I choose something that is impossible for me right now. It’s not that easy!”

“It is that easy, James. You’re just indulging in your hurts. But don’t you dare take it out on me. I won’t take your abuse.” She got up and left. She had reacted at last and did it satisfy me? No. Not one bit. In fact, the rage that was storming inside me died as soon as I had realised what I had done. 

I walked to the railing and looked up at the supernova.  I want to heal, I thought. I don’t want to feel this anymore, either way. I am disgusted with this.

* * *

I was hurt. I could feel that it was because I had an attachment to what I had presented and an attachment to James so that when he rejected it, I felt rejected. But I ignored this understanding. I was hurt, justifiably so, and I would be hurt. 

I was vaguely aware of detaching from my body. As I had a shower, brushed my teeth and prepared myself for bed, my awareness grew further and further away, allowing my body to move in the energy that it was in. I didn’t want to feel any longer. It had only gotten me pain.

Instagram was a good fix. There was no internet at this place, and I had no idea why we thought that was a good idea, but at that moment, I didn’t care about using data. I happily scrolled through posts about what other people were doing, double tapping if I felt even a vague flash of serotonin. 

I could hear James moving about the house, preparing himself for bed too. I felt a heaviness in my body and sank further into my phone. Someone’s story was particularly funny and the laugh that came out of my mouth was loud and harsh. As if to say, yeah, I’m having a blast here without you. He came in at last, put his clothes away neatly into the space he had claimed in the chest of draws and sat on my side of the bed, looking at me. 

I glanced up from my phone, “What?”

He smiled, “It’s funny how our conversations have started that way a lot lately.”

I was confused, so I asked harshly, “What do you mean?”

He shrugged, “Nothing, just an observation.”

I went back to my phone, there was a truly beautiful photograph of a friend in Norway that I ‘liked’. James was still there though and his presence was making me harder and harder by the second. Or he was simply allowing me to be more and more aware of how I was feeling.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I hate what I’m doing to myself and to you, I can feel how much I am resisting something very beautiful.”

There wasn’t much I could say. I could feel how genuine he was, but it was my turn to be hard and resistant and abusive. “Ok. Thanks.”

He felt a little hurt, but he asked, “Is there anything you’d like to say?”

I felt exhausted, I felt hurt, but mostly, I felt like we’d been butting heads all day and that that would just continue in one shape or form if we continued to talk. “No. Do you?”

He sat there for a while, before he said, “Nah.”

He got up and went to his side of the bed. He lay down and put his hands on his chest. I scrolled, and he lay there, presumably starring up at the ceiling.

“We just don’t want to be vulnerable with each other, do we?” He asked at last, with a depth of honestly. I could hear that he was truly expressing himself.

“Nope”, I said. “No we don’t.”

He rolled over and looked at me. “Do you want to get vulnerable?”

I sighed, “Not really, James. I’m over today. I’m over feeling. I’m checking out.”

“Do you still want to get married tomorrow?” He asked tentatively.

“Of course I do.”

He lay back to stare holes in the ceiling again. I suffused myself back into Instagram. It’s no wonder they call it ‘the feed’.

* * *

I dreamt that night. Something had happened to the world long ago and it was deep under murky green water. A choice had been made to survive, to live, to exist and making the world an ocean was the only way to continue. 

Cities, towns and people existed at the bottom of this deep green sea. We went about our lives like we normally do, but we were all hooked up to breathing apparatus, floating weirdly in a comatose state. The breathing apparatus lead the suspended sleepers to their destination, sucking something from them like a Creepy Crawly hugging their face. 

It seemed as if I woke up in the middle of the dream, for I had been asleep as well. The air I was breathing through the face mask was metallic and stale. Panicking, I pulled the mask off, pulling a long, thin tube out of my mouth that was connected to my stomach. I fought desperately for the surface. But even as I did so, pressure from the ocean was baring down on me, my lungs burned and my vision darkened. I needed to take a breath, but I didn’t want any part of that awful green water in my body.

I hadn’t swum anywhere. Some force was holding me in place, not letting me move an inch. I desperately cried out in anger and anguish, looking skyward. And I saw the supernova there. I stopped fighting and let the force take me back to the ocean floor, a street corner in the suburbs of Brisbane. 

I saw Rebekah walking towards me in a lightness that the ocean both loved and hated. It wasn’t that she fought the ocean back, but she was made out of the same ingredients as the supernova. The same ingredients as the ocean. It was just a matter of choice. And I realised that I was breathing normally. 

I woke up at 4am, naturally and very beautifully. As I got up and had a shower, I thought, today is the day. I hadn’t had much time to reflect on the fact that I was getting married, too much had come up. Between organising, working to pay for it and then everything that we had felt since seeing the supernova, there had been no space to appreciate exactly what we were going into. Intellectually, we understood it. We were becoming one in many ways, we were becoming family. But I felt it on a different level, a level that said that we were always one with everyone, Rebekah and I were just choosing to express that oneness through a marriage.

I towelled off, brushed my teeth – thoroughly enjoying the massage of the electric toothbrush – and quietly went back into the bedroom to dress. Rebekah was awake. She lay there very still, staring out the window at the pre-dawn glow. She looked at me and smiled sleepily, saying good morning. I asked her how she had slept and she said that she had weird dreams that she couldn’t remember. I told her about my dream and she said, “finally get it, do you?”

“Hey,” I said, a little bit hurt. “don’t be rude.”

“I was just joking.”

“Well, it didn’t feel like it. It felt like it came from a real place.” I could feel last nights hardness enter her body and I could feel my own body react to it, calling to arms and hastily donning armour. 

We both chose not to go into it. I got dressed and finished getting ready before I realised it was 5am. There was so much time and space; what to do with it? I ironed the shirt and pants I was going to wear to the wedding, then checked over the day and what we were responsible for. Everything was pretty much planned and ready to go. We had paid for people to set up so that all we had to do was add the finishing touches once we got there. All I had to bring to the venue was my vows and the day would flow from there. 

I retrieved my vows and read over them. They felt off, romantic but not actually true. Full of vague platitudes of undying love and eternity, but is that actually honest? Am I seriously going to declare that I’ll love her forever and support her with everything she does? It just didn’t feel right to vow that, to promise our relationship to that. If I had learned anything in the last couple of days, it’s that sometimes we don’t hold them in the love that we actually feel. Sometimes, we are dealing with hurts in the only ways we know how. 

I didn’t know what I was going to write, I just wrote. But I knew I was connected to something very powerful, for the words that came forth were funny and honest, then deeply, deeply true. I hadn’t ever spoken like this and as I finished the last sentence I felt an anxiety creep in. I had to present this. In front of everyone that I know, everyone that knows me as the guy I was, the person who they thought was James. With this adjustment in my vows, I knew I was bringing a profound change in the meaning of the day. I wanted to shy away from that, to return to the protection of what the day meant before, but I would not ignore the beauty I had just touched. 

“Rebekah…?” I asked at the entrance to the bathroom. She was getting ready.

“Ya?” She responded, with a tongue scraper in her mouth.

“I just rewrote my vows. I… I reread what I had written and I felt how dishonest they were and I just felt to change them. I wrote them and I wish I could read them to you right now, they blow me away. I can hardly believe I wrote them. There’s so much truth in them. But I’m afraid… ”

“Afraid of what?” Rebekah asked.

“I’m…” I felt all the thorned emotions twisting over my heart. “I’m afraid of being myself in front of everyone.” She nodded. “I guess I just wanted to ask you – and I know apart from the obvious reasons – but why do you feel we are getting married?”

Rebekah thought for a moment, her elbow resting on her hip, the tongue scraper twirling around in her fingers. “I feel as if it has changed too, but it’s not like our reasons for getting married before has changed either. You’re still the love of my life. But…” Her voice slowed down and deepened. “we can now choose to be either individuals in-love or become a union that expresses the oneness of all.”

“Wow.” I said, half laughing.

“What?” She asked.

“Nothing. It’s just what you said. It’s like you expressed exactly what I’ve been feeling. You’ve hit the nail on the head.” But deeper. It’s like the universe clicked into place a little clearer and God nodded encouragingly. 

“Well,” She shrugged with a proud little smile, “I am amazing.”

I laughed and shook my head. As she turned back to the mirror, I zoned out and began to think. A lot had changed in a couple of days; feelings I never knew – or perhaps chose to dull away – had surfaced. Strange, but powerful, thoughts had filled my head and a terrible clash between Rebekah and I had come in. A reflection of the clash that was happening inside us, because we were resisting the pull of… something.  

“Whatcha thinking about?” Rebekah asked lightly, I pulled myself back to the present and saw that Rebekah starring at me with a cocked head.

“I was just thinking about all that had changed in the last couple of days. Something really big happened since we saw the supernova, but I don’t understand what it is. I can feel all these dormant hurts that I never knew were there waking up and even now I want to lash out. Like, for some reason, I felt that because you said you were amazing, that must mean I’m not. But I know that’s not true. Ugh, it’s so confusing. It’s like something is calling us home, but even though I love home, I don’t want to go there. What the hell is that?”

“I feel the same way… There’s just so much to deal with. Everything I do feels like a really intense reaction, as if the supernova is shining a light on everything that I’m not. It’s like your dream. You said that everything, including the ocean, was actually the same as the supernova, but we chose a different way and we ended up with that yucky water. It’s like there are two different…” She held out her hands like scales, and searched for a word.

“Qualities?” I suggested.

“Yeah. Two different qualities. One is actually everything,” She drew a wide circle in the air. “And the other is what we choose to create.” She held her other hand in the middle of the larger circle. “But it is all created within everything, and since the supernova the difference feels much clearer. Does that make sense?” 

As she talked I began to smile. “It does, it just feels all… Ooooohh” I wiggled my fingers in mock imitation of ghosts.

Rebekah shrugged. “Makes sense to me.”

“I feel it, but I think I need to keep it simple. Talking so universal kinda flies over my head.”

“But you are universal.”

“What I mean is that all I know for certain is that I have been choosing to not be me for most of my life. I thought I was, but I was actually acting under the direction of my hurts. But I am remembering so much of what I was like as a kid. Like really early memories. I remember I was just fun and joyful and light. Like a little angel.”

“You still are an angel.” Rebekah said softly.

I smiled in response to the warmth I felt from her. 

* * *

He smiled warmly, like he had just been confirmed. He was an angel, I could feel that so clearly. His delicateness, his beauty, his grace, his cuteness; it all felt angelic. How had I missed that before? It was so obvious.

“Thanks my love. You are too, you know.” He held my eyes with a deep affection, before asking,

“Do you want to say anything? I feel like we’ve been talking about how I feel so much.”

“Um…” I pondered. “Yeah… There is something I’d like to share with you, actually.” I said a little nervously. He responded by opening his shoulders a little more and standing straighter, patiently waiting for me to express. “Since the supernova, I’ve been aware of something. It’s like everything has a little book that I could read about… Ugh, how do I describe this? I don’t want to sound spiritual or anything, but I’ve just been feeling energy more. And the energy of everything can be read if I want to choose that. Like, I can read you really easily. You’re incredibly transparent. I can feel the energy you’re in when I’m in another room! But I’ve also used it as a distraction, because I’m suddenly aware of myself a lot more too. There’s something about me that I hadn’t claimed and didn’t want to feel; something about you too that I didn’t want to see reflected back to me. But I’ve realised what it is. At my core is this beauty, an awesomeness and lightness that I can only describe as my soul. It’s pure and untainted, timeless, ageless, a part of everything, an expression of the universe. That’s who I truly am. Who we all are. But so much of what I do is in opposition to that love, because honestly, I want to be me rather than be everything. For if I was just my soul, I wouldn’t exist; I wouldn’t see, touch, feel, eat, drink, travel or just experience the world. Like, we would exist, but not as individuals. Because there is no separation in love, everything is one.”

“Woah..”

“Yeah…” 

We both stood there, reeling with what came through, trying to process it. 

“You know,” He said slowly, “I’ve never believed in God but that word keeps surfacing for me. It’s like, God is the sum of everything. And everything is love. Not in a romantic sense or in a way that I love something emotionally. Love is harmony and joy and truth. You can feel it when you’re out in nature, how there is this perfect, but chaotic flow to how it grows and dies and grows again. How the stars have constellated and then how the people around you have constellated. What quality of light are they reflecting to you and what are you reflecting to them, a dance to either be you or be what’s outside of you. Because that’s what it is. You are either love or anything else, which is not love. Not you. It’s your ego or identity. The yucky ocean, or the created sphere within everything. And I can feel that in our relationship. Every time I’ve felt anger or something at you, I’ve felt how that isn’t truly our relationship. We are first and foremost what you said, awesome and beautiful and amazing beings. And anything that comes in that isn’t that, is what we are bringing in individually to heal.”

He looked up like he was a little surprised by what he had just said.

“Yeah… I feel that. That’s very beautiful.” 

“I don’t really know what I just said, but I feel it too.” He laughed.

“It felt pretty spot on, but you could have been talking in a different language.”

“So are we suddenly religious, or something?” 

“Ew, no.”

“I reckon I’ll be pope. What do you want to be, the next Buddha?”

I smiled and rolled my eyes.  

* * *

A camera was following my hands. I was, under instruction, buttoning up my shirt very slowly. The man behind the camera didn’t issue many directions, but when he did, it felt like he was opening up a space for me to appreciate every moment. But I wasn’t enjoying what I was feeling; the nerves were really kicking in. How should I be? I should be more graceful, stand taller, stronger, stoic, laughing, friendly. These thoughts raced through my head as if I were in a dark room, swinging a torchlight around, illuminating memories of people, ads and movies, searching for ‘how a man should be’. 

“You have the most beautiful hands.” The filmmaker said.

“Really?” I laughed, startled out of my thoughts.

“Yeah. We should scrap the wedding and just do a documentary on your hands.”

“Yeah man, lets do it.” 

“Okay, lets put the jacket on and look at yourself in the mirror. Slowly.”

I slid into the jacket and looked around at the mirror. I saw the tension in my face, the worry, the vulnerability. I saw me, as I am. So many insecurities, so many hurts, but just exquisite. I was so beautiful. Because I was me, I felt me, I felt who I was in that moment and I loved every bit of him. I could see all the ways I was holding back, I could feel all the places my body was holding tension and hurts, but it was so beautiful to witness myself as I am and accept every single cell. I was just on my own journey, and I didn’t need to be anywhere or be anything other than how I am. 

Tears welled in my eyes and I didn’t force them back in. They were beautiful, they were an expression of self love and I was beginning to understand that evolution can only begin with that most sacred holding of yourself. I looked in that mirror and I was inspired. Imagine what my expression would be like if I didn’t hold back? I’d bless the world with my footsteps.

“How are you feeling, James?”

I took a deep breath in. “Ready.”