twin flame

I started writing this piece two years ago on Valentine’s Day. Inspired by the season of love, I was deep in the reflection pool, pondering my relationship experiences and what I’d learned about love up until that point.

Reading this draft two years later made me realize how, although time has passed and I’ve grown and evolved in my own way through it, a lot of what I was feeling then still resonates with me now. I am also moved to recognize how unwavering my conviction has been about my first love being so aligned with my life path.

Everything happens for a reason: love, lessons, and the like.

—

February 13, 2024

From as early an age as I can remember, I recall fantasizing about what my first love would be like.

He would be princely: absolutely charming, kind, handsome, gracious, and well-regarded, nothing short of what I’d seen in my bootleg Barbie movies my dad used to rent from Blockbuster and burn copies of for me.

I would envision our wedding, our first home, our family. We would be the perfect couple. He would love me unconditionally and I would be irrevocably in love with him. It would all play out beautifully and everything would be perfect.

Turns out quite the contrary is the case in grown up world. Love is fucking tough and far from perfect. But, in it’s own way, it is the most beautiful feeling I’ve ever experienced.

All my life, I’d always been quick to take an interest in someone and visualize what could be. To be perfectly candid, there were many empty “I love you’s” I’d dished out in my past merely because I wanted so badly to feel it. To experience everything I’d always dreamt of.

Despite all the dreaming and manifesting and visualizing, I would have never anticipated the journey I would be thrown into upon meeting my first love.

I love telling this story. I bring it up every excuse I get because I’m a sappy romantic, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it. Here goes recount #2576:

September 2018

Berkeley, CA

I had just moved into my dorm a couple of weeks ago and was eager to dive head first into my new college life. I’d decided to take an astronomy class taught by a professor who was equally as renowned as he was quirky, and was on my way to the first study hall session. It was dark out and I lived about 20 minutes from campus, so I had to brave the cold and rely on my bike to get me there on time, as I was always running late (a quality I still have yet to fully shake at my grown age…).

The room was not very crowded and students seemed to be working independently, occasionally sparking up a group discussion with the grad assistant facilitating the session. I sat alone and started working quietly while observing the dynamics across groups in the room. To my left, sat two boys working together, one of whom caught my eye. Of course, I had to make a move. I asked them questions about a problem I was working on and tried to keep him engaged with me for as long as possible so I could get a read on him. Much to my delight, we ended up exchanging contacts by the end of the session….for academic purposes.

About a week or so later, I just had finished up a rehearsal for my new dance team, saw his name on my phone, and felt a smile creep onto my face. He let me know that he and a couple of friends would be going to the library soon to study for another class that we happened to be taking together. I was so in.

His friends were sweet and undeniably bright. It was clear they all wanted to demonstrate this by jumping in to enlighten each other on various facts and figures. Obviously, I had to join in and impress him, making an equally ostentatious effort to showcase my intelligence. I stood up and spoke to the room, scribbling on the whiteboard and facilitating discussions, even though I was confused as hell about much of the material. But hey, fake it til you make it, right?

He ended up walking me back home that night, and that’s when I saw him open up for the first time. There it was. A glimmer of him. He told me stories about his hometown, including several recounts of hilariously embarrassing moments he’d experienced. I’d guessed that because he felt comfortable telling me all this that we were actual friends now?

Over the course of the year, we met up nearly weekly to review content from our two overlapping classes. Every late night that we spent together only deepened our connection and my fondness for him. I began to tell my friends about him, raving about how cute I thought he was and how much I craved more. I wanted to know him at his core. I began to study his features, sense of humor, and music taste just as intently as I’d studied my notes.

One night, we decided to take a study break and took a walk around the campus perimeter. It was past midnight, but we had the bright idea to go for a hike as far into the surrounding woods as we could. We stumbled across a set of wooden steps leading into darkness. Back then, though we did not know it, we had done something we would continue to do for years to come, we started taking steps not knowing where they would lead us, having the same sense of simultaneous uncertainty and self-assuredness that we were on an intended path.

At the top of the steps, we’d stumbled upon the school’s laboratories, an assortment of stark, grey buildings bathed in harsh, white fluorescent light. We found an unsupervised ladder along the side of one building, glanced at each other, then proceeded to climb up to the top. We were greeted by a stunning view of the Bay Area, with its twinkling bay bridge feeding into San Francisco’s radiant city skyline etched into the horizon. The view before us seemed even brighter in the darkness.

We stared at the view in awe and talked for a while. He opened up to me a bit more about his life and perspective. In that moment, I felt time stand still. My thoughts were no longer racing. I could not say the same for my heart. It was then that I knew what I felt towards him was deeper than I’d thought. I also had a feeling his chapter in my life’s novel was going to be quite dense.

August 2019

Oakland, CA

I was glowing. I had just returned from volunteering in Panama for the summer and just moved in to a new co-op house for POC students. Ironically enough, he lived across the street from me, and I couldn’t wait to ‘coincidentally’ run into him on the way to class as many times as I could. Empowered by my summer adventure abroad, I was ready to confess how I really felt about him. I invited him to an art show one of my best friends had curated (its title, Hot Girl Summer, was the perfect fit for this era), and we met up at his to pregame for a bit before heading over.

A few vodka shots later, we headed out to the show. Our Uber dropped us off a few blocks away from the venue, so we walked together, me walking slightly ahead of him turning my thoughts over in my mind. I was anxious. How would I do it? What would I say? When would I do it? I felt the buzz hit me and, in that moment, my impulse took over.

I stopped in my tracks and whipped around to look at him. He looked confused but, before he had time to ask what was up, I grabbed him by his collar and kissed him. Much to my surprise, he kissed me back. And there we were. In the middle of some random street in Oakland. Having the hottest makeout ever.

February 14, 2020

Berkeley CA

I hadn’t seem much of him lately, as he’d been busy involving himself in various clubs and activities. I had also started working my first internship in the city, commuting to San Francisco three times a week following my 8 am Stats classes. We were on the grind, and I had to respect it. But I also missed him. A lot.

I went out with a girlfriend of mine on Valentine’s Day and, a couple of…okay a LOT of tequila shots later, I texted him seeing if he wanted to come over. He agreed.

Much to my embarrassment, I ended up spewing my feelings like a broken faucet. I told him I wanted to be with him. I knew he felt something for me too, but starting a relationship was not in the cards for either of us then. We woke up the next morning and didn’t acknowledge the conversation from the previous night, each going our separate ways for the day. What we didn’t realize was that we’d be parting ways for longer than we’d anticipated.

April 2020

Los Angeles, CA

I’d headed home after my university had been shut down due to the eruption of the global pandemic. I had no idea what the world had in store and expected to return to my college life soon. I thought about him a lot and wondered how he was doing through all this change, so I reached out. We caught up for a bit, but things dissipated overtime as the world began to shut down. Along with it, us.

That was the last time I’d reached out that year.

July 2021

San Francisco, CA

I experienced my first heartbreak.

Bored out of my mind during the early months of the pandemic, I ended up meeting a guy on a dating app and spent almost every day on FaceTime with him until I finally bit the bullet and moved back up to Berkeley to see him in person. We started dating and I became engrossed in his world, practically living with him and his family and making him my center of gravity. The relationship was emotionally abusive, and one day I decided enough was enough. So I packed my bags and walked out the door for good, never looking back once.

The night of the breakup, I was in shambles. Sensibly, I decided to heal at the club. One of the interns in my group that summer was living in San Francisco and invited me out, assuring me that I could crash with her for the night (though you could imagine her surprise when I showed up to her pregame with bags on bags from moving out of my ex’s…). I ended up splitting up from my intern group later that night and meeting up with some friends at a club, who greeted me with shots.

Dazed and numb, I ended up getting locked out of my co-intern’s apartment at 3 AM. Just perfect. I wasn’t there long before I noticed a familiar figure in the lobby. I desperately knocked on the door and nearly shit myself when I saw who it was.

It was him. I hadn’t seen him in nearly 2 years and here he was, in the flesh. Coincidence? Serendipity? Karma? Whatever it was, I was in no way expecting this turn of events.

January 2022

It was my senior year of college and I was in my healing era. I’d experienced every stage of grief following a breakup and was now focused on living life as presently as I could.

I started hanging out with him again like we used to when we met freshman year which felt good, although this time was different. We were different people, changed. The space between us was more prominent.

One night, I went over to his place after we’d both come back from a night out. We played games and caught up. What started off lighthearted quickly changed when we began to discuss our dynamic. Although I loved the fact that he was in my life again, I was exasperated by the feeling that we were back to square one: mutually attracted but stuck in a cat’s game. What was the next move?

He sat me down, looked me in my eyes, and said the words that completely shifted my degree of hope for my shattered love life:

“I have loved you since the first year we met.”

October 2022

We recently graduated and moved to the city, embarking on a new era of our adult lives. We’d been going out for a few months and taking things slow, getting to know the new versions of each other with intention.

He woke me up at 3 AM and told me we’d be going on a drive somewhere. The journey lasted around 2 hours and we got to our destination when the sun started to peek over the horizon, revealing yards of colorful fabric strewn across the lot next to large baskets. We were going on a hot air balloon ride.

I truly felt like I was in one of my bootleg Barbie movies. And he was my prince. As we stood in the basket floating in pink skies, overlooking miles and miles of vineyards cloaked in warm sunshine, I felt time stand still again. And it was just us.

I knew in that moment that, regardless of what life throws our way, we were meant to be in each other’s lives for a reason. No matter how our love story pans out, I will always remember my first love and how we came to be. That will be my own personal fairytale, and, to me, that is perfect.