What A Delightful Lesson

Dear Universe,

Well, as predicted, my little flirt isn’t going anywhere, which is totally OK. I got a fantastic friend out of it. No hard feelings.

But looking back on the past little bit of time we spent in that bubble, I realize how much I was… in a bubble.

I got totally absorbed in it – not in like a creepy or desperate kind of way, but in a “this feels fucking amazing when I’ve been used to nothing but shit for months” kind of way. I got completely addicted.

Because (and I know I said it before in my last letter) that is the most alive I have felt in a long time. The Bailee that emerged inside that connection was playful, of all things. She made jokes, she teased, she just had fun. I haven’t seen that girl come out in a long long time and I fucking loooove her.

But this playful, flirty, all-wrapped-up-in-the-high Bailee also wasn’t writing. She wasn’t going for walks noticing nature. She wasn’t being as present with her kids as she would have liked.

She may have discovered some parts of her that desperately needed to be awakened, but she neglected some of her other most important parts along the way, too.

I can see that so clearly now that I’m coming back out of the clouds.

And I think, Universe, you sly son of a bitch, that’s one of the lessons you wanted me to get out of all of this. You wanted me to see that my heart is still open and that playful Bailee is still alive in there, but that I can’t abandon the rest of it – the life I’m trying so hard to build – to keep her active inside a connection. All of Bailee needs to come along for the ride inside any future relationships.

Lesson learned.

Oh, and Universe? Thank you for making lesson-learning such a delight for once.

I don’t regret one minute of this little fling or whatever you want to call it. I needed it – desperately. I needed to come up for a gulp of air when I’ve otherwise been drowning in the mundane.

And now that the mundane seems to be pulling me back in again, I go under with a bit of oxygen and a little bit of something else, too: hope.

Hope that you are going to send me a connection someday soon that is going to make all of this feel so natural and easy. A connection in which all of Bailee – the playful flirt, the writer, the mother, all of it – can truly thrive.

I’m shamelessly putting it out there to you: that’s what I want. And I’m ready.

XO – Bailee