There are two things you should know about me if you have to know anything at all. The first is that I’ve always been scared of heights. When every kid jumped off platforms and bridges and trees, I sat there waiting for them to figure out a way to take me along. Often, they never came back. So, I learnt to leap with my eyes closed.
The second is that I’m a hopeless romantic. When I fell for someone, I fell fast, and I fell hard. I got my heart broken a lot, too. It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t the running joke because I always found my way to heartbreak. To me, love was about the attempt.
Love was in making time to squeeze an hour to see someone between your layover in the city of chaos, bumbling down the airport terminal not to lose a single second, only to realise you exited on the wrong side. It was looking at your watch whilst doing the mental gymnastics of time. Then rushing onto the traffic, screaming apologies and having profanities cried at you in return, leaping over the hedge towards the other side, dusting your only good shirt off, heaving.
Love was in telling someone you’ll be there, and making it, end of the world or otherwise. It was getting drenched in the city where it never stops raining and getting poked by a thousand umbrellas, trying to find someone sitting by the sea, looking at you and laughing. Love was in watching the sunset with them, knowing all too well that this would be the last sunset you’d watch together. Love was in countless last kisses, in infinite reassurances, in hoping.
Until, love became harder because no matter what I did, I found myself in the wrong time, around the wrong person, in the wrong situation, and in terrible ironies. So, I stopped believing. I called bullshit, and I folded my cards. It wasn’t until today that I remembered everything, and realised I’d do it all again in the blink of an eye. No questions asked. It was the best thing I did.
You see, love wasn’t about thinking, it was a leap of faith, and I had always been scared of heights, and that was a good thing. It meant, I knew what it meant to wait for someone who never came, and that when push came to shove, I always leapt with my eyes closed.