The Most Improbable Man

TL;DR: This isn’t just about finding him—it’s about what he awakened in me: a corrective experience, a rebellion against impermanence, and the possibility of a more meaningful, reciprocal ending.

1. If I never find him, what do I loose?

If I never find him, I  guess I will loose … little bit of hope? And little bit of the sanity that the experience gave me. But not all of it. What I know I will loose – yet again – is another authentic connection. I’ve had many of these in my life. So I will get over this one too. Each time, I am left a little more tired of getting over it. Again. 

I got corrected

From a psychological perspective, I see this encounter as a corrective experience. The sudden calm and quiet in my chest hinted at nervous system reset. It bypassed the usual defences of planning, control and rationalising.  Experiences like this only happen when something in the world pulls it directly out of our depths. They are the opposite of trauma – they overturn the normalised, everyday tension I’ve lived day to day. What made this one stand out was how forcefully it pulled  me away from my baseline of tension and responsibility.

Search for meaning

It is obvious this is as much about him as it is about what he represents. My identify has been chiselled by discipline, duty, business and control – along with fights, failures, pulling of hair and the dreaded pursing of lips. Yet the cage holding the untamed, receptive part of myself had its gate kicked open. Attachment theories love moments of unexpected emotional attunement. They tend to ignite the long buried needs and the urge to pursue the felt safety such connection brings – sometimes turning it into bonfire of feelings. Throw into the cauldron the incomplete narrative, which our minds loath, and you have a perfect mix for chasing something meaningful against all odds.

I fear you, still

I fear judgment, from you, from him and everyone around me. Maybe that’s why I kept my social roles are in tidy and align. And severely pruned right now. This set up probably doesn’t offer much space for sense of freedom, romance or spontaneity – all of which levelled up from cinders to blaze over nigh. So I must admit that these traits are a significant part of me. I might have overdone with keeping their leash too short. The leash established a pattern of impermanence that I had to accept.

Busy life in property management for expats offered many connections. But expats inevitably vanish, and I learned to swallow endings dictated by lives of others. The encounter with R*** feels like an inner rebellion. He represents a chance for at least a different ending – not a neat story ending, but my own ending. One more meaningful: reciprocal, organic, alive. Not the disappearance of something in me, but return to it.

And we are both clearer now – where he ends, and where what he represents beings. Isn’t sanity the ability to tell the difference and cary on regardless?