By now, you have both settled into a comfortable step side by side while you are walking deeper and deeper into the forest where bushes and wildlife gracefully steps out of your way to create a path that was not there before. 

“You seem unsettled.”

You huff. You’d do worse if you dared. 

Love …? 

No, love is truly not on my mind anymore. 

I kept looking for it in all the imaginable places within myself. The love I have received in this life has nourrished me to be who I am today, and yet, it’s as if I have already completely emptied out all the places within in me where it could be held and contained. It’s as if I cannot find anymore of it now, beause I had my fill. Being loved unconditionally, it breaks your circuits, it rewires your heart into a state of receiving unlike anything else we encounter. It truly is the happily ever after. But: what happens in that time … the after? 

No, love is all that is on my mind anymore. It fills all the wrinkled and recesses of my mind and all the tender spots I dare not show this world. 

I keep looking for it. I keep feeling for it in the darkness of my own mind. 

And yet, there is no love in this world for me. 

I have lost it. I have lost all of it. Every single thread of light that tied me to that love has been burnt forever. There is nothing tying me to them anymore and even if we ever were to cross paths in another lifetime, how could we recreate what was once had?

 You huff again at the end of that uncomfortably familiar line of thought and your feet suddenly stop in their tracks. 

Your guide has stopped beside you, waiting with a watchful eye turned on you, but clearly not only you. 

“No.”

It’s a simple word. Such a final word. It is a full sentence when delivered with conviction. Yet, we expect more after the full stop, don’t we? We expect an explanation, more words to make that final one matter more. Make it stick. Make it acceptable. Make it have meaning. 

“No.” You say it out loud once more, feeling it’s depth. “Just being alive is not enough.” 

The commentary comes out in a hushed whisper. So fragile that it might shatter from their truth, if spoken out out loud.  

The silence is somehow worse. 

Your guide waits patiently until whatever is working through your mind is ready to step out. 

“We need more. We need to be seen. We need to be loved by someone close. Being alive is not enough… Surviving… it’s not enough… Living is messy, it has costs, it breaks hearts and bones… we all need more…”

She nods in your general direction and looks up towards the canopy of trees above you, but offers no other outward support of either your words, nor your needs.

“Why should I have certainty and what should I do with wisdom in a world that does not care if I live or die? In a life that is not my own, but made up by so many decisions made for me, by needs and wishes dreamt up by my parents, by demands and ambitions transfered from my teachers and leaders and by passions and desires given to my by partners who had no sense of neither my heart, my ever changing body or my constantly thriving spirit… tell me… would you, please, where can I find certainty and wisdom in this?”

There was a sarcastic laugh working its way up your throat. It felt bitter. There was silence instead. 

“Let alone love. What love is there when there is no certainty?… and how can there be certainty in a world like this…”