Bare. Vulnerable. I think of the many hands these thighs have touched. How my heart wrapped around a lover and then again. How my body and spirit poured into theirs. Reflecting on many of my past loves. How many seemed to carry that ole “familiar” love language. How our vibrations crashed into each other. Enamored. Wowed. That love could taste so sweet. Comforted knowing we’d been here, together before. How they took bits and pieces of my soul instead of my whole self. How depleted I felt at times. Like the euphoric feeling you get when you know someone you just met. Past lives ain’t always been kind. How that familiar feeling held me hostage, long after each relationship ended. The scars I’m still healing from just staying in it.

I’m learning that familiarity don’t always taste good. It doesn’t always mean lasting love. Healthy love. I realize that what is often familiar in a relationship stems from deep past experiences from our first human examples of what love looked like. Asking, what were some of the first examples of love we witnessed back then. In the grand plan, it might very well be the thing that kept us connected, comfortable, stuck, on edge, bitter, scared, terribly insecure, questioning our gut feelings, staying even when the relationship was killing us. How we didn’t choose to save ourselves the first time we became unrecognizable to ourselves, after the damage had been done.

Given some of my past romantic relationships, I correlated when new lovers reminded me of people, places and things from my past to “red flags” that were bright and bleeding, early on, but how I stayed anyway. I thought I could change them, or wait for them to change themselves. And I do recognize that familiarity or the “soul mate connection” isn’t always a negative thing. However, I think its worth exploring why we feel so strongly toward a person in the first place. Also, how important it is to sort out where that all comes from before diving head first into loves ocean floor. Familiarity don’t always equal happiness or longevity and could very well be a warning sign, pathway to a toxic experience or ending, a breading ground for excuse making, settling, domestic violence, or staying longer than we should, just to say we have someone that we believe we know better than themselves.

However, coming across this new interest is dope because they don’t remind me of anyone else. The irony is wild to me that I don’t recognize anything in them from any of my past loves. And while exciting is damn scary. And maybe that’s the jewel? Maybe that’s something I needed to experience this side of things? I tended to gravitate to familiar traits in people that were clearly toxic because parts of me were toxic too. Maybe it’s what I knew best of all. At any rate returning to the place where I hurt in them delayed my healing. I needed to transform my ability to make better choices for the healing I deserved.

I’m not going to lie, this new energy makes me uneasy, questioning, reserved. I can’t for-see where we’ll go. Could that be the difference? Makes me want to run. Got me searching for ways to count them out like their hands not being the shape I like lol! Yet, my heart knows better. I’ve learned to love with a filter over my heart now. I take my time. I don’t put all of my energy into “good feelings” alone. I feel my way through cautiously. I allow them to show me their power and grace. I allow them to pour into me all the love I give away. Loving this way is a new beginning in my life. A new opportunity to create a healthier frame of reference for my future. A new place to call home.