How to Have Your Own Love Story

Sometimes I still feel like pinching myself — this love affair with the Duck Fish Man seems like a dream.

There is a chance, still, that I could find that person who simply makes it hard to breathe. The way his energy fills the room, the unspoken kindness in his eyes, and his thought provoking conversation will feel both familiar and frightening. He will kiss with an open heart and let me glimpse the light and darkness of his soul. He will drink in my chaos and my extremes and enjoy the ride. I will blur at the edges and forget where I end and he begins …

and this is the exact description of my Duck Fish Man.

How did I get to this place, I wonder? I was always so closed down and distant with people, preferring independence to connection so how did I change?

I learned to accept myself as a woman. I read books that told me that I am meant to be feminine, emotional, irrational, extreme and honest and those are the very things that make me attractive to men who are the polar opposite of me –solid, focussed, driven and grounded. I decided once and for all that I would say what I felt and not worry about the consequences. I trusted that my raw personality would be the perfect counterpoint for the man of my dreams.

Even now I say things that even I think are irrational, knowing that saying them, feeling them and facing them makes them disappear like snow in the hot sun. Duck Fish Man has taught me that nothing I can say or feel is wrong, and that tears, anger and frustration are not to be hidden from, but called out by name.

I remember apologising for crying because of something that reminded me of my late husband, and my boyfriend told me to just breathe in the pain. I welcomed it into my heart and it just disappeared. These days, I sometimes cry because I want everything and I want it right now (irrational even to me) and he just listens without judgement. When I tell my girlfriends the things I say, they tell me “you can’t say that to a guy — you’ll scare him off”. Well, if he’s that easily scared, then he’s not the man for me.

Duck Fish Man sees my soul. He sees my intention to be loving, caring, inspirational and good. The rest is just temporary weather patterns, that seem as irrelevant to me as they do to him when I wake up next to him the next morning.

I learned how to be myself, even though I didn’t even know who that was. I gave myself permission to be “too much” and discovered that there is no such thing. I gave up trying to fix myself, and embraced everything without labelling it good or bad. I decided that I was worth loving, and even if no-one else fell in love with me, I was pretty awesome all by myself.

And the thing is, from the very first moment I decided to live with an open heart, my life transformed. If people turned away from the “new” me, then I never noticed. All I felt was an amazing connection with friends, colleagues, bus drivers, homeless people and strangers.

I lead with my heart — I imagine light and love bursting through my chest. I make eye contact and smile at everyone who crosses my path. I constantly practice feeling my energy move out into the world and watch as people seem to notice my radiance and light.

It is therefore somewhat inevitable that I would find deep, heartfelt connection with a man who lived a life equally open in love, and transparent in intention. How could the Universe give me anything else?

How do you have your own love story? Be yourself and be love. It’s not that hard — it actually feels like simply relaxing and letting go.