A Dance of Darkness and Light

on the kind of love I seek—for better and worse

This is a story I tell myself.

Daphne, you’re such a badass. You’re a beautiful being who shines light when you move through the world. You have the power to really positively affect those around you with your glow and your passion and the intimate friendliness you offer everyone you meet. Seattle freeze be damned… you’re a friendly bitch! And you’re good at it.

Still, inside, we know you have the darkest shit going on. It’s like you embody yourself in this armor of light, while the darkness stowed within is from the blackest of nights.

You are a being of extremes by your nature. Blessed with a channel to your heart’s wisdom and gifted with the powers to communicate it. Unendingly passionate about encouraging and empowering people to use their own voice. You nourish creativity any chance you get. You push yourself to be better and face your hard truths. You inject a good-natured humor into any environment. You share yourself with the world selflessly, and through that authentic expression put others at ease, helping them do the same.

You’re also an addict, a liar, and a coward. You’re spiteful, reactionary, and vengeful. This darkest-dark within you is nothing if not ruthlessness. You act with a sometimes-brutal conviction. You know that if we lived in a harsher time and the situation called for it—even if you were exactly the same person—you’d have the capacity to kill. You have a killer inside you. You could and can do the most terrible things in defense of yourself and your loved ones. If you had the power and lived in a world that enabled it, and someone crossed you in a way you felt seriously threatened you or your family, you would ruthlessly destroy that person to the utmost of your abilities and worry about the regrets later. Your self-preservation instincts are crazy-intense.

You’ve known all this about yourself for a long time. It’s been hard to understand. Having such darkness inside, held at such secret depths, while walking with lightful abandon—simply enjoying life by your very nature.

It’s a beautiful contradiction.

Yet, that’s why a romantic match has been so hard to find. Most people simply aren’t capable of seeing you in your full capacity, let alone holding space for all that you are. You’ve felt like too much in your relationships in the past, because legit, you’re A LOT. It’s intimidating to people who aren’t so extra.

The sense you’ve had that only one soul out there will be equally matched and truly able to see all of you, seems like an overstatement based in a truth. The truth that it’s been an enormous struggle to find someone you’re even interested in, because you’re looking for something unique. You want someone just like you but in reverse.

So many false notions you had about what you wanted. You’d always thought you needed someone who communicated like you; excessively. Who was a nerd like you. Who was ‘nice’, had the surface level similarities, and shared interests.

The reality is you’re looking for your inverted analog.

You see clearly after lots of awful dating, the only people you truly feel attracted to are all the same in one way—they walk in darkness—something about them shadowed. They are naturally authentic like you. But their authenticity shines dark. They show people things they’d rather not see.

This kind of darkness is not evil or bad— it’s the unseen.

The people you want cast shadows into the light, allowing the hidden to be witnessed. Just like you cast your light into the darkness, shining it to corners where it’s needed.

Yet, the thing which truly attracts you is not solely the darkness these rare few embody themselves within, but the brightest of light which their hearts hold.

The purest golden shining light. The hottest and most burning loving passion. It couldn’t exist anywhere else but within a womb of shadow.

And Daphne…when you see that bright sun burning from within their darkness, you’re like a fucking moth to the flame. You go nuts. Because these people are rare. And rarer still in form that fits with yours.

You see these people so clearly. You see their light shining so brightly from within their tombs of trauma and grief and sorrow and pain. And you know you see them better than anyone else, because you recognize how they have the capacity to do the same for you.

You want to wrap them in your light and heal them. You want to be wrapped in their darkness and protected by it.

But more than anything. You want to be seen by them. You want to show someone you respect deeply, all of what and who you are, and you want them to truly see it. You want them to love it as much as you love them.

Cool story you tell yourself, Daphne. So what?

So, yeah. That’s a big story. A complicated weight to put on people I go on dates with, for sure. Pop-psychologists of Instagram would go crazy if they saw this.

Especially if they knew, how at the very sight of these unique people, I go absolutely fucking mental. I sacrifice all of myself to get at that light they hold inside. Instead of waiting for the person who sees me back one day, I try and earn it, I try to buy it, and I become addicted to the hope of receiving it.

I imagine those pop-psychologists might tell me I’m chasing love in the wrong places because of how I was trained to seek it from difficult people. And that’s not untrue. I definitely have been trained that way, and it certainly plays a part in terms of how much disrespect I’m willing to take in hopes of receiving love.

They might also say that I should find someone who is more like myself, more kind, rather than continuing to search for this ‘distorted’ ideal of a yin to my yang. Letting go of my preconceptions and re-training myself to want what is better for me in a practical sense.

But somehow, I doubt all these folks behind the self-help Instagram machine are in the most amazing and rewarding relationships.

I bet they’ve found something safe and comforting and boring. I bet I would be bored. In fact… I know I would be. My Venus is in Gemini to prove it.

I’m who I am. I want the kind of person that I want. My heart tells me this clear as day. My head just doesn’t like it because it’s hard.

It’s hard to accept that I’d rather be alone than with someone who’s not everything I want. It’s hard to accept that I might never find a person who ticks those boxes, is interested in sapphic romance with me, and can keep up with me in the bedroom.

Yeah… I said it. But that’s real. It’s a rare bird I seek.

I know I deserve more and better than I’ve required of folks in the past. I have issues of self-worth that manifest clearly in relationships. Still, I stubbornly choose to trust my heart. I know what it’s looking for feels like, even if it sucks to admit. Even if it wants sour with its sweet—pain with its love. I’m not going to sell myself short and settle for anything less than the fucking amazing/impossible love my heart has been searching for its whole life. Because I believe in my heart. It’s not a broken part of me that I need to let go of. It’s not some Hollywood dream pumped into me. My heart’s known the kind of love I have coming my whole life, and I trust it. It’s my heart’s deepest truth. It’s where my love exists. It’s who I am.

And as best said by the sentiment of the immortal Roy Kent. I deserve someone who, ’makes me feel like I got struck by fucking lighting’.

So, thanks but no thanks Instagram.

I’ll just keep getting better at being me until that one stands before me. The one who sets my heart on fire. The one capable of seeing and loving all of me; every beautiful contradiction.

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