Multiple phases of love?
When did you start looking for actual love?
Summer of love
What a summer it has been! I previously considered that post-covid-vaccine summer of 2021 was extraordinary in releasing plenty of lockdown energy. Yet witnessing four close friends getting hitched over the past 2 months has been an incredibly moving experience. Emotions experienced prompted me to finally finish the soul searching around life/love I have been meaning to do for a while and publish this piece.
Touch of love
Couples, as any complex entities, can be defined by their new “couple-selves” that may, but does not have to, be greater than the sum of their individual “selves”. Each and every couple is certainly unique in their own ways, but the common denominator across all four was how much love and care they put into building their new “couple-selves”. Each wedding I attended was a celebration of mutual care, respect, and support to each other. It is clearly not a given in an average relationship and they all were, in fact, better together than separate.
These partnerships have taken years to build and iron out fully which led me to inevitably compare to my own endeavors. They made me realize that I did not use to date with the intention of ultimately finding a lifelong partner in my early 20s. Foolishly perhaps, I did not feel like I needed a partner or simply did not have an idea of the person that would best complement me. I clearly prioritized getting to know the world and, as a byproduct, myself. Unintentionally I made the assumption that I still needed to understand myself and mature enough to let someone else in.
Timing is everything, they say, as everyone is on their own journey at their own pace. Not fully the same, being a fairly independent individual I did not think too much about finding the right partner until a few years after college when covid hit.
Timing of love
Similarly to Felix and Artur before, I have recently started wondering where the last 10 years of my life have gone. College does not seem far away mentally yet it’s been 12 years since I walked into the Wolfson building for the very first time. Larger trends in life may be hard to spot day-to-day, so I decided to plot my post-college life and categorize it into phases and several factors.
The exercise quickly proved to be eye opening; it clearly uncovered my recency and covid mental biases. Perhaps obvious to others, I did not realize how much of an effect covid had on my life and how long has it been since it started. I define March 2020 to be the starting point, somewhat unexpectedly, of my nomadic living despite actually owning a place since late 2021. It is hard to comprehend that by now I’ve spent more time being nomadic than actually living in NYC before covid. I would always glorify and reminisce about those days. Crazy.
Taking another look at the plot, I classified those initial 3 years in NYC as an exploration period. I did not know myself well enough yet to date with a serious intention. Focused on career and being social while getting to know the exciting city of New York. The first 2.5 years living in LES, and later moving into the East Village in April 2019 were clearly a post-college setup. Little did I know that the amazing summer of 2019 would define my peak NYC experience.
Covid of love
Being a Polish citizen who grew up at the time of historic transformation from a Communist to free-market state in the 1990s, I have had a craving for getting to know the West instilled in my blood. Although it started with first family trips to Slovakia that required having a passport, it quickly led to discovering other cities across the former-Iron-Curtain, and ultimately to studying and living abroad.
With hindsight, this experience has made the initially scary process of exploration utterly normal. Over time the ability to adapt to new conditions became de facto my new norm rather than something that happens every so often.
Covid hit at the time when I turned 28 and more mature than ever. Yet everything got flipped upside down and, in order to stay sane, I decided to turn fully nomadic. I made use of WFH policies at work and traded off stability of location and lockdowns for the fun of exploring America.
Future of love?
Despite all the changes that Covid has brought onto my life, I am weirdly excited for RTO and being more stationary. Perhaps we will never go back to pre-covid ways, but deep down I am looking forward to spending more time in New York. It will definitely be different from the glorious pre-covid-peak of 2019, but it should be equally rewarding. Although strange sounding, I am somewhat looking forward to being more constrained.
Admittedly, this summer has made my life choices even more confusing. I have always consider myself torn between bi-coastal living of California and New York, but now Europe was added to the mix. It will make finding the right partner harder, but my European ties have been reinvigorated. My heart likely lives closer to the middle of the Atlantic than before given how unlivable SF has become, and how beautiful Europe is.
Will report back in a few months, onwards!
