Talk About Surprises: How I Ended 2023 With A Ring On My Finger!

There were times in 2020 when it felt like we would never have another "normal" year. Looking ahead feels so indulgent now. Standing on top of Lousberg with Lena and Conor, two of my very best friends in life, at midnight January 1, I therefore just thought "come at me, 2023!"; I was empty with expectation,  surrounded by all the love I needed - and thought I'd ever have. I had no idea what to expect: life felt volatile, prone - but too boring to - change. In a way, I was open to a year that would change things but had given up on anticipating it would. Besides, things were good, everything staying the same seemed positive. Within six weeks of that date, I was in love, Lena was pregnant - and now life seems like it will literally never be "the same again". 

    Glad I gave up on love eh?    

2023 will always be the year I started single but ended engaged. One week before meeting my future husband, I had given up! What sounds dramatic didn't really bother me all that much. Patricia and I were having a glass of wine next to my leftover Christmas tree in late January when I became the lady that had to give up on love to find it. "I think, I just don't really believe it anymore", I said when Patricia said, enthusiastically, 2023 would be the year we both meet the lids to our pots (and like usually, mamma was right!). So many years of being open to love - like the real kind - and never finding it just had me believe my idea of what it would be like was wrong. I had dated very nice people, but none of them seemed better than my own company. Skepticism was really the most reasonable choice: I wanted a healthy man that was able to see I am the golden ticket that I am - or nothing! And until Feb 3, I had never met such a man. 

I am not the most romantic person, but even I have to question the intervention of fate when I tell people the story of how I met Francois. It wasn't even supposed to happen. I was planning to stay in Berlin, all cooped up in my house all of February, but decided to spontaneously go see a friend for a wine weekend. Then, when already there, she canceled, and I went alone. I needed lunch, so I googled "restaurant" and just went to the highest rated one (which is what tourists should simply do when they don't know a place, always works!). I left that restaurant with a phone number and texted him on my way out as I noticed I had already dropped the piece of paper he wrote it on (imagine I lost it...). There were so many ways we could have not met. And only one of how we did. 

Looking back at all my years, it's easy to realize now how unhealthy I was for some of them. A confused, unaware younger Sina would have missed that this handsome man looking me deeply in the eyes while talking was really showing me that he was available... emotionally. She would have laughed off his flirting, felt flattered, and went on with her blind life. But not this time: He knew who he was, and he was ready to share it. Without fear, he naively pursued us. Although he's has admitted to not knowing what he was doing, the end product is a little magical: we neither had the chance to, nor did we want to, take is slow and see where it goes. We did marriage bootcamp, stripping down to our soul and seeing if the other was up for it. It was rough - but it worked! Thankfully, two fairly broken paths were able to come together and appear to become a pretty solid unit. 

                        These faces heal me!                        

With love came a lot of healing for me. It brought me perspective on how I wanted to conduct my future - unlike the past: focusing on love, family and personal fulfilment over a career that is not respected by anyone but me. The year started out professionally with my company pursuing a little corporate douchebaggery (aka layoffs) which suddenly had me wondering if I was keeping my job and then, more surprisingly, if I wanted to keep it. In economic hardship, companies do a realignment: they focus less on employees, and suddenly more on cold, bold capitalism. My realignment was a direct response to that: since they didn't care about my development, I didn't care much about trying for that extra 10% (in reality, I tell ya, as soon as I was told my pay raise would be 3% during the tenth consecutive month of 10% inflation, my desire to focus on my career came to a abrupt halt!). 

I might be premature in saying this but I am no longer "becoming", but have reached a state of arrival. Six years ago, I was at my high school reunion and saw my old head teacher, now principal. The first time we met I was 14, he was probably around 30, married to my French teacher. A really nice dude, we had a very good relationship, resulting in a feeling of pride when I told him 10 years after graduation what I had achieved. "Do you ever feel like... you arrived?", he asked me that day. I asked what he meant. "I married my wife after uni, we have a house and we love our jobs, our kids are happy. We are where we need to be," he said. "You are traveling the world, you are doing all these amazing things... but don't you ever feel like you want to come home?". His question made me angry; I thought he had passed judgement on my undoubtedly better life. Mine was so far from being boring. Today, I realize he "arrived" where he wanted to be before me (which is cool, ain't no race!). At the same time, I believe I am more sure than he ever could be that my destination is the right one. 

This year told me the meaning of all these words: "roots", "home", "arrival". It wasn't just a person that did that, it was years of seeking to learn. I finally know who I am, what I want, and what it was all for. It was for this: It was for the anticipation I am feeling right now sitting in my wonderful home I worked on for, basically, my whole life that this coming year I will be dancing to "This Year's Love" at my wedding. The roots of who I truly am, who I truly want to be, are secure in the soil of where I am standing and they are ready to be shared with someone who, hopefully, will find my soil equally rich to build some shit on. I am on the right path and I am no longer scared it's the wrong one. The future makes me excited, not scared. And for once it's not "anything can happen" or "bring it", but "I want this particular thing to happen this year and I will not rest until it does". If, for some reason, next year's note does not start with "it happened", I am probably drunk in a ditch. The way I am not scared of failing is everything I need to know.