How I met my first girlfriend – a heart-breaking and hopeful tale of love and loss.

We each have a story. A defining moment in life that changes us forever. A new environment, a new person, a new feeling. Everything leads to a new lesson. We live and learn as Alanis Morissette put it. Your story could be of struggle, fear, adventures, friendship, family or love. In either case, you would’ve been transformed through your experience and come out a different person.

My story is about love, but not just ordinary love. My story is about epic love. It’s about love between two people that never should’ve met, but as fate would have it, they did.

For the sake of brevity, let’s skip my childhood years, my sexually confused, self-loathing, depressing on-the-verge-of-suicide adolescence, and my nine-year platonic relationship with my bi-curious best friend who loves me (but not in the let’s-get-married-and-have-babies kind of way) and come full circle to the 5th of May 2012.

I was boarding a plane. I was leaving my hometown, the oppression, and every trace of negativity behind and I was flying forward towards my dreams. I was letting go of everything I knew in order to move to a foreign city in pursuit of happiness. I was almost a quarter of a century old and it was time I figured myself out.

I arrived in the marriage equality capital of South America: beautiful Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was mesmerized by the buildings, the empanadas, the wine, the streets, the tango, and the buses. Did I mention that I was in LGBT heaven? I saw openly gay people on the streets holding hands, lesbians who dressed however they felt like and dyed their hair according to their whims, ladies kissing in bars, celebrating anniversaries in family-friendly restaurants, gay parades! It was a whole new world to me and I was free. I felt like I had the opportunity to reinvent myself. And I did. After six months of bliss, I figured out who I really was. Since I was a free woman in her element, guess what I was ready to do?

I was ready to fall in love.

I hit up the gay bars. It wasn’t as I had imagined it to be. Granted, I imagined a secret garden overflowing with beautiful and divine creatures, goddesses working as bartenders and yours truly being the life of the party.

I usually ended up in a corner drinking the worst cocktail while watching all the happy lesbian couples making out and passing me by. I went home alone all the time.

I was shattered until I had an epiphany; the woman that I was supposed to be with wouldn’t be in places like this. I had to go out and pursue my passions in order to find her. So I did. I went to spoken word events, open mic nights, comedy nights, the movies, the Argentine version of “Broadway”,  the park, the concerts, the planetarium, I even went to meditation centres! Still nothing. Every girl that caught my eye was either straight or taken. On the bright side I did, however, get invited in on a threesome, a trip to Uruguay, a bus tour to Mendoza and a creepy “come back to my place to check out my Star Wars collection” offer.

Needless to say, I had lost a little faith in my fantasy. The idea of finding “my penguin” and living happily ever after seemed to fade away with every disappointing encounter.

A couple of weeks later I searched: “lesbians Buenos Aires” and that’s where I found it. An online dating site dedicated to lesbians living in Argentina. In the week that passed, I decided to let go of the feeling of being a loser that came with my anxieties about joining the site.

I was as honest and purposeful as possible when creating my profile. I made sure to put up what I was all about and I got started. Since I had travelled halfway across the globe to find Ms Right I was not willing to simply sit back and wait for her.

Most of the people who saw my profile picture just wanted a ‘casual encounter’ (like we don’t all know what that means). I was just about ready to take my profile down when I got a message: “Where are you from?” it said. She was the first person to ask me that question so before responding I did the proper thing and stalked her.

She was a Philosophy student from Colombia who was moving to Argentina next year to study. There was so much to learn about one another. She wanted to know everything about me. She told me she was fascinated by me. Little did she know that I was fascinated by her. We would talk non-stop for hours on end. We were such different people. There were so many things that could separate us. We had different backgrounds, experiences, we spoke different languages but ultimately there was a larger force at play that was pulling us together.

People usually laugh in my face when I say this but when I first saw her, even though it was through a computer screen. I swear, from the very first moment I laid eyes on her, I just knew. I felt it down in the core of my being; she was different and could be special to me. Isn’t it scary?

In record time she told me she loved me, I thought it was a fluke. She repeated it again. Since I was dying to scream it back to her, I did what any self-respecting woman would do and said ‘thank you’. Ok, I’ll admit I lied right there, I actually told her that I loved her too and I meant it.

In human terms, we had just met but in soul terms, I had finally found her. I already knew her, well at least I felt so. I knew her essence, including the person she was and could be. I grew old next to her in the blink of an eye.

She moved to Buenos Aires to live with me. I will never forget the moment I met her in person at the airport; it was our first physical contact with each other. It was one of the best hugs I’ve ever had in my entire life. While I listened to my heartbeat, felt her rhythm and the safety her embrace brought me the noise around me disappeared. I had found my home.

The whole drive home was an exploration. It was a rush. We got to look at each other through our own eyes and not through a screen, we had our first kiss. It was a rush. That’s when I realized how often people take that for granted. Having a person there for you. Standing in your front door, someone you’re able to hold, to touch, to hug, to cry on, to tickle, to kiss, to cuddle with.

We were amazing together and friends of mine would ask me to tell them our secrets to love. She taught me about her culture just as I taught her about mine and our time together was spent weaving delicate tapestries on intimacy and aspirations. We made love.

Then I got a call which forced me to head home. I promised her I would return. She didn’t believe me. Things were said. Damage was done. You really only understand how high you were flying when you hit the ground below. We crashed and the resentment set in. A few days later, I left, said goodbye to my Penguin and wished her well.

A few days later she sent me this note:

 “Dear Darshana,

One day, I met someone. Someone who taught me a lot of things about life, about nature, about the world and all the creatures. It was a miracle. I think that’s the most appropriate word to explain what it was. A miracle. This person was my guru, I used to call her my guru. She was a wise, kind and extraordinary person who taught me a lot of things about the Ego and I think that this human being knows me very well, even more than I or anyone I know could ever know me. It’s incredible. Because now I realize that everything this guru taught me and shared with me is what I needed to understand who I am and what I have to offer and to share with the world. You are my world. You’re the love of my life. I want to share everything with you.”

The problem with modern society is that we’re accustomed to throwing things away once they’re broken because we have convinced ourselves that all things are replaceable. This is not true and I learned that the hard way.

In The Notebook (labelled as the greatest love story), Noah tells Allie upon her return: “So, it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? Thirty years from now, forty years from now? What’s it look like? If it’s with him- go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again if I thought that’s what you really wanted. But don’t you take the easy way out.”

In my experience, this is what I’ve learned. Love is not perfect, it is not simple, neither is it tragic. It is effort, persistence, endurance, kindness, gratitude, humility, vulnerability, sacrifice and it is so worth it.

She was worth it to me. Since our parting last year, she has come to visit me in my hometown and I am leaving next month to go visit her. Although we are no longer together as partners we have remained good friends through it all. Even though it’s hard and frustrating, I haven’t given up. Part of me still believes there’s hope. This love story isn’t over yet. That’s what happens when you encounter epic love, it never ends.