oh, matthew barber, how you make my heart swoon.

his lyric, “if our timing is true,” is the epitome of my broken hearted mixtape.  the bittersweet truism of a wild child wanting to love and be loved while remaining free.

gypsies are romantics too.  but that’s a secret between me and you.

if our timing is true …

the feeling when you meet someone and you just know he is going to play an important role in your life.  in a fleeting moment of happenstance you sense the kindred kismet.  you were meant to meet him yet he wasn’t meant to love you.

your timing may have been serendipitous but it wasn’t true.

“will you be ready for me?” mr. barber croons.

you know he is going to reply no — he isn’t ready.  and silently you know he never will be ready for you.   so before you go, before he goes, before you part ways, you say all the things, otherwise he’ll  never truly know what he lost when he denied you and set your pixie spirit free.

will you be ready for me

when i am ready for you?

in the moment we will be

if our timing is true.

–you and me, matthew barber

“in the moment we will be,” sings the song you and me.

what moment is that?  you ask yourself. like a resilient seed you grow to love past him.  until you meet him at an intersection of lost and lonely and for all the stars in the universe unbeknownst to you, you say,

“i loved you like yesterday as if nothing had ever changed.  as if time never passed.  but i know you’ve changed and i now value who i am.  days did pass — years in fact.  still i missed you.  i just don’t know if you and i were meant to be.  so i will continue to love you sweetly, and regrettably.”

he looks at you, expecting your frail heart to crack beneath his cameloen charm.  you don’t wince even though you’ve weakened within.  you sing back to him:

“we aren’t meant to be. our timing was never true …. so i’ve stopped standing still with you.”

to no surprise he doesn’t say a thing. he packs his bag and wanders out the door in grey melancholy.  and just like that, woven together from all the things rooted in an intertwined past, your love for him comes undone.  a simple loose thread in your otherwise tightly knotted heart.

(to the man that inspired this post — we weren’t ready.  our timing wasn’t true.  so i will continue to wander and i will continue to wonder if you loved me … and if i even loved you too.  you’re the favourite part of my life story.  even if you’re not a part of it anymore.)

 how you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.

-rupi kaur