When we first started talking, I couldn’t believe it when Alex told me his my birthday was the day after mine. This year we got to celebrate our birthday’s together and all I wanted to do was take some images to celebrate our recent engagement. I clearly had forgotten just how hard it is to capture a series of photographs with a remote trigger… and also we have kids so they were impatiently watching us do these after the school run! Then the most bizarre thing happened to me today and it just put everything into perspective about mine and Alex’s relationship. Now bear with me while I try to explain…

So I was tidying up the house today and I came across a pen top that had somehow come off of it’s other half. I thought there was very little hope of finding the pen even though I had seen it about, and I was too busy to care so I just decided to throw it in the bin. To my surprise a little while later, I typically find the pen just sat there staring up at me. I couldn’t believe my timing, I had only just chucked this pen top away! As I peered into the dirty bin bag, I really didn’t want to go digging through the dirt just to make the pen complete when I probably have plenty of pens about. I gave up on this weird scenario and chucked the pen in the bin too and thought nothing else of it. After tidying up, i’m taking the bin down the stairs and the bin bag gets caught and breaks. Out comes a few items and guess what comes out with it? This tiny bloody pen top! Now I know there’s something weird going on, I am just gobsmacked that these two little items, so desperate to find each other that I think what the hell i’ll go and get my hands dirty to make this happen! Now I’m looking through all this rubbish, you name it, it’s there, examining bit by bit, and this pen is nowhere to be bloody found. Why on earth am I going through all of this rubbish getting myself dirty just to find a pen, I have better things to do with my time?! I finally give up, laughing at myself but I keep the pen top weirdly (i’m not sure even why at this point) and I just go about my day. Later, as if I subconsciously knew, I find that ruddy pen on the floor just lying there all along! I realised I never actually chucked the pen in the bin at all. It clearly wanted me to find it again, I just chose not to see it as I was desperately looking for it, but it was patiently waiting to be found once everything else had been squared away. At last, these pen parts were reunited and I am satisfied that I had gone through all of that effort, as it’s actually a really good pen! (and I am very particular about my pens).

Now you may be thinking what on earth has a pen got to do with a relationship? I wouldn’t call myself religious and I don’t particularly believe in fate, but I can’t help feeling the universe has brought Alex and I together much the same as these pen parts. I feel I relate to this pen top so much having been through quite some journey in my lifetime. I’ve been in amongst the rubbish, looking for things that weren’t even there, waiting to find someone or someone to find me. Now Alex (who is the pen in this scenario) came in my life and just stayed where he was, even though at times he was hidden he was always there in the back of my mind. These past couple of years i’ve really had to find myself again before I was even able to think about being in another relationship. I turned a blind eye to love, I painfully embraced the chaos that my life had become and I fully accepted who I was. I finally knew what I wanted and deserved, I stopped looking for anything really and just like that…there was Alex, simply waiting for me.

The moral of the story is, no matter how hopeless something seems or how difficult the task appears to be, don’t be quick to throw something away just because you think there’s no hope. You might just discover something important that was there all along. Or, if you do carelessly throw something away and you realise you probably shouldn’t have, don’t be afraid to dig deep amongst the dirt because for me ultimately, it meant that I found my missing part…