“So how does it happen, great love?” I ask myself, nearly every day of the past year, saddled with the failures of seven years of unsuccessful courtships.

Great love, I think to myself, must not be meant for me. It’s elusive, mysterious, forever slipping through my fingers. Not in the cards.

And yet, I want it. God, how I want it.

I suppose, then, that it’s time I look inward and face myself - honestly, directly, compassionately.

You see, I fear I’ve become the master of my own cage. I’ve taken the very beliefs that pain me the most and I’ve adopted them as my identity. What’s worse, I’ve taken these beliefs and mixed them with pride and fervor.

“Why isn’t it working?”

“Seven years.”

“I will never find it.”

“I will never find it” has become so deeply embedded in my identity, that I’ve forgotten that I’m actually still breathing in the present moment. I have become so angry at the world that I forgot that it is I who hold the keys to the cage.

You see, in order to forge a new identity, you have to kill your old one. A new identity would be scary and vulnerable, the girl trying a new class, the girl sending the first text, the girl explaining to a stranger why she moved to New York just one more time. That would require letting go of pain, and a painful identity is a seductive one - it gives you permission to be angry, to feel like you’re owed something, to assume the mountains you’ve climbed are steeper and colder than everyone else’s.

But the truth is, everyone is climbing. Some people climb glaciers, some people climb boulders, some people climb stairs. And yes, some paths are steeper than others. That doesn’t take away from the fact that each hill is real and painful.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the seduction of a painful identity. The security of resignation. The permission it gives you to move through the world cloaked in armor, shield in hand, sword at the ready, forever in the pursuit of the feeling of “overcoming.”

I’ve decided to lay down my armor. I will retire my sword, I will sell my shield.

I’m taking on a new identity - one that is much less seductive and much harder to maintain.

My new identity is Hope. The hope that, perhaps one day, I will indeed find it. The hope that, perhaps one day, there will be the sparkle of twinkling lights, the melody of children’s laughter, the smell of chocolate chip pancakes. The rhythmic patter of two heartbeats where there used to be just one.

I’m still not sure how Great Love happens. It still feels elusive and mysterious. But perhaps, before one can find a Great Love, one must have the courage to hope like hell for it.

I look at my calves. How they’ve grown, I surmise. I look at my hands. How they’ve callused. I focus on my breaths, long and slow exhalations of exhaustion.

I walk over to the window, open the vertical shutters and peak out onto the rolling hills of grass, dots of trees and plants, silhouettes of human beings somewhere far away, the sun drenching Earth in a heavy golden hue.

I touch the brick to the left of the window. I remember laying this brick down, this one no different from all of the others. One by one, year after year, crafted with my proprietary elixir of clay and tears. I’ve been laying bricks as long as I can recall.

Somehow, someday, on a day no different from the others, a collection of bricks, mixed together with the memories of violence and chaos, turned into a palace of peace.

And yet, the absence of voices.

I will become like these women, I decide on a cold Monday evening, far away from the Mediterranean sea and far away from the 1960s.

Lately, I have found myself somewhere between “okay” and “not okay", somewhere between breathing and not breathing. I’ve become too good at sitting in sadness, too versed in dark emotions, too sensitive to the catastrophe of being human. I am an expert at harvesting beauty from tragedy.

What would the women say to me, I wonder?

• Dance

• Bake the brownies

• Visit the museum

• Host the dinner

• Drink the champagne

• Take the scenic route

• Jump in the water

• Hold the door for a stranger

• Slow down

• Take the ear phones out

• Eat your broccoli

• Call the man

• Buy the shoes.

Do not forget to live

“No problem.” She smiled at me as she looked around the restaurant, chairs and tables mostly empty, a low chatter echoing from a handful of patrons sipping wine and nibbling cheese on a cold November night.

I followed her to a small wooden table in the middle of the room; I hung my black peacoat on the back of my chair and sat down, waiting. I looked around at the burgundy bottles lining the oak shelves. I picked at my red nail polish. You arrived late. I made an excuse for you. I hadn’t been nervous for a date in awhile. I took it as a good sign that I was. It was date two. I would have made any excuse you asked me to.

We spoke of God, and family, and politics, and travel, and languages, and religion. I had never met anyone so interesting before. It felt like talking to my best friend, equally comforting and challenging. The voices around me traveled somewhere far away.

Fueled with the courage of a glass of wine, I leaned in to catch a whiff of your cologne. I looked at your hands and wondered what they would feel like on me. I looked at your eyes and wondered if you wondered what I would feel like in your hands. I felt the speed of Earth and the electricity of lightning. I gave you access to my every dream and secret and fear.

I drank more wine. You drank more whiskey. Suddenly, we were the only people left in the restaurant; everyone else had retired to their home for the final whispers of the weekend. We closed the restaurant, and still, we would not release the night. We walked. We talked. We kissed. We stood against the brick facade of a corner in the West Village. We kissed again. You lit a cigarette. A yellow taxi drove by. You walked me to the train. We said goodbye.

Home, and alone with my thoughts, hope battled fear. Was this it? Was this that thing I had been looking for? Or would I, once again, face the disappointment of a precious “almost” slipping through my fingers?

I bet my entire life’s savings on hope.

There was magic in the air that evening. It was comfort, excitement, understanding, and intrigue all at once. An infinity of contradictions woven together to create an elusive feeling I had longed for, for so long.

We were to be married in Paris. I would wear a long, elegant dress. You would wear a suit. There would be scarlet roses. These were the thoughts that hope instilled in me as the battle in my mind raged on.

Of course, two weeks later, it was fear who took the victory. We did not marry. I did not wear the dress. There were no roses. All that remained were text messages, unanswered, and floating somewhere in the ether, unreciprocated feelings, questions, complete confusion. I braced myself for the disappointment of another precious “almost.”

Did lightning strike that November night, I ask myself, exactly one year later? Or was it my imagination?

How many times can lightning strike before it kills me?

The twinkling lights begin to dance, looking down at us, lightyears away. A lawn mower sings its final song, restless to return tomorrow for yet another performance. The table in front of me sighs with the weight of wine and voices and tomatoes and cheese and laughter.

The air sweats from the thick summer heat, refusing to surrender to this late August night. This Earth does not belong to anyone, she reminds me. We are only visitors, you and I.

So my hand finds yours. My eye catches your eye. We speak in silence. Amidst the voices, we belong to each other.

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