Your Intuition Guided You Here - Part 2

 Read Part One HERE

Over the next week, every time I walked to work, I could see activity going on inside the Old Spaghetti Factory.

People coming and going.

But no sign of Tall Guy.

And annoyingly, I started to feel a little guilty about how arrogant I’d been towards him.

I wondered if he’d been okay after leaving my bunk beds the weekend before.

Oh Larissa, he’s fine, the tougher part of me would chime in.

Still…

I started wondering if I’d see him again.

Thursday night after work, a group of my new work friends were heading out to a nightclub.

I had absolutely no interest in going.

I was tired.

All I wanted was to go back to the hostel, have a shower, write in my journal and go to bed.

But something inside me kept saying:

Go out tonight.

“No. I’m tired.”

Go out tonight.

“I really don't want to.”

Go out tonight.

My mind was loud.

The other voice wasn't.

It was quiet. Calm. Persistent.

Go out tonight.

So I did what any 25-year-old who had travelled halfway around the world and vowed to listen to her intuition would do.

I threw a little tantrum at myself, had a shower, got dressed and went to the bloody nightclub.

I’d been there maybe half an hour when I saw him.

Across the room.

Tall Guy.

Holy shit.

He’s here.

And immediately:

Is THIS why I was supposed to come out tonight?

Then my brain took over.

What do I do?

Do I go over and say hi?

Do I wait for him to come over?

I looked back towards where he was standing.

And then I noticed them.

Girls.

Several of them.

Flirting. Laughing. Circling him like seagulls would circle an unattended chip in the sand.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

There he was, surrounded by women.

My defiant side immediately took control.

NOPE.

I was absolutely NOT going over there.

No sooner had I made this very mature and spiritually evolved decision than he looked across the room...

and saw me.

Oh shit.

What do I do?

I gave him a cheeky little smile and wave, then immediately turned back to my friends and pretended to be deeply invested in whatever conversation was happening.

A few seconds later, one of my work friends started laughing.

“Hey, Larissa…”

“What?”

“I think that guy’s coming over here.”

Oh fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

And then there he was.

“Hi, Aussie.”

“I was hoping I’d see you again.”

And without even thinking, I replied:

“Yeah. Me too.”

What the fuck just came out of my mouth?

Okay, Larissa. Get your shit together.

My heart was ricocheting around my chest cavity, my breathing had gone suspiciously shallow, and apparently all ability to behave like a normal human had left the building.

Be cool, sister. Be cool.

What do I say?

What do I SAY?

And then my mouth, once again operating entirely independently of my brain - said:

“I’ve been thinking about you.”

WHAT THE FUCK, LARISSA?

That was NOT what I meant.

Well… technically, I had been thinking about him.

But I meant I’d been wondering whether he'd actually made it back to his place before having a full-blown asthma attack and dying somewhere between my hostel and the Old Spaghetti Factory.

There was context!

I just needed to explain the context.

Except before I could get any of that out, he said:

“I’ve been thinking about you too.”

Oh.

Well then.

Before my brain had time to work out what the hell to do with that, a couple of his friends appeared beside him.

They were leaving.

He looked at me.

“I’ve gotta go.”

And then he left.

I just stood there.

Seriously?

I’d dragged my tired arse out of the hostel because my intuition wouldn't shut up about going out tonight.

I’d come to the nightclub.

Found Tall Guy.

Accidentally told him I'd been thinking about him.

Discovered he'd been thinking about me too.

And now…

he was leaving?

Seriously, intuition?

THAT was what you dragged me out of bed for?

I got back to partying.

And my mind got straight back to its favourite job:

protecting me.

You're not here to find a boyfriend, Larissa.

You're here to find yourself.

That was the whole bloody point of this trip.

To explore.

To discover.

To have the adventure of a lifetime.

I wanted one year where I was free from the grip of everyone else's expectations.

Free from constantly asking:

Is this the right thing to do?

Free from making decisions based on what other people might think.

Free from guilt.

Free from shame.

Free from pressure.

Free from feeling like there was some invisible rulebook for how I was supposed to live my life.

Free from the pain of last years "You have a tumour the size of a small planet in your head and need major surgery" shit show.

This was my year to just be.

To find out who Larissa was when nobody else was telling her who she should be.

And I certainly hadn't travelled halfway around the world to get tangled up with some 6-foot-8 Canadian I barely knew.

So that's that, I told myself.

And I got back to partying.

I had just made my way back to my why.

Back to my internal centre.

I don't need a man in my life.

I don't WANT a man in my life.

I'm here for ME.

There.

Centre restored.

Crisis averted.

And then…

Tall Guy practically materialised beside me.

“Hi.”

For fuck's sake.

“Wanna catch up sometime this week? I haven't started working yet because the new restaurant isn't open, but we could just… hang out.”

Um.

What the actual fuck just happened?

Apparently all that very empowering internal dialogue I'd just had with myself was about to be tested immediately.

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

Because apparently Independent Larissa Who Needs No Man had left the building again.

“Meet me after work tomorrow night. We can hang out at the hostel. You know where it is. See you around seven.”

He looked at me and smirked.

“Can't wait.”

Oh Lord.

And just like that, Tall Guy was back in the story.

Looking back now, this is one of the things I find fascinating about intuition.

It wasn't giving me answers.

It wasn't telling me:

This man is important.

This relationship will work.

This is where you're meant to end up.

It certainly wasn't handing me a five-year plan and a guarantee that everything ahead would be pleasant.

It was much quieter than that.

Go to Penticton.

Go out tonight.

Stay open.

Little nudges.

One step at a time.

And maybe that's where we misunderstand intuition.

We want it to tell us the outcome so we can decide whether following it will be worth it.

Will this work out?

Is this person right for me?

Will this make me happy?

Is this going to end well?

But what if intuition isn't always trying to lead us towards the outcome we'd choose?

What if it's leading us towards an experience we need in order to become more of ourselves?

At 25, I couldn't possibly have known what role Tall Guy would play in my life.

I couldn't have known what I would learn.

What would be challenged.

What would change in me.

Or how some of those lessons would eventually prepare me for a completely different relationship, years later.

All I knew was that something had brought me to a random Canadian town I'd never heard of…

and despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise, it seemed determined to keep putting this bloody 6-foot-8 man in my path.

To be continued…