A man walks past. Casually punches me in the chest. I turn, indignant. He walks on. Already drowning under 30kg of luggage with sweat dripping off my face and down my legs to soak my socks, I am at tipping point. This violation tips me. In moments of rage, the brain forgets all burdens; adrenaline comes online to support survival. I chase him down and ram my bag into his backside. People stare, no one cares. Frenetic, fighting, pushing, no sense. Jaded.

India can breathe life into my soul … can welcome me with Namaste and Pooja … just as readily as spit me out and crack my ribs. She has been sanctity and sanity for over two decades; the bejewelled lover whose arms I have fallen into over and over, who held me through divorce trauma and abuse. This seductive kohl-eyed lover has restored my heart, and broken it again … and then pieced it all back together again. I have arrived a rag doll with button eyes dangling by threads and hair pulled out and I always leave stitched up. Sometimes it happens the other way around.

When married to a narcissist after years of narcissistic abuse from my mother, it’s understandable that my perspective of love and lovers has been tainted. In calm Buddhist Nepal I missed the edginess of India; the dopamine of a sadistic lover. When life was so hard, India’s harshness felt normal. And then something shifted with how I felt towards my soulmate human love. It takes experiencing something that is truly loving to realise my patterns of comfort are also patterns of danger and dysfunction. I recognised that love needn’t be so hard; it can be simple and gentle and come with contentment that I have often erroneously equated with boredom.

After Nepal, I had to reacquaint myself with this love of mine… India pulled me back in for a ‘kyk weer’ (look again). And, after returning to my own gentle heart and self love, I have recognised that dopamine can come from self care rather than self harm. Unlike my human soulmate, who no longer speaks to me, India doesn’t ignore or reject or even diminish. I know she will always be there for me—and never let me fall—and I know I won’t resist returning … and even falling … again.

For now, however, we have decided to break up. Not acrimoniously in the way my human relationships have ended. We have chosen to still remain friends. With benefits. I choose gentle now as I return to South Africa briefly to reconnect with a more accepting love. And when I leave again I will move on a new path offered up from a place untainted by the past and unfettered by the future. Today I am present.