Adventures in Synchronicity: Have you ever read The Alchemist?

I don't really know when I first read The Alchemist. One of my roommates in Cairo may have given me the book. I may have read it while recovering from heat stroke in Tel Aviv, or I may have read it in Paris later that summer, or the next year when I thought I needed to move to France. The most likely scenario is that I snatched my sister's copy while I was visiting my family in Fort Lauderdale. If I recall correctly, there was a bottle of wine and a hangover on the flight home in the story. I know I didn't read it on the airplane because not only was I hungover, I was battling allergies; a lovely combination.

All I am really certain of is that it was around that time I read it for the first time.

The Alchemist is Brazilian author Paulo Coelho's first novel, and largely agreed upon by critics to be his masterpiece. It swirls together whimsy with wisdom to tell the story of a shepherd boy, Santiago, from the hills of Andalusia, in Spain. Dreaming in an abandoned church, Santiago has a vision that he must travel to Egypt to find his treasure - his personal legend. The next morning he sets off on a mystical journey propelled by omens (or signs) through a variety of foreign lands and adventures to uncover the power of intuition and listening to one's heart so as to understand the language of the universe, which is love.

I love this story so much that I often forget it is a work of fiction.

This line should be the most famous (it's not even in the top 5, whatever), "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Reading that line knocked me off my feet, metaphorically. We all have a personal legend, a treasure we are to seek out... I have spent the last 17 years trying to figure out what I've been seeking. 

I finally figured it out a few months ago, my treasure is love. The quote above reads like this for me, "you want love, and all the universe will conspire to help you achieve it."

My greatest desire has always been "to be loved;" to find my great love story, to share a passionate love with my soulmate. After my breakup that led me to Egypt wanting to solve the worlds problems, I had convinced myself that I needed to be what I thought was stoic at the time, avoiding emotions. That didn't really work for me, though, and after a few years, I was back to pouring myself into others to earn love. Changing myself to gain love. Succeeding in professional endeavors to win love. 

My personal legend has been a quest for love. I have found it, but have never really known how to receive it or really, healthily give it or even healthily share it with another. I have held it tenderly in my hand for fear it would and shatter into a million tiny pieces, and it did anyway. I have been suffocated by love. I have devalued love. I have discarded love over a misunderstanding. I have mistaken physical longing for love. I have squandered love. I have turned from love, fearing that I'd miss out on the love another wanted to give me. I have found myself on my knees begging to be loved. 

The quest has almost always ended in tumultuous heartbreak for me or the other person, mostly me. 

The last time I succumbed to love, I gave up the search because I was exhausted. I didn't think my heart could take any of the more pain love seemed to always bring. Since then I have approached every situation and relationship practically, matter-of-factly. No emotions, no feelings, just business. Climbing out of that last pit of despair, I vowed to never let it happen again. If I was going to be in a relationship it was only going to be for companionship. Open my heart again? Never.

Curled in a ball of agonizing misery, crying out to God to help me, to save me, is a place I never wanted to find myself again. If life could not be lived with full on love, giving up the search for my treasure was the most natural course of action. I built walls to protect my heart, for it could no longer take the pain. I numbed every emotion away with alcohol until I was the sturdy, unaffected, successful, intelligent person who could take anything and not care. I chose to start ignoring the omens because I had obviously misinterpreted them along the way. And I was tired, so tired of trying... and then I met him.