The Love Story of Mérida

Mérida has an accent at the beginning of her name. I think she needs them all the way through. Mérídá!!! Maybe a few exclamation points too. She shouldn’t be overlooked.

With Mérida, it was love at first sight. Her beauty, her rhythm, her colour. She could look perfectly manicured and dishevelled at the same time. She arrived with full presence and showed me exactly who she was. I wanted to explore every twist and turn. She was intense, and I loved that about her.

Living with her meant finding out what that intensity asked of me. Her heat decides when I go outside, when I walk, when I get things done, and how much energy I have left by the end of the day. I tried to bend around it. I wanted so much to make a life with her.

I kept telling her and everyone else how much I loved her. Meanwhile, I was quietly counting all the ways I had to adjust.

She hadn’t changed. The heat was always part of her. I had fallen in love with a place whose defining characteristics were becoming the things I needed relief from. That was hard to admit. She still drew me in. She was still beautiful. Every time I saw her colour and movement, I remembered why I had wanted her in my life. Then I would try to arrange another day around surviving her instead of living with her.

Mérida needs to be walked, explored, and lived in. That was the life I wanted with her, and I can’t keep bending myself into it.

I know I need to leave. I also know I’ll be jealous of the people who can stay and feel at home with her. I wanted to be one of them.