Butterfly Effect

I longed to visit Port Dalhousie in St Catherines. I felt a strong pull and a sense of urgency towards that place. Unfortunately, whenever I visited St Catherines to meet my sister, we never managed to go there.

I was 22 years old. I had been waiting to meet the love of my life for quite some time now. It had been three or four months since I gave up looking for a partner.

Prior to the beginning of my third semester, I decided to visit my sister again for the summer vacation. After five hours of adventurous and cautious travel, I got to my dearest elder sister, Cheryl, in the slow public transportation of Canada. We stayed up late, binged on movies and Netflix series, trekked, played football, met friends, trekked some more, had a potluck at people's houses, drank vodka and ciders, star grazed, on one clear night we even got a chance to see the planet Mars, I painted on her underwear to annoy her, and so on. It was a perfect vacation before I could begin the hustle of the third semester. During one of these days, my loving sister made sure to plan a day specially for me to visit Port Dalhousie. The day arrived and I clearly remember that it was a rainy 4th of September 2020. Why would something like that happen? All I wanted to do was visit a beach! Was that so hard to happen? By  God's grace, it was sunny by noon and the plan was on! We took our football, frisbee, flip flop, extra pair of clothes, and water bottles for our fun day at the beach. I vividly remember the feelings I had on the journey by public buses and foot to Port Dalhousie. I knew I was completely strong and doing amazingly well by myself even then I felt a sudden immersive burst of loneliness and sadness of not having a partner, not even a minute and I immediately started to pray to God to take away that feeling and whatever His will was, to let it be done, and to just give me the strength to face whatever His will for me was.

Our journey was completed and as I looked at my awaited destination, the beach, the first thought I had was 'this place is dirty', my expectations of having a beautiful, clean, and clear blue beach crashed and I wondered why I wanted to see this place so bad. I met Cheryl's friends and we all met a new friend from a friend!

It has been 8 months now since we have been together. God answered my sincere prayers on that journey. This boy is nothing like the previous boys I have been with. It just shows how cheap and low my choices are in front of God's rich and high choices for my life.

That evening we all played football and a game called confusion. I made sure to have zero expectations for that day after looking at the beach. I watched this boy kicking the football to a wall by himself while our other friends were playing on the beach equipment. I called out to him and asked him to join me on the teeter-tooter where he tried to swing me as hard as he could, safely testing my limits. On our way back home from this exhausting yet joyful day, we shared a small conversation about my profession as he sat in the front seat of me on the bus. A day later, we met again at a house party, we never spoke, all he did was sit beside me and order the pizza to the wrong address where he had to go and pick it up, also not forgetting his roommates consumed half the pizza by the time he got to his place. That was my last day at St Catharines and this time I was happy as I had finally fulfilled my desire to visit Port Dalhousie, but I had not understood the reason for my urgency to go there quite yet.

The following day, I got back to Peterborough using rideshare, it was way quicker and less tiring. A week passed by and this boy was not on my mind anymore. 'Crock' went my phone ringtone (I tend to have ringtones I find funny or stupid), and of course, it was him, he always pops up when least expected! On the second day of constant chatting on Instagram, he expressed his feelings for me but with a little bit of twist which I could write about in another story. I spoke to my sister about this boy to which she said she already knew that he liked me. It was only because of her approval to go ahead with him did I think about beginning a relationship with him. We continued our daily talk on calls and skype of getting to know each other. For some reason, the texting wasn’t happening every moment, I had my space that I thoroughly enjoyed and did not feel like I was losing myself to be with this new boy I just met. By the 1st of October 2020 in the morning at 8:00 am we started dating! It all happened within less than a month! 27 days to be precise.

This boy, Nathan, ruined my entire glamorous plans and dreams I had decided for myself and my solo life. But I would gladly make new plans with him again and I would not want it any other way. I found a best friend, a soulmate, and a life partner in this boy who I met one day at the beach. Now I know why I had a strong pull and urge to visit Port Dalhousie. This shows how twenty-four hours of a day can change one's life drastically. It is solely because of God's blessings I got a three in one partner. After all, God does work in marvellous ways. This is my story of two strangers randomly meeting at a beach and becoming best friends through love.