The Paperclip I Exchanged For Love

Have you heard the story about the man who exchanged a paperclip for a house?

He started out with a paper clip. He exchanged it for something of a slightly higher value with someone who required a paperclip more than the other item. This unique barter style carried him fourteen items up to a two-storied house. Quite crazy, I know!

It got me thinking, could it be that easy to barter my way to some of my biggest dreams? Could I create the life I desire by simply exchanging things I have?

So I began to look back at the exchanges I made in my life, particularly with love.

Exchange 1

The joy of standing at the bottom of the ladder is that you know you can’t go any further down. This is the lowest it gets. I started out with a decimated sense of self-worth, very little knowledge about what I actually wanted or what even existed out there, and a boy who took a lot of pleasure in making sure I stayed exactly where I was.

There was a lot of possessiveness, a bit of smothering, and some of that strange passive aggressive berating. But I suppose I liked feeling like I was worth the possessiveness and smothering.

The only real act of love in that relationship was that which I demonstrated for myself the moment I decided to call it what it was, a loveless state of affairs, and head for the hills.

One day, I decided to barter my state of comfort and security for a wild stroll into the vast unknown.

Exchange 2

My newly attained freedom was a lot better in theory. The reality was that I spent months battling conflicted thoughts on whether I had made the right decision.

Then along came the real deal, oh it was love this time alright! Head-over-heels, logic-defying, head-spinning, somersaulting love.

But the euphoria that love brought with it went hand in hand with its agony. This love caused me to wander through reckless terrains of self-destruction for four years.

Once, I happened to look at the reflection of what I became and what I saw frightened me. What was left clambering along was a skeleton of the woman I knew myself to be. All that remained were listless echoes of an exchange I once held dear.

I first traded for freedom and the hope of someday finding real love. But to my horror, I discovered that real love led me to hand over to my beloved every last shred of who I defined myself to be.

It was time to barter again, the old offer of a cherished lover for a new one of a clear sense of self.

Exchange 3 & Exchange 4

I must mention the two of these together because they are both intermittently linked to Exchange 2. I loved the idea of discovering who I was. But in my mind, this would be smooth and was soon to be followed by finding the kind of man who could love me for who I knew myself to be. That didn’t quite happen as I planned.

What did ensue were a series of seemingly pointless and hurtful chapters. These relationships were a sort of trial and error, if I may. Through them I kept crossing out things that I realised were not for me, and the kind of person I realised was not me.

This lead to me making a few trades of more or less equal value. But collectively, negating their variety somehow added more value for what was to come.

Exchange 5 AKA Almost-House

Everything about him was perfect, for me. Right from the love we shared for a good ol’ pepperoni pizza, to the ways we would bleed ourselves dry of words talking about new ways to do our hair. We looked forward to coming home to each other and our seamless conversations. He teased my loud snores and I taught myself to like cats (as much as I could) because he had one. I found a bower of comfort in our love. I was finally in a kind of love where I knew that both of us would do our best by each other, it was perfect.

I realised why I had to give up everything before, why I had to make so many difficult exchanges. It was to help me find my way to reach Exchange 5.

So what will you say when I tell you that I had to let go of 5.0 as well? And you thought it was a breeze to get a house for a paperclip!*

But I understood something. It isn’t about luck. It isn’t about the mind-blowing ways you could develop to get where you want, achieve what you want, find who you want or become who you want. It’s about trusting the trade.

If I didn’t begin bartering with my life, I’d still be at the place I was ten years ago. And with some hindsight, it is safe to say we all know that would not have been ideal.

It’s about letting go of something that feels familiar when you know that some dreams lay beyond your comfort zone. It’s about letting go without knowing what exactly the purpose of what comes next will be, about having faith even when you don’t see a purpose. Sometimes, it’s about giving up what feels beautiful because you refuse to settle for anything less than what feels right.

There will be too many times that you catch yourself looking back at a string of trades and wondering, am I any better off than I was five trades ago? Am I any closer to the house?

I assure you, while trading at life’s pace and not your own, it takes more time than we would all like. But you’ll get there, to that two-storied house, or that love, that feels like home.

*Yes, I have not reached the pinnacle of bartering with life on the romantic front, but if my faith got me this far, I know it will see me through!