Hi there! My name is Shannon Kinney. I’m 27, born and raised in Colorado, and have been living in NYC for almost 7 years now, currently in Brooklyn. My favorite hobbies usually revolve around food — either cooking for (my love language) or eating out with my friends and family. I’m deeply passionate about a vast array of things such as mental health and the democratization of education, to name a few.
HUGE thanks and shoutout to Ayorinde for the honor of allowing me to guest write this week. I hope this piece provides a bit of comfort, and a lot of light and love.
the story
“We’re each other's soulmates.”
A pretty strong statement that I heard thrown around quite frequently and flippantly growing up with my parents. My mom is the ultimate romantic. She is strong in her faith, truly believes in soulmates, and romanticized every part of her relationships, including those that preceded my dad. Now, don’t get me wrong, there were a ton of positives to growing up within this narrative. However, the older I got, the more I realized that words, narratives, and stories are in fact some of the most powerful tools at our disposal. When you lean in so hard on a story like this, it creates vastly unrealistic expectations for love and distrust in the story itself when the cracks start to show and get bigger with time.
I moved to NYC immediately after I graduated, and not only was I excited to start to build my life, but I couldn’t wait for the next phase of my love life. Coming off of a handful of college relationships and a few exes who just loved to stay in the picture and around (we all know the type, and yes, men do always come back and always at the least opportune times), I was very much single and ready to explore what NYC had to offer. I started working at a startup, and quickly developed a community that really has been my bedrock since, from best friends to colleagues. One of those friendships was with an older guy who I looked up to professionally, but also just really liked as a human. We had a ton of similar interests and became fast friends, slowly starting to spend time together with each other's friends as well outside of work. One thing led to another, and our friendship entered into a territory of blurred lines. For the next ~ 1 and a half years, we fluctuated between friendship and dating, cycling back and forth based on outside factors such as promotions and reporting structures, really liking one another but beholden to and firm in our boundaries and the careers we were building.
Mentally, I struggled a lot during this time. It was a rollercoaster of emotions that became an inside joke to my friends on the weekends.
“Ok, are we dating Paul now? Or are we just friends at the moment?”
Outside of perceptions, I also had an internal battle going on. I knew, based on my values and who Paul was as a person, that I wanted to ultimately be with him. But since there was a struggle and the timing wasn’t in our favor, I wondered if it was worth it. Was this all a sign that he wasn’t the one I was supposed to be with? And ultimately, was falling in love supposed to be this messy and hard? The stories I grew up with led me to believe that it shouldn’t be. You’re supposed to find the one, fall in love, get married, and start a family. But none of that accounts for the variables in life we can’t control.
the lesson
The conclusion I came to was that yes, in fact, it was worth it. The biggest, most important differentiation to make here is that I realized that the messiness and difficulties were all external and due to our work situation and timing. Everything within our friendship and fluctuating relationship was the easiest and most natural thing I had ever experienced. I had never met someone so pure, someone who truly saw me for everything I was, pushed and supported me, matched my values, and was my best friend. That was something to hold onto. It's what I could control and what I knew deep down I wanted. So I held onto it, let the universe have its way, and trusted that if it was meant to work out, it would.
Believing in love, finding your person, and holding the belief that everything does in fact always work out, does not mean that everything will work out the way you envision, picture it, or are told it does. There is also immense beauty and excitement in the fact that you can’t see into the future and know how things are going to play out.
The parallel that often comes to mind for this (and bear with me as I know we are coming up on Valentine’s day, not Christmas) is Christmas Eve as a little kid. That night, you are full of excitement and hope and wonder. You think you know what presents you’re getting, what tomorrow is going to hold, and you have a fairly good idea overall. However, there still is an undercurrent of the unknown, of what surprises are in store. And what might happen tomorrow that you couldn’t have pictured or didn’t ask for ends up being your favorite part of the day.
the light
The more I really accepted and truly understood what I had control over and what I didn’t, the more faith I developed in the universe, both in my professional life but also my personal life. Throughout your 20s, you go through so many iterations of who you are as a person. The world is throwing a lot at you from all sides, and it takes a lot of intentional effort and work to filter through the noise, stand firm in what you want, and allow the rest to unfold.
Your gut, your boundaries, and your understanding and acceptance of yourself are the most powerful things you have. With this as your guide, the universe has a funny way of filling in the rest of your story, never how you expected, but always in ways that are exactly what you need.
And, that’s exactly what happened to me. Fast forward 5 years, Paul and I are now engaged and planning our wedding, and he is my person, my favorite human, my best friend, and my soulmate.