Rowan and Maris had lived in the same neighborhood for years. Same streets, same cafés, same grocery stores. They’d run into each other here and there; a bite to eat, a walk, a casual hangout. Nothing dramatic, nothing “plot twist” worthy. Just two people orbiting in the same little corner of the world.

Rowan was older. The archetype of the sporty, fit guy who dressed with effortless minimalism and chased anything that made him feel free. He didn’t sit with his emotions; he outran them. He filled his calendar with friends, casual dates, work, travel, anything that offered a hit of dopamine, adrenaline, or distraction. He loved parties, substances, loud music. On the outside, he looked calm, grounded, chill. Inside, he overthought everything. Calculated every move. Carried an insecurity he tried to hide under all that nonchalance.

His need for validation came from a quiet place: parents who loved him but didn’t see him. They never acknowledged how hard he worked, how strong he had been. So he smoked to quiet the noise. He smoked to sleep. Peace was always an external effort.

Maris was his opposite. Less socially outgoing, introverted unless she was with her tiny inner circle. She grew up misunderstood, even by her parents. An only child with the weight of an entire lineage sitting on her shoulders. Mistakes weren’t allowed. Emotions meant weakness. She spent her childhood excelling because she had to, not because she wanted to. A predetermined career in design by age nine. A life as an athlete she never asked for. Competing when all she wanted was to escape into her imagination.

Maris belonged to nature: sea, forest, wind. The slow life. She felt everything deeply; a sponge soaking up the energy of every room, every environment. She needed silence, solitude, space. She never fit in anywhere: not in the country she grew up in, not in the country she moved to, not in any belief system she tried to make sense of. People sensed she was different, called her weird, a witch, an alien. Rejected her intuition, and chipped away at her self-worth until it hit rock bottom. Her life collapsed. She ran to the mountains, to cold air, to nature, just to keep breathing.

Maris was lost. Rowan was maintaining a self-care routine that felt alien to her. He was like a foreign species when they first met. A sweet one, but still foreign. And somehow, this random man who showed up out of nowhere ended up teaching her some of the biggest lessons of her life.

Then the universe did what it always does: it cornered them both.

Their mobility injuries forced them to slow down. Forced Rowan to sit with himself, truly sit. No running. No escape routes. He had to learn emotional regulation from the inside out. He had to accept life instead of fighting it. He accepted he couldn’t rationalize everything. He started believing in something bigger, not religion, but trust. “What’s meant will unfold. God knows what He’s doing.”

Maris reached similar truths from a different path. She faced her past, her traumas, the masks she wore since she was 13. Her unaligned friendships fell apart. She broke apart and rebuilt herself. She made new aligned friendships. She went to the city that made her feel whole to work out her “inner peace” muscle. She practiced showing up fully aligned, calm, and heart-centered; learning the vibes of peace firsthand. So that later, she could carry that energy wherever she went, no need for a grounding, chill human (or a city) to do it for her. She could be whole on her own. Fully, unapologetically, complete.

Her anxiety was coming from her need to control the unfolding of her life, and her lack of trust in the bigger picture. She released control. “Even when nothing makes sense, it always unfolds the way it’s supposed to. It may not look like what I imagined, but everything works out for my good, God loves all of us. He wants what’s best for us, and I do not have to control anything.” She found God, again. This time not in a dogmatic religious label.

And then life brought them together again. But this time, both were different.

Rowan had become strong enough to hold her without collapsing himself. Maris trusted herself now. She didn’t search for answers outside; she looked inward. She wasn’t doubting anymore. She wasn’t chasing. He wasn’t running. She was grounded. He was steady. She was emotionally regulated. And he neither avoided her, nor himself. She wasn’t rushing, she was patient. Her stubbornness had dissolved into thin air as she matured. He was already aware, mature, and now so was she.

They co-existed instead of clashing. Maris introduced him to gentler ways of regulating the mind and body; natural supplements, calming practices, nervous system hygiene. Rowan brought her structure. Stability. Boundaries. He showed her consistency, a kind of presence she wasn’t used to. They both gave each other space. They both appreciated each other. Maris knew it took a great deal of strength to be able to ground someone as floaty as herself. She acknowledged how strong Rowan was. And Rowan held her softness, protected and cherished it like a precious treasure.

She stopped over-giving. He respected her limits. She held space for him without judgement when he had hard days. He softened. She sharpened without losing her warmth. His motivation for fitness shifted from ego to longevity as he faced his mere mortality and saw he was in fact not invincible. Hers went from endurance to energetic flow, strengthening her body so that it can hold her energy without crumbling. They both stopped using movement to escape and started using it to stay healthy.

They both stopped procrastinating and delaying what they didn’t want to face. They communicated clearly without bottling anything up and exploding later in their own ways. Maris had her own creative outlets, and Rowan stopped being a people-pleaser and realized his feelings and words mattered. That he could speak up without fear of rejection, or fear of creating conflict.

They loved, respected and appreciated each other deeply.

In that balance, they created a world where their daughter, Lumi, could thrive. Safe. Seen. Expressive. Barefoot, laughing, playful, free to be her wonderfully ridiculous self. No pressure to fit in. No pressure to dim her imagination.

Maris shared her dreams; Rowan trusted her intuition. She guided with feeling; he grounded with action. Together, they created not from attachment or fear, but alignment. And that gave Lumi the safest environment possible.

And yes, they lived happily. But not because their relationship saved them. Because they saved themselves first.

This is a story about inner harmony; the polar energies inside each of us. Rowan and Maris represent every person’s inner masculine and inner feminine, and Lumi our inner child. Of course they may look different for each person, but what I have found out that people in similar journeys have similar blueprints and architecture. 

At the beginning of the story, they were only “running into each other” because that’s exactly what we do internally, shifting between polarities as they awaken at different times. Some people barely notice. Some people live entire lifetimes without understanding which part of them is driving the wheel.

But this journey? It leads to one destination: inner union. Balance. Peace. A stable system. A life lived from alignment with one’s authentic self shed from conditioning, trauma, false-beliefs with integration, not through escapism. Coming home to yourself. To home-frequency. 

When these polar energies are balanced within, we can start living from our hearts, with love. Not as an attachment, not as a feeling, but as a frequency. As a way of being. Simply existing with the flow of life and of universe:

Drifting along the river of dreams, floating with the current of the stars, dancing with the tides of time, sailing the ocean of our souls and gliding through the waves of destiny.

I don’t know yet what life will look like now that I’m whole within myself. All I know is that I met Rowan in the flesh so that I could eventually meet, and heal; my inner Rowan, my inner Maris, and my inner Lumi. So that I could come into harmony. So that I could stand on my own. So that I could become whole. All I know, is that I do not need to control anything. And I can let myself go, because God is there, as He always has been.