People always talk about intuition as if it’s something that people universally understand. I believe that everyone believes they are intuitional, but I think, in actuality, having a strong, realistic intuition is a rare quality.
I used to be one of those people who thought that I “just knew” something others didn’t — regarding life, my teenage years, and mostly relationships. I had friendships during high school where everything was easy, and it felt like I just knew we were meant to be friends. It was different from a lot of the relationships I had at that time in my life where I had to hash out issues, or there was drama involved.I think that in reality, it was easy to feel as if there were indicators that allowed me to experience a level of comfortability in those relationships. Because of this experience with relationships in my life, I grew to think I was a person who had a strong sense of intuition and knowing people’s place in my life.Â
Spoiler: she did not…
Then, I went to London last semester, 4,688 miles away from everything I had ever known; for four months.Â
When I decided to go abroad, I felt as if I just knew that this was something I was supposed to do, and going here would lead me to understanding myself more, open me up to more people, and I would finally just understand my life in its entirety. Everything in my life would just click into place, like everyone else’s had (sidebar: what a crazy thing for a 20-year-old to expect, girl what…? it made sense at the time).Â
Instead, I learned that I really don’t know anything, and my intuition I had been relying on since my early teens was not based on anything except my perception of myself and others, which surprise, surprise, can be pretty flimsy. Being in a new city and knowing nobody was a very precarious place for me, and I waited for the moment where I would feel the level of knowing myself, and knowing what all of this journey meant– but I don’t think it ever came. I met people I would have never met if I hadn’t ever gone, and for that I’m extremely grateful, but it always felt as if I couldn’t tell where these people were going to place in my life. Whereas before, the moment I met people at my suburban high school or at the college 20 minutes from my family home, I could tell if we were going to be friends. In London, it felt as if I had nothing to base my social life around, and I think it led me to question every aspect of my life. The relationships back home I had once believed were meant to be, I had now second guessed, and thought to myself; Does anybody actually know what it feels like to know?
I think that’s the thing you learn in your early 20s; you don’t actually really know anything. I believe that we reach a level of comfortability and understanding within ourselves and relationships in our lives that make us think; “Wow, I just know this was supposed to be”. But knowing what a relationship is going to be like before you actually are in it is just something you say to yourself to justify being in a relationship with someone you think you’ll like. And that’s okay, because who knows themselves in their 20s anyways?
With the blessing of being almost 21, I think I’ve stopped romanticizing the phrase “when you know you know”. I don’t know jack-sh*t, honestly! I’ve started relationships with new people without the weight of it being something that I know is going to be meaningful, or change the trajectory of my life. And if I’m being honest, it feels scary to not believe that I know, in some way or another, what effect people are going to have in my life. However, I also think that a lot of life is going to be me being unsure about a lot of things, which is something I’ll have to barter with another day.
Or maybe, I’m just one of those people who doesn’t really have a good intuition, and everyone else knows something I don’t.Â
Either way, I look forward to learning as a result of my non-intuition.