Love in Cycles

21 Years of Growth, Loss and Choosing Each Other Again

Love isn’t linear.

It doesn’t follow maps or milestones.

It moves in spirals.

In seasons.

In sacred cycles.

After 21 years together, I no longer see our love as a single thread winding forward, but as a series of soul deep initiations—three distinct 7 year cycles that tested us, shaped us, cracked us open and brought us back home to the truth of each other.

A truth deeper than romance.

A love forged in fire, softened by time, steeped in soul.

In numerology, 7 is the seeker. The mystic. The inner world.

It asks us to dive deeper, to question what’s real, to return to truth.

And in our love story, every 7 year cycle has done just that—called us inward, broken us open, revealed who we really are beneath the roles, routines and survival.

We’ve lived through three of these sacred 7s—

Each one a rite of passage.

Each one a remembering.

Each one bringing us home, not just to each other—but to the love that built us.

This is our story.

And perhaps, it’s yours too.

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Sacred Phase One: 0–7 Years

The Formation Years

Where passion meets survival. Where two wounded hearts try to build a home, often unconsciously mirroring the echoes of childhood. It’s where love begins—raw, brave and beautifully unsure.

We met young—I was 20, Mat was 22.

Two old souls with young hearts, aching for family, without knowing how to create one.

He had lost both his parents.

I had left home at 15, carrying the ache of being unparented, unanchored.

I came to Australia from the village when I was 7, in pursuit of a “better life.” But assimilation came with sacrifice. I grew up too quickly, learning how to survive in a world that often felt foreign. I became my own anchor long before I should’ve needed to.

When Mat and I found each other, we recognised something unspoken—loss, longing and a desire to build what we both had lost.

Without realising it, we began to create a new story: one of FAMILY.

Soon after meeting, we made a conscious decision to bring a child into the world. I never imagined becoming a mother. My upbringing was turbulent—I always thought I’d adopt, knowing how many children needed homes. And maybe one day, I still will. But with Mat, something in me just knew. Motherhood was part of our soul contract.

We moved to the Gold Coast a month before our daughter was born. Mat began his apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic. Life was unfolding in a seamless rhythm. A year later, we bought our first home—planting roots with love and youthful hope.

Then came his dream—he joined the Army. After his training in Kapooka, we relocated to Wodonga. Our second daughter was born there, and just five days later, we were posted to Townsville—Mat’s hometown, where we had first met. It was here we became husband and wife, marrying on 20.09.2009, 5 years after, Mat and I seem to do things backwards (out of societal norms. and conditionings) we had children, bought a home and later got married.

We built our life step by tender step.

Not by design, but by heart.

Mostly instinct, often survival—

But always together.

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Sacred Phase Two: 7–14 Years

The Testing + Breaking Years

Marked by upheaval and truth. The illusions fall. Shadows emerge. Trust fractures or fortifies. You either fragment, or begin the slow work of healing.

After a year in Townsville, we moved again—this time to Brisbane. Life kept moving fast, but with a different tone.

It felt both wide open and weighted.

The reality of military life settled in.

Time apart became normal.

Parenting without a village began to wear on me.

Grief and duty crept in, quietly creating distance between our hearts.

During this time, I lost my Neina—the woman who raised me in PNG. She was my first safe place, the closest thing I had to a mother. Her passing was a heartbreak I couldn’t fully hold. I tucked it away, not because it didn’t hurt, but because I didn’t know how to make space for it amidst motherhood, marriage and the constant motion of life.

That grief sat quietly, woven into sleepless nights and silent tears—surfacing in moments I couldn’t explain.

Then Mat lost his brother.

A grief so vast it echoed through everything.

But we didn’t have the emotional tools to hold each other through it.

We became strangers in our sorrow.

Not because love was gone, but because we didn’t know how to stay close while breaking apart.

During this time he deployed to Afghanistan.

The cracks deepened.

Eventually, we separated.

Not in anger—but in heartbreak.

We still loved each other, but the love we knew could no longer carry what we were holding.

This also aligned with Mat’s Saturn return—an astrological rite of passage that calls the soul into truth. Around age 28–30, Saturn returns to its natal position, demanding integrity, responsibility and transformation.

Old structures crumble.

Falsehoods are stripped away.

You are asked to grow, or break.

For Mat—and for us—it was a reckoning.

The survival built foundation trembled under the weight of all that had never been said, all that had never been healed.

And still, love—true love—asks for choice.

Not once, but again and again.

And in time, we chose each other.

Not to return to what we had been,

But to become something new.

Something real.

We rebuilt from rubble.

We forgave.

We softened.

We learned to love differently—

with honesty, with tenderness, with purpose.

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Sacred Phase Three: 14–21 Years

The Integration Years

Where past wounds resurface—but you now meet them from higher ground. You walk as whole people, weaving lessons into legacy. Love becomes a container for soul evolution.

This is where we are now.

The sacred ground of integration.

We’re no longer trying to outrun the past.

We’re weaving it into wisdom.

We meet now—eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart.

Not because we need to, but because we want to.

Because reverence replaced rescue.

We are no longer just surviving.

We are soul building.

Together, we’ve created Creative Roots—from the ashes of all that broke us. It’s more than a business. It’s a reflection of our rebirth, our shared purpose, our love made manifest.

Together, we are living our calling.

Together, we are home.

It hasn’t been perfect.

But it’s been real.

And what is real can weather any storm.

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Sacred Phase Four: 21+ Years

The Conscious Co-Creation Years

If the work has been done, this phase brings union of vision and soul. You’re not just partners—you are conscious creators, aligned in purpose, heart and destiny.

As we step into this fourth phase, I feel the expansion.

We are not just lovers, parents, or partners—we are now conscious co-creators.

Hands in the earth, hearts in the sky—birthing the life two wounded kids once dreamed of.

A life we believed in, against all odds.

And what a gift it is to look back and say:

We chose each other.

Again and again.

⸻

“You don’t measure love in time.

You measure love in transformation

Sometimes the longest connections

yield very little growth,

while the briefest of encounters change everything.

The heart doesn’t wear a watch—it’s timeless.

It doesn’t care how long you know someone.

It doesn’t care if you had a 40 year anniversary,

if there is no juice in the connection.

What the heart cares about is resonance.

Resonance that opens it,

Resonance that enlivens it,

Resonance that calls it home.

And when it finds it, the transformation begins...''

JEFF BROWN

Love isn’t always soft.

Sometimes it asks you to shatter, so you can return whole.

Sometimes it will demand your truth, your courage, your willingness to begin again.

But when both hearts say yes—not once, but continually—

Love becomes a living temple.

A mirror.

A medicine.

⸻

To my Mat

Thank you for walking with me through every season.

For growing, falling, rising with me.

For choosing me—STILL.

I promise to keep choosing you.

Forever, always to infinity and beyond ♾️✨💫

⸻

To those walking their own love journeys—

Know that love is not linear.

It moves in spirals.

In sacred cycles.

And sometimes, just sometimes,

The most enduring love is the one that breaks and rebuilds—

Deeper.

Wiser.

Truer.

Big Hugs x

Lamisha