I’ve never been the type of girl who fantasized about a grandiose love story or pined after her one true love.
I’m not sure if that’s because I subconsciously felt I could never find it or if I simply didn’t care to.
For me, I was always into the hook-up culture and relationships that never lasted longer than my temp job.
I didn’t have much time to focus on love, because my life was complicated enough as it was.
But that’s when it happened.
In the most imperfect moment I never could have foreseen. When I was least ready to meet him, there he was.
Appearing as if from a movie scene where the guy comes in, says something utterly adorable, sweeps you off your feet and kisses you like he means it.
That’s at least how it felt at the time. And I was just standing there, slightly hesitant to admit to myself that what I was about to experience would take me for a spin and leave me forever changed.
Like I said, I never really yearned for that move type of love that happens once in a lifetime, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get to have it.
And boy, was it a high.
As weird as it is to admit, I got to experience the type of love they write movies about.
The type of love artists crave to experience in order to have raw, profound material to write about. The love you watch on TV and think to yourself how unrealistic it is.
Until it actually happens to you.
This guy ended up being the love of my life. He showed me that everything I was so scared of wasn’t that bad after all.
He showed me that it’s possible to find a person who worships the ground you walk on.
It was like I was out of this realm. How could I of all people get this guy? The eternal pessimist.
The perpetual jaded girl who never lasted longer than 3 months with the same dude.
How did I get so lucky?
This love ended up changing my life in more ways than one.
And as ill prepared as I was to meet him (which ended up being my greatest blessing), it was even worse when I was ultimately left without him.
It was a tough blow, I won’t lie. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and was about to lose my damn mind.
The girl who never even hoped for this type of love story actually got it, only to lose it shortly thereafter. What was the point?
And as silly as it may sound now, there was a point to that. One I was not ready to see at the time, but it all made sense in the end.
See, I realized that getting to experience that love was something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. It changed me.
It made me see the world through different eyes. It helped me get rid of my pessimism and scepticism and restored my faith in love.
Why would I choose to make myself so miserable over losing this guy? Shouldn’t I be grateful that I got to experience something so profound, rare, and mind-blowingly beautiful?
After all, so many people go through life never having the privilege of meeting that one person who makes them feel as alive as I did with my guy. So many people never learn what it means to experience life with your soulmate.
And I did. I had that. And I choose to be thankful for that experience. I choose to look at it as the greatest blessing of my life.
He made me feel alive. He loved me more than I ever felt I deserved.
He worshipped all of my flaws and he made sure to tell me how happy I made him every single day.
It was a true fairytale while it lasted.
But here’s what nobody tells you about the fairytale romance – in real life, you don’t always get to keep the guy.
Sometimes, life has other plans and plays a cruel trick on you.
In the real world, love isn’t something that is sure to last a lifetime. In real life, with real people, things happen and great loves get lost.
People leave and you end up with a broken heart. But the thing is, it’s not always a bad thing.
People follow their dreams, and sometimes those dreams take them away from you.
That doesn’t make the love any less real. It doesn’t mean what you had wasn’t amazing and genuine.
All it means is that it came with an expiration date and now you can choose to either be grateful for having the chance to experience it or cry yourself to sleep every night.
I choose to be happy for having him in my life, as short-lived as it was. I choose to let this love help me flourish and grow in order to learn to be happy with someone new.
For my sake, I have to turn to the next chapter.
I will carry this man and what he did for me in my heart for the rest of my life. But it’s time to find new happiness and prove to myself that this isn’t the end of me.
It was exquisite and it was profound. But now, it’s time to keep going. This loss made me that much more willing to keep searching for my happily-ever-after.
It may not be with the love of my life… but I will damn sure love again.
