I always wondered if someone used to look at me as a young girl and think, “it’s a shame that one day, some selfish boy will break your heart and cause you pain beyond what you can imagine.”

Because as a young girl, this doesn’t occur to us. As a young girl, we are taught to love abundantly and believe in what you are told. Because truthfully, no one can prepare you for what’s to come in your life. No one can fully prepare you for the kind of hurt that comes along with a broken heart. Because no one can predict the way another human will treat you.

One day it happens, and you find yourself head over heels deeply in love with someone. I remember hearing the quote from the John Green Novel, The Fault in Our Stars. “I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” And this is how it happens. I fell in love the way we all do. One day you wake up and you realize this other human is at the forefront of all of your thoughts. It’s beautiful, the love a person can bring to your life, making everything else feel, small, feel happier, and make life a little bit easier to get through.

But what a dangerous thing this word “love” is. What a dangerous thing this love is that if you are not careful enough, it can consume you in harmful ways.

They say love is blind because if you don’t squint your eyes from time to time, you may miss what’s happening right in front of you.

You may miss the toxic treatment that you become numb to. You may miss the red flags that are causing you to feel less than over time. Because that’s what happens when you fall in love. Because that’s what happens in a nightmare.

Your mind doesn’t prepare you, all of a sudden you close your eyes and finally when you wake up, you realized the awful nightmare you had gone through. This is what it’s like being in the wrong kind of love.

But love shouldn’t make us feel sad about our selves. Love shouldn’t make us feel like we are always doing something wrong and like we are not good enough. And a person you are in love with shouldn’t turn around a break your heart into a million pieces causing you the pain of a thousand stabs.

But it does. And that’s what happens when you fall in love with the wrong person. That’s what happens because as a young girl, never could we imagine our fragile hearts could be handled like this.

Because as a young girl, I never imagined I would experience the kind of pain that occurs with a broken heart. But I am no longer a young girl. I am a strong, intelligent, confident, independent woman, who has been through some shit but can understand that my heart is fragile and to see things as how they truly are, not with a blind eye. When it’s time for the right kind of love, I will be ready.