I Hope You Take A Chance On Love, Even When It’s Not What You Expect

The toughest decision I have ever had to make in my 30 years of life was not moving across the country from my hometown; it was not moving again to the other side of the world and starting over. It was walking away from a man that I was madly in love with.

We had no home address when we met. We were just two people traveling around the globe, and somehow our paths kept intersecting. Over the next year, loving that man would turn my entire world upside down, and despite the odds, I would keep choosing to take a chance on love—something that I had never done before. I was so grateful for having found a love that would push me into new spaces.

Life as I knew it would never be the same.

But as much as we loved one another, I realized we could only take each other so far.

At first I thought that meant we failed as a partnership. My brain wanted to fight this so badly and find ways to make things work because I thought I had finally found my forever.

So I spent my days endlessly devouring books, searching for an answer and trying to fix us. I was convinced there was a piece of the puzzle missing. If I could just find that one piece, surely it would transform everything—then we would be great again. In all of my searching, I was desperately hoping something outside of myself would give me the answer that I already knew deep in my heart but was too terrified to admit. I had built my life around him and the stakes were high. I was in a new country far away from anything familiar. I would ask myself, What if this is really as good as it gets?

Turns out, a piece was missing, but it was not what I was expecting.

The most important piece of all: me.

It was like searching everywhere to find your glasses, only to realize they have been on your head the whole time.

Turns out, all my searching wasn’t to fix us. I was trying to find me. I lost myself the minute he and I became “we”.

I have since learned that just because our partnership didn’t end in a happily ever after together doesn’t mean he wasn’t “The One” for me. He was the one who showed me the areas in my life I need to give more love to, the one who showed me how to stand up for myself and how to ask for what I need, to let go of control, to trust myself. He was the one who cracked my heart open so I could give more love to others—more love to myself.

Even though every fiber of my being tried to fight it for so long, I learned how to be in a relationship and not lose myself.

Most importantly, I can now be “The One” for myself because there’s a deep knowing in my bones that no one else can complete me.

Thank you for all the love, laughs, the fights, the tears, and the lonely nights.

Thank you for loving me into the awakening of myself.

There is so much love out in this world. Open yourself up to the greatest invitation life gives us.

Love can open us up to magic.

It is my hope that you take a chance on love, even if it doesn’t take the form you might have expected it to.

Even if it doesn’t turn out the way you dream.

It is worth taking.