Books and movies have taught us that there is ultimately one person whom we’re destined to be with for the rest of our lives. They taught us the idea of spending forever with them, and they even gave us different ways to call them: soulmate, love of my life, The One, other half – the list goes on. But what if these names are meant for different people, different individuals who are only meant to pass by our lives?
What if we are turned into complete hopeless romantics by these books and movies that we did not notice that sometimes, in real life, the person we end up with is not the one we once considered our soulmate, not the one we once thought was The One, and not even the one we once believed to be the love of our life?
Sometimes you don’t get to end up with your soulmate, and that’s okay. Because little do you realize that soulmates don’t always need to be someone you are romantically involved with. Sometimes, your soulmate is your most trusted friend, that one person who knows you completely and without judgment. Your soulmate is your best friend who can complete your sentences and know what you’re feeling without you even saying anything.
Your soulmate is that person in your life whom you share everything and anything with – your dirty secrets and little white lies, the password of your phone, where you keep your keys or your box full of mementos, stories of all your life’s firsts, and even your most embarrassing moments. Sometimes, your soulmate is simply the one whom you feel the strongest, sincerest and calmest connection with, that person who sees and embraces what you are inside out.
And maybe this is why some people could not find their soulmates – because they might be looking at the wrong direction. Sometimes, your soulmate is right in front of your eyes, holding your hand as you cry from getting your heart broken. Sometimes, your soulmate is that one person who has been with you when you’re at your weakest and lowest, and celebrated with you during your strongest and happiest moments. Sometimes, your soulmate is the person whom you don’t usually notice but is always around, and whose absence will be felt as if a part of you was lost, too.
Sometimes you don’t get to end up with the love of your life, and that’s okay. Because as clichéd as it seems, you have to understand that there are just some people who were meant to pass by but not stay in your life. Sometimes, the love of your life is only a lesson you have to learn from. The love of your life is someone whom God has chosen to help you become a stronger person, someone whose unbeknownst intention was to break your heart for you to learn how to mend it.
Because sometimes, no matter how painful it may sound, the love of our life is nothing but a turning point to wiser versions of us – one who doesn’t romanticize everything, one who has less expectations, and one who maturely comprehends that the stars do not always shine, that it’s not sunny every day, and that not all love stories have a happy ending.
But this doesn’t mean that the love you shared wasn’t real; after all, he was still the person you considered as the love of your life. Just because you didn’t get to end up together doesn’t make the memories you once shared were insignificant and shall be forgotten. Sometimes, you just need to accept bitter realities such as the fact that your hands were meant to hold someone else’s hands, like his arms were meant to hold someone else’s body. And who are we to stop someone being preciously held on to? Sometimes, we only have to be thankful that once in our lives we got to meet them, and love them, even if that love eventually came to an end.
Finally, sometimes the person you end up with is neither your soulmate nor the love of your life, and that too is okay. Because not ending up with these people simply means that you are meant for a much grander plan. More than the other half of your souls or the greatest love you ever had, maybe the person you end up with is someone who’ll simply make us realize why it never worked out with anyone else. You have to believe that this person will eventually come along and help you understand why you had to go through all the heartaches in the past. That this person will be someone who, instead of glorifying your pain, will take the pain with him until it no longer hurts for the both of you.
You will share everything equally: every beauty and every ugliness, every fear and every frustration, every happiness and every melancholy. This person will change you not because you are less, but because he will see more of what you are and what you can be. He will inspire you to be the best version of yourself, no matter how much he sees that you are already the best version there could ever be for him. You have to believe that this person may not and never be the best, but is destined to give what’s best for you.
What separates the person whom you’ll end up with from the people you considered as your soulmate or the love of your life is the fact that this person will be everything you ever wanted and needed rolled into one; he will not be perfect but he will be right. He would love you and your soul without any condition. He will be both your love and your life.
He will see your flaws and still consider you beautiful. He will choose you over and over again, no matter what happens. He will accept you and forgive you, for all that you are and all that you can never be. And no matter how far he is in the future, he will wait for you and pray to God for you because the person you end up with is not only faithful to you but also to Him and your happily-ever-after love story. 
