Forever

Some People Change Your Life Without Becoming Your Forever

There are relationships that end with certainty.

There are relationships that begin with certainty.

And then there are relationships that never receive a definition but somehow leave fingerprints on your heart forever.

Therapy reminded me of that this week.

I realized I wasn’t grieving the loss of a relationship.

I was grieving the possibility of one.

There’s a difference.

Sometimes we spend years wondering what could have happened if life had unfolded differently.

If timing had been different.

If circumstances had changed.

If fear hadn’t gotten in the way.

Eventually I realized something surprising.

The life I’m working so hard to build isn’t centered around finding another relationship.

It’s centered around building a home where I finally feel free to be myself.

For years, I believed love would solve that feeling.

Now I understand something much healthier.

Home comes first.

Peace comes first.

Self-respect comes first.

Love is welcome.

But it is no longer responsible for completing me.

Some people enter our lives to stay.

Others enter our lives to teach us something we couldn’t have learned alone.

Neither role is more important than the other.

Sometimes the greatest gift someone leaves behind isn’t a relationship.

It’s the person you become because they crossed your path.

And perhaps that’s the most beautiful form of becoming there is.