Dear rekwm,
My writing goal this month was to release an old memory or emotional weight safely.
I’ve been staring at that sentence for days, maybe weeks, because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to release.
An old heartbreak?
An old regret?
A person?
A dream?
Tonight, I think I finally figured it out.
I think I need to release the idea that I somehow missed my chance at love.
It’s a strange thing to admit at thirty-three.
When I look back at my life, I realize that romance has always felt like something happening slightly out of reach.
Not absent.
Not impossible.
Just… somewhere on the other side of the glass.
I remember being a child and declaring my neighbor the love of my life. Looking back, it was adorable and ridiculous. He left, and I moved on with the confidence only children possess. Surely there would be another love of my life waiting around the corner.
Then came the crushes.
So many crushes.
The kind that made your stomach flip when someone walked into the room.
The kind that made you replay a single conversation for weeks.
The kind that usually ended with them liking someone else.
Most often, the prettier girl. Your best friend.
And I don’t write that with bitterness anymore. It’s simply how I remember it.
For a long time, I believed beauty was a language everyone else spoke fluently and I was still trying to learn the alphabet.
I wasn’t the girl people noticed first.
I wasn’t the girl boys wrote songs about.
I wasn’t the girl who seemed to fit neatly inside the world’s definition of beautiful.
So I adapted.
I became funny.
Independent.
Tough.
I convinced myself I didn’t care.
Which, of course, usually means I cared very much.
The truth is, I wanted to be wanted.
I think everyone does.
Not admired.
Not desired.
Wanted.
Chosen.
There’s a difference.
Over the years, I had relationships.
Some were sweet.
Some were painful.
Some mattered more than others.
One ended with me standing in a school courtyard learning that someone’s heart still belonged to someone else.
Another ended because I left before I could be left.
And then there was the one I loved enough to let go.
Even now, years later, I remember the prayer.
I remember asking God to give him the life that was meant for him, even if that life didn’t include me.
I remember promising that if love was not meant to be mine, then at least let it be his.
Sometimes I think that prayer changed something in me.
Not in a dramatic way.
Not all at once.
But quietly.
Like a tide changing direction.
After that, I stopped searching.
Life became busy.
Work needed attention.
Responsibilities multiplied.
The years passed faster than I expected.
And every now and then, I would wake up and wonder where all the romance went.
Not because I was lonely.
Not because I was incomplete.
But because somewhere along the way, I stopped imagining someone choosing me.
I think that’s the emotional weight I’ve been carrying.
Not a person.
A belief.
The belief that love belongs to other people.
Prettier people.
Luckier people.
People who somehow know what they’re doing.
And if I’m being honest, I am tired of carrying it.
Maybe love finds me one day.
Maybe it doesn’t.
Maybe partnership is still somewhere ahead.
Maybe my story looks different from what I imagined when I was fourteen.
I genuinely don’t know.
What I do know is that I no longer want to measure my worth by who has or hasn’t chosen me.
That feels like too much power to hand over to strangers, crushes, exes, and timing.
So tonight, during this emotional high tide, I am leaving that belief on the shore.
The tide can take it.
It has belonged to me long enough.
Goodnight.