If You Feel Like Love Is Always Escaping You, Read This

They say that when love is right, it will find you. That if it’s meant to be yours, it won’t run away. That real love that’s destined for you will come whenever it (and you) are ready.

But what if it feels like love never wants to stay with you?

You’ve poured over the reasons in your mind. You pick the wrong people. You try at the wrong times. You try too hard. You don’t try enough. That you haven’t found the right person.

It can be easy to lose yourself in the list of reasons: and after years have gone by, after your friends and family have found their significant others, after one too many Facebook posts about engagements and marriages have appeared on your timeline, after all the loves you honestly thought were built to last slip away, yu can’t help but wonder if you’ll ever honestly have a love that’s yours to keep. You start to wonder if you’re truly just not meant to have a long-lasting love.

You need to know that love isn’t as simple as people paint it out to be.

Sometimes, it is you. Sometimes you’re afraid of love because it’s heavy and real and it isn’t always the way people claim it to be—always bliss and happiness, date nights and perfect photographs. Love can be difficult and draining and something you have to learn to navigate through. Some days are better than others. And when the reality sets in, that can be a lot for anyone to handle, and so we push it away. We say we aren’t ready.

Sometimes, it’s them. Sometimes people fall in love and it’s one sided. You are ready for them, but you’re not what they’re looking for. You’re wonderful, they say. You’re perfect, they insist. They just aren’t “ready.” And so you feel the distance as they let you go, while you try to recover. While you try to wonder what is so fundamentally wrong with you that the people you genuinely desire to love never seem to stick around, and why the ones who seems to want you are the ones you run away from, as if you’re just completely unworthy of love in the first place.

You need to know that love isn’t escaping you because you’re unworthy of love. It’s not passing you by because of timing or the universe or because of fate. The truth is much less poetic than these conclusions: sometimes, it’s just the wrong fit. As simple as that.

Because life and love don’t work within our timelines. They don’t cater to what we want, when we want. We can go out and create and work to get the things we want, but that doesn’t mean it all goes according to plan. It doesn’t mean we are always successful. We can do and say all of the “right” things, follow all the best advice, and try to figure out all the best ways to keep someone interested, but that doesn’t guarantee that love will stay.

The truth is, love isn’t escaping you; your expectations of what it should look like are. There’s this common narrative that tells us when someone leaves you, it was never love at all. I don’t buy into that, this idea that farewells extinguish what once was. Not all love is cut out for forever. And that’s okay.

Besides, I truly believe love comes in many different forms, and I think they’re all worth remembering. Yet, just in the same way we grow, change, and become, love also blossoms; especially the kind that is actually meant for us. It comes to us in the ways we least expect and then it leaves us when we’ve outgrown it. It leaves when we are no longer the person who asked for it to come in.

Love isn’t escaping you, it’s preparing you for the next chapter in your life. It’s allowing you to make your choices and learn from your mistakes. It’s letting you learn everything you know you want, and everything you refuse to deal with. Love has always been in your corner, it’s just been asking you to take a leap of faith with it. Every time it’s seemed to take off, it’s really been asking you to take a step forward. It’s been asking you to grow, to learn, to become.

Because love is one of the biggest forces we ever reckon with in our lives, and I believe it knows it. We are capable of learning lessons without love and heartache, but they don’t always stick in our memories quite the same. Love makes an impression. Love knows exactly what it’s doing, even when we don’t. Even when we desperately wish we understood.

And one day, love will finally seem to stick around for longer than you’re used to and call you a home. Perhaps not the way you’ve anticipated. Maybe it shows up in your friendships, who’ve been by your side for years. Maybe it shows up in the form of a child that you’ll love and cherish for the rest of your life. Maybe it shows up in the love of your life, a person who is ready for all the love you bring into this world. Maybe, it shows up in yourself and how much you’ve grown to adore who you’ve become.

You won’t wonder why it took so long, because you’ll know that this love took it’s time because it knew exactly when it was supposed to arrive. And oh, you’ll be so glad when you look back and can see everything that brought you exactly to that moment.

How it was so beautifully worth waiting for.