Someday Love Will Find You, I Promise

You’ve spent so much time with your head buried, still caught up in that last relationship, still aching over your past breakup, still missing him or her or what the two of you had. You’ve spent so many days with your soul running on empty, trying to fill yourself with anything and everything that could temporarily distract you, trying so desperately to cover the holes the last person left.

You’ve spent so many nights crying yourself to sleep, wondering where the hell you went wrong, feeling sorry, feeling defeated, feeling unworthy, and convincing yourself that you don’t deserve love or that you won’t find it or that ‘the one’ for you simply doesn’t exist.

But those are lies. Those are lies.

See, the world has a funny way of showing us what we need and what we don’t, what we’re supposed to have and what we should let go of, what’s good for us and what is only breaking us, bit by bit. Yet we don’t always believe or listen. We think we know what we should be doing; we trust that we have all the answers.

But the truth is, we’re human and flawed. And sometimes we love the wrong people, open our hearts to someone who leaves, allow ourselves to be vulnerable, and then emptied when a relationship goes south.

And sometimes we get hurt. Hurt so so deeply.

Then we convince ourselves that we’re somehow less, somehow ‘wrong’ or ‘incapable’ or deserving of the negative cards life has handed us. We convince ourselves that what fell apart was our fault, and that we’re never going to taste the sweet freedom of real love ever again.

But you will. You will.

It may be months or years or eons down the road. It may be in a time or place you don’t expect, or with a person you’ve been comfortable with for ages. It may come slowly, delicately. Or it may come as a total surprise, slapping you in the face with the startling realization that you’ve finally found your special person. It may come when you’re young, old, or somewhere in-between.

It may come when you’ve decided to finally believe in deeper connections, or it may come when you’re not quite ready to let someone in.

But love will come.

I know you’ve closed off your heart, told yourself you won’t fall again. I know you’ve pushed people away, wanting to be on your own. I know you’ve wanted to heal and fallen short, time and time again, feeling more and more empty every single day. I know you’re nervous—of being vulnerable, of caring so much and then being left, of getting hurt.

I know you’ve turned a cold shoulder to love and relationships, believing that you are just one of those people who is meant to be single for life, capable and content in your own skin.

But in the back of your mind, you’ve been longing for love. Under the surface, you’ve been itching to get close to someone again. And as much as you try to ignore those feelings, at the end of the day, in the moments before you fall asleep, you hope that one day you won’t feel so alone.

And you won’t.

Someday, love will find you. It will creep upon you and seep into your bones. It will fill your emptiness and overflow all the spaces inside and around you. It will make your heart lighter, your lungs fuller, your eyes brighter. It will surprise you and scare you and suddenly shift your every doubt into security.

It will be everything you didn’t know you needed, and everything you’ve desired for so long. It will be all that you waited for, prayed over, wished upon late at night.

Love will everything you imagined, and everything you absolutely deserve.

But you must be patient, believe, trust, know that you deserve to be loved, and have faith that the right person will find you. You have to work on yourself, pursue your goals, build yourself and be open to what lies ahead, whatever relationships and connections that could potentially be.

You must stop allowing negativity and bitterness to control you, to determine your fate, and instead let yourself be unhindered and unburdened. You must realize that you are so incredible, and so worthy of a forever love. And one day, you will look back, arm-in-arm with the one you’ve given your heart to, in awe at your past disbelief.

Marisa Donnelly is a poet and author of the book, Somewhere on a Highway, available here.