If there's one thing I've been told the most when it comes to love, it's this: You cannot plan for love. You cannot go out and say, "I'm going to find the love of my life today." You cannot force love to come into your life. You cannot make someone fall in love with you. Love will just happen on its own, in its own timing, when you least expect it.
Now personally, I'm a lover of cliches. Anyone who has ever read my writing, particularly my poetry, knows I pack my writing full of them. Saying you cannot plan for love is one of the biggest cliches in the book, but here's the thing - it's one of the truest lessons of love you will encounter.
I've spent a lot of my life planning for love. Searching for it. Hoping that I'll turn that corner that knocks me into my soulmate. And time and time again, I've come up short. I've been infatuated with someone who is not right for me. Who does not care for me like I care for them. Who is only in my life because I thought they were what love looked like.
And when I dedicate all this energy to finding love, to going on date after dating and swiping on Tinder until my fingers bleed, I always come up short. Things don't work out. I get my heart broken. I swear off love, saying it's something I'm not meant to have and I begin to plan for my life as a forever single woman.
Then I stop thinking about love. It's the last thing on my mind. I focus on myself, my growth, my happiness. I become obsessed with being my own person and creating my own success.
Then love arrives.
And love arrives in a package you cannot predict. Love is not the golden boy you chase. Love is not necessarily at first sight. You do not meet love in the most conventional, traditional way. Love does not pay attention to the barriers of race, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, or religion that our culture has unfortunately set up.
Love is just there, on your doorstep. You meet love on a Monday, or a Tuesday, or your birthday even. Love is not always someone you meet on your Friday nights out or on a planned date - love could be your cashier at the grocery store. It's not something you can prepare for.
Ask anyone in a happy, successful relationship if they were planning on finding love when they stumbled across their partner and odds are they'll say no. They'll tell you the cute story of how they met at a coffee shop by chance or how they had lived down the hall from each other all this time without realizing love was there.
Your love is not what you think it is. You will not find it when you think you will. Love will surprise you, will sweep you off your feet and make you wonder why you didn't realize they were what you needed all along. Love is not something you can plan for, and if you spend your whole life planning for it, love is something you will never find.
