To Whom It May Concern:

When I was younger, I was in a rush to meet you. To be honest, up until this past month I was still frantically searching for you. I looked for you in all crevices and open spaces. I looked for you in friends, classmates, and the cute guy at the gym. I looked far and wide for you.

I was in such a rush to meet my soul mate that I sped past all the other beautiful things in life because I wanted you to be the only beauty in my life. I forced the idea that specific people were you because I wanted so badly to find love already. I was obsessed with the idea of high school sweethearts and I regret forcing so many relationships that were not full, whole love.

However, I’m writing this to you because, despite my misfortune in romance and relationships, I believe that you’re still out there. I believe that my timing is just not right and that when I am fully in love with myself, I’ll be able to fall in love with you.

Maybe you’re in a relationship with someone else or maybe you’re just like me and you don’t know if you’re ready for love just yet.

Maybe you’re trying to learn to love every part of yourself and discover new sectors of yourself that you never knew before just as I am. Maybe we are both discovering ourselves and who we truly are before we discover love.

I am a crumpled dollar. I have been worn down; thrown on floors, crumpled up in pockets, with even some tears on the edges. I’ve been in the hands of those who didn’t care about my worth and in the hands of those who did. I’ve been forgotten in secret compartments of wallets and given away for useless things. But despite all that I’ve been through, I still carry value. I still have something to offer.

Now, I don’t expect you to deal with all the trauma that others before you have caused, but I do expect that you realize that these trials and tribulations that I’ve been through create the person I am today. With all the hurt I’ve been through, I am still worthy of love. I am still valuable. This is a lesson that I’m still trying to learn to this day.

Love of my life, there are really only two things I ask of you: to value me and to encourage my personal growth. It seems really simple, but there are many factors and steps to be able to accomplish these two tasks.

As a crumpled dollar, I ask that you do not crumple me again. I am constantly trying to straighten myself out. My color has faded and I do have tears. I am run down. I’m not asking you to fix me, but rather I am asking that you value me. I ask that you value my worth and appreciate what you can get out of a dollar. I know my worth and I will not let someone treat me less than I deserve, or at least not anymore.

I ask for respect when we butt heads, for empathy when I hit a bump in my own individual road, for kindness when my know-it-all attitude doesn't really know it all. I ask that you laugh at my jokes when they aren’t funny and understand that not everything is guaranteed. I ask that you realize that love is a choice and that you realize that I am worth it.

Secondly, I ask that you encourage every hobby, every career aspiration, every goal that my crazy, persevering self comes up with. I hope that you support me trying to be a better me each day and that you do the same. I hope that we both search within ourselves to find talents that we can contribute to the world and give the world as much love as we can.

As selfish as it sounds, I don’t want you to hold me back. I don’t want you to feel inferior because of my education or because of my career, but I want you to jump into every day with the same excitement and vigor for life just as I do or even motivate me when getting out of bed is just a little too hard that day. I want to conquer the day together. I want to grow together, rather than grow apart.

I don’t really know what you’re up to right now or if I’ve already met you. However, I’m not in much of a rush anymore to meet you because I know that this time in between hurrying to run into you and actually realizing who you are is such a formative time for me. This is a time for me to be able to fully and wholly love myself.

It’s a time for me to be my best me for me so that I can be my best me for you; to realize that I am not only capable of giving love, but of receiving it. So to the love of my life, whoever or wherever you are, our time for love will come. But I'm very, very excited to meet you.