“I like his books because sometimes they don’t always get the girl or the guy; there isn’t always a happy ending in life.”

“Yeah, there isn’t.”

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It was an innocent conversation at a middle school pool party in my back yard about Nicholas Sparks’s books, but it keeps ringing in me. There aren’t always happy endings in real life. You don’t always end up with the person you can’t imagine your life without. Sometimes life just isn’t that simple, and I think that’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve learned yet.

So many people close to me are having their hearts broken one by one, and we’re sitting on the floor talking through how they named the children they would have and how they talked about marriage and how …. all of the things, they were all planned out and scintillatingly beautiful, and then they weren’t real anymore. They weren’t a possibility. They didn’t look like dreams or futures, they looked like heartbreak; they looked like lies.

It is difficult to look at the person in front of you whom you love so desperately and not see the perfect future. It’s beyond impossible to not cling to the “we make a good team” comments, and to not hold to the way they do exactly what you need when you need it without you ever having to say it.

Remember that they were real in the moment and just because it’s changed now does not make those moments any less full of beauty. It just means they’re different now; they won’t happen but for a while that was a dream you chased so don’t regret it. You wanted them and they wanted you; it was simple until it wasn’t, and now it’s messy yeah, but it was always real. Don’t turn people into monsters because they can’t fit the mold they used to anymore. People do not belong to you; you cannot clutch them close when they want to be free. It sucks, it really really sucks. But you love them right? Don’t you want what’s best for them even if you can’t see it?

And you love you too, right?

I feel like a mom looking into the eyes of her sheepish child as they mumble yes to questions they don’t want to answer, but still. You do. Even if you don’t think that you do right now, you do, and you’ll see that eventually.

They are not the only person in the world with whom you are compatible. There are still so many humans and places and wonders to meet, they certainly are not the only person in the world who can look at you in just the right way to make your heart beat wildly. You will find someone else who will give you butterflies and make your heart flip. You will find someone someday whose arms will feel safer than the ones that held you so recently that you think are the only ones that will protect you from the big bad world. You will find someone who will laugh at your quirks and treasure them dearly; you will find someone who will put up with your temper and with your tears, even if they appear at the same time. You will find someone to make sappy posts about and cuddle with while you watch movies. You will find someone and they will make you giggle when you want to cry; they won’t care if the timing sucks or if the world is ending, and neither will you.

There isn’t one person out there in the world who will solve all of your problems and people cannot fill your holes. You need to love yourself and cherish your own quirks and hold your own frame tight enough to feel safe. You need to be your own before you can be someone else’s. Deal with your own demons; it is better to be alone and whole than to try to fill your wounds with the temporary solution of another person.

Happy Endings aren’t always the happy we’re looking for. Sometimes they’re five years later with someone you swore you’d never marry even if you were the last two people on earth; and sometimes the happy ending is you finally accepting yourself without the crutch of someone else to hold you together. Fairy tales are for movies and novels, this is real life, babycakes, and it’s going to be so blessedly hard you’re going to want to walk out the door and never look back. Don’t let go of the dreams you’re searching to make come true; don’t lose sight of who you are when the storms start thundering. You’ve got this. It isn’t going to be a joy-ride around the lake at sunset, it’s going to be trudging uphill carrying luggage through the mud without anyone offering you a hand. But you’ve got it. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that this struggle won’t make you a thousand times better than you were before. This pain has a purpose. This waiting and wondering and silence and strife is here to make you better if you choose not to let it destroy you.

My prayer and hope for you is that when you get to the other side and look at the monster that is eating you alive in the eyes you can hold your head up. My prayer is that you no longer allow other peoples actions to affect your view of yourself; that you stop blaming the wounds inflicted on you by others on yourself. My prayer is that you realize you are worthy of the affection and time of others; that you are worth the struggle it takes to keep a relationship going and that someday someone will realize that too. My prayer is that the next time a situation is messy you will recognize your worth enough to step out of it, before all of the bruises and tangled lies. My prayer is that you will find a love that does not make you second-guess yourself when trying to decide whether or not to go for it. My prayer is that when it comes down to following your dreams or your heart you don’t have to choose because the answer is already so clear.

You are worth a love that would cross oceans and shatter walls; not one that completes you, but one that compliments you.

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You are stronger than the pain that is trying to bring you down.

You are whole without the person you felt was keeping you together.

You will not feel alone forever, and more than that even while you feel alone now, you are not.

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