Finding love is a desire which lives deep within my heart.

Thankfully, though, it remains exactly where it should be…

Beneath the countless wishes and dreams I have for my life, and let me tell you, marriage is definitely the least exciting of them all.

Breaking free from the pathetic propaganda that romantic love is the only love capable of fulfilling us has been one of the greatest transformations to ever take place within me.

Not only has it broadened my understanding of what makes life fulfilling, but it has equally allowed me to de-centre men entirely.

More to Life Than One Man

You’re probably wondering what exactly changed my perspective on romantic love, so let me tell you.

I once had a friendship where we were always at our closest whenever she was single.

If she was heartbroken, she would ask to spend nights at my house, meet up every weekend and FaceTime whenever she was sad.

Needless to say, there was always plenty of room for our friendship in her life. We spoke practically every day.

But then, she fell in love again.

The spontaneous FaceTime calls officially came to an end. Replies that once came promptly suddenly became slower, and sometimes days would pass without us speaking at all.

It understandably left me questioning the role I had actually played in her life.

Had I been a friend, or a comforting place to land whenever romantic love wasn’t there?

After witnessing this pattern in two of my closest friendships, it has ultimately changed more than just my standards for the friends in my life.

Instead, it has significantly transformed the position I want romantic love to occupy in my own life.

For instance, never in a million years do I ever want to build a life which excludes all the things I love in the presence of a man.

That includes my friendships, but it also includes my family, my ambitions, my career, my writing and, most importantly, myself.

I want love. Of course I do.

But, I really don’t want everything else I love to have to shrink in order to accommodate it.

In my opinion, romantic love should add to the life you’ve already built, not become the centre of it.

As women, we have far too much within us to make being loved by a man the greatest thing about our lives.

Falling in love should never require us to become less devoted to the woman we were before it.

I don’t know about anyone else, but before I get married, there is so much I want to achieve. I want to become exceptional in my career, write a bestselling book, reach thousands of people through my writing on Substack, travel the world and be in a position where I can provide for my family. The list goes on.

Therefore, the sole thought of accomplishing any of that excites me far more than the thought of becoming somebody’s wife or girlfriend.

My relationship will be the least exciting thing about me.

But perhaps more than anything, I never want the people around me to experience what I did.

I would hate for someone who made endless room for me while I was single to suddenly feel insignificant because I fell in love.

My friends are not placeholders until a man arrives. They are people I have chosen to love, and finding romantic love one day will never make their place in my life disposable.

Alternatively, I pray that falling in love will only deepen my appreciation for the people who have already filled my life with so much of it.

A Life Bigger Than Romance

Here is what I want for every woman reading this: to fall in love without allowing the world she has built to become smaller because of it.

Romantic love can be extraordinary without becoming everything.

You do not have to choose between adoring your partner and remaining devoted to the friendships, ambitions, family and dreams that make your life your own.

You really can have it all.

Allow your partner to expand your life, not replace it.

That, to me, is far more beautiful than making one person your entire world. Because there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to fall deeply in love, get married and share your life with someone. But your greatest aspirations should extend far beyond finding a man.

And when love does find you, remember the people who loved you when you had nothing romantic to offer them in return.

Make time for your friends because you want them there, not because your partner happens to have other plans.

Most importantly, keep something for yourself. Keep dreaming. Keep becoming. Keep building a life that still feels unmistakably yours.

Love can become an enormous part of your life without becoming the reason you have one.

And that is the greatest freedom I have found in de-centring men.

I still want love. I just refuse to want it more than I want my own life.

I think it’s fair to say that we have all had to deal with ‘difficult’ people in our lifetime.

Difficult, as in, unable to view anything beyond the boundaries of their own perspective.

They repeatedly treat you with minimal respect, distort situations to accommodate their own version of events and somehow expect you to participate in the confusion they have created in their own minds.

As a teenager, I used to believe that most misunderstandings could be resolved through a sensible discussion.

Then, in my early twenties, I learnt that some people willingly choose to misunderstand you. And quite happily so.

In this world, there are people who struggle so deeply with being at fault that they would rather question your hurt than acknowledge their part in causing it.

Or, they have already decided who you are, what you meant and why you did what you did.

In fact, every explanation you give ends up fuelling them with another opportunity to twist your words into the narrative they’ve already chosen to believe.

So, in many situations, its impossible to have a productive conversation with someone who has no interest in the truth.

And this is why I think discernment is so important.

Your ability to communicate with emotional intelligence is valuable. Being able to listen, reflect on your actions, explain your perspective and take accountability where necessary are qualities that make healthy conflict possible.

But you need to stop assuming that everybody deserves to receive them, or that everyone possesses the same emotional capabilities.

Some people love drama because it gives them a distraction from the unhappiness within their own lives.

Others will provoke you repeatedly because there is something about your peace they secretly resent.

They are emotional leeches.

The longer you engage, the more access you give them to the very energy they came hunting for.

This is why you need standards.

Before entering an argument, pay attention to the intentions of the person standing on the other side of it.

Forget their age.

I think we’re all smart enough to know that the number of years someone has lived does not automatically equate to substantial wisdom, self-awareness or good character.

Use your discernment instead.

Start asking yourself whether this person has demonstrated enough emotional maturity to even deserve a conversation with you.

Can they listen without twisting what really happened?

Can they disagree without becoming unnecessarily cruel?

Can they acknowledge another perspective without their ego treating it as a threat?

If they can, then great! Have the conversation, by all means.

However, if they can’t, then leave them exactly where they are.

Let them misunderstand you. It’s better that way.

Let them keep the version of you they created. They weren’t planning on changing it anyway.

You don’t need to enter somebody else’s delusion to prove that it isn’t reality.

There is strength in knowing how to communicate.

But there is greater power in knowing who truly deserves to hear you.

Your emotional intelligence is not public property. Similarly to how your peace is not something another person should get to disturb just because they can’t find it in their own life.

Use your discernment. Raise your standards. And stop arguing with people who have never earned the privilege of hearing what you have to say.

It will change your life. Believe me.

For the last couple of years, I had been made hostage to my feelings.

Frequently, I experienced spells of sadness, happiness, loneliness and confusion. Sometimes all within the span of a single week.

Emotions would arrive without warning, flooding my body and pulling me in different directions, leaving me exhausted just by the effort of trying to keep up.

But the problem wasn’t that I felt life deeply.

The problem was that I trusted every feeling wholeheartedly.

If an emotion appeared, I assumed it had something important to tell me. If it lingered, I assumed there was still a lesson left to learn. If it hurt, I treated the pain as evidence that more attention was required.

Modern culture often encourages us to treat emotions as a form of truth. If something feels significant, we assume it must be significant. If a feeling persists, we assume it is trying to teach us something.

Yet emotions are not objective narrators of reality. They are responses to reality; sometimes accurate, sometimes distorted, almost always temporary.

The mistake I made was specifically assuming that every emotion deserved my attention just because it existed.

I rarely considered the possibility that a feeling could be both real and misleading. That it could be acknowledged without being obeyed.

Instead, I found myself organising my life around how I felt, and this costed me so much of my time.

In recent years, I would argue that we have become more and more fluent in the language of emotional awareness. And a result of this has been the persistent encouragement to feel our feelings, sit with them and honour them, rather than suppressing them.

And I agree. We should definitely be walking straight through our feelings; not around them.

What receives far less attention, however, is the point at which emotional awareness quietly transforms into emotional attachment.

The problem with treating every emotion as a teacher is that eventually you become a lifelong student to it.

Because at some stage, reflection becomes repetition.

The same thought has nothing new left to teach you. The same wound stops revealing anything you do not already know.

Therefore, today, I would like to highlight that there is a huge difference between feeling an emotion and building a home inside it.

The former allows an emotion to move through you. The latter invites it to become part of your identity.

Many people mistake the second for emotional depth because it feels productive, whilst reflection feels responsible, and analysis feels insightful.

When in reality, it is entirely possible to spend years revisiting the same emotional territory whilst wrongly convincing yourself you are moving forward.

Reflection Time

Looking back, I don’t think I was healing properly.

I think I had mistaken emotional engagement for emotional progress.

Unfortuantely, I became so emotionally aware that I lost the ability to leave things behind.

Only recently have I come to appreciate that healing requires us to listen to our emotions, whilst growth sometimes requires us to challenge them. Otherwise, we risk spending our lives taking instructions from feelings that were never meant to lead us anywhere hopeful.

However, nobody actually prepares you for what happens next.

Nobody tells you that when your emotions stop occupying centre stage, the silence can feel unsettling.

Really unsettling.

After spending so much of my life interpreting and responding to every feeling that arose within me, their quietness felt suspicious rather than comforting.

Had I become numb?

Am I going through another stage of grief which I thought I had already passed?

Why do I not feel anything?

Is something wrong with me?

Those questions followed me around for weeks.

Although I could feel the calmness settling into my body, I sadly struggled to trust it. Part of me remained convinced that it was temporary, that sooner or later I would find myself carrying the same weight I had spent years trying to put down.

Because somehow, that felt more believable than healing, hence leaving me with even more questions than I started with.

Why had I found suffering easier to trust than peace?

Why did calmness feel suspicious whilst emotional turmoil felt familiar?

Perhaps because I had unconsciously come to associate healing with effort. Because for me, if I was still analysing, I was growing. If I was still hurting, there was still work to be done.

And peace offered neither.

Maybe that was why I struggled to recognise it.

Weirdly enough, I can’t even pinpoint exactly when this shift occurred.

There was no breakthrough conversation. No life-changing book or essay I read. No dramatic moment of revelation.

I only recognised it in retrospect.

All I remember…is that one beautiful day, I realised I had gone weeks without revisiting something that had once occupied years of my attention. The urge that chained me to the situation had quietly disappeared.

But this doesn’t necessarily signify that those experiences no longer matter to me. It has just transformed my relationship with them.

If I think about it, life continued to happen. People still disappointed me. Uncertainty still existed. Difficult days still arrived uninvited.

But the life changing difference was that I no longer felt compelled to emotionally unpack every experience before allowing myself to move forward.

I spent years believing that peace existed on the other side of understanding.

That on one miraculous day, enough reflection would finally allow me to make sense of everything that had happened, and only then, would I be able to move on with my life.

On the contrary, my new discovery has revealed to me that the things that once consumed me did not disappear because I understood them. In many cases, they remained exactly as they were.

What changed was my need to keep returning to them.

Since forever, I thought acceptance meant finding an answer.

Now, I wonder whether acceptance is making peace with the absence of one.

Perhaps that was my miracle.

God answered my prayers, though not in the way I expected.

I thought He would change my circumstances.

Instead, He changed my relationship with them, and with the anxious attachment I had formed to my feelings.

I think one of the saddest things women are taught, is to treat their bodies like ongoing renovation projects, rather than places we are allowed to feel at home in.

One moment, women are encouraged to become skinnier.

The next, we are expected to become curvier.

But not naturally curvier.

The specific look which was being glorified online for years was an exaggerated combination of a tiny waist, toned thighs, and a noticeably larger butt.

And somehow, in this bizarre world, women were still expected to remain soft, slim, toned, curvy, thick, feminine, and effortlessly attractive. ALL AT ONCE.

And even then, it still didn’t feel like enough.

Because after a while, constantly criticising and trying to “fix” our bodies became completely normalised in society.

To further emphasise this issue, I would like to make it known that I was only fourteen when I was made to feel like my body was permanently inadequate.

And as you could probably imagine, my underdeveloped teenage body was not exactly the most celebrated physique during that era.

Especially not in school.

The rise of the BBL trend had undoubtedly consumed my adolescent years.

One day, us girls would walk into school talking about our favourite celebrity crush, the last film we watched, the song we were currently obsessed with, or the new pairs of shoes we bought.

Then suddenly, almost out of nowhere, conversations became consumed by an obsessive fixation on wanting a bigger butt.

Conversations about grades slowly disappeared.

So did hobbies.

So did ambitions.

Instead, it became all about how to become “thicker.”

That obsession even went as far as transforming the way teenage girls treated one another.

Girls began disrespectfully joining boys in the same body shaming conversations that had once primarily existed within male locker room culture.

The word “flat” was casually thrown around in hallways by both genders, as though it were some harmless joke with no real meaning.

Getting changed in the locker rooms eventually became an intensely self conscious experience.

It started feeling as though so many girls were constantly analysing one another’s bodies, curves, and proportions, whilst mentally noting whose appearance would later become the perfect subject of mockery.

By that point, feeling comfortable in my own body had become nearly impossible.

My innocence was abruptly drained by the time I hit fourteen, because I obviously did not start secondary school expecting to feel abnormal for not having the body of a fully grown woman.

I was so innocent, that I can confidently say those thoughts would never have even crossed my mind beforehand.

Because prior to secondary school, I openly liked Disney films, I loved the colour pink, I adored stuffed animals, and I had an obsession with Justin Bieber.

But somewhere between entering secondary school and turning fourteen, my new obsession became criticising my body at any given opportunity.

I began interpreting it as a project which always needed improving.

But of course, the bodies being praised were surgically created, heavily edited, or simply unrealistic for most women to naturally achieve.

Let alone teenage girls who had not even fully developed yet.

But despite the obvious absurdity of it all, those standards still filtered their way into schools and everyday conversations.

Naturally, it became the body every girl believed she needed in order to be deemed attractive.

And if you didn’t belong to this category of “attraction”, well, you’d become a brutal comparison for other girls to bitch about…

When they joined forces with the boys for some sad validation.

However, now, years later, the trend has completely changed.

All over again.

The same celebrities and influencers who once spent years promoting exaggerated curvier bodies are suddenly reappearing noticeably thinner. Some have gone as far as removing their BBL, while others are being accused of using substances such as Ozempic to cause this dramatic cultural shift.

To me, that reveals something deeply unhealthy about the beauty industry itself.

Women are encouraged to emotionally invest into one ideal, reshape the way they view themselves around it, and then start over the moment trends inevitably change.

Female insecurity has become one of the most profitable industries in the world.

One decade, women are praised for becoming “thicker.”

The next, thinness quietly returns as the new aspiration, and the exact same women who once felt inadequate are expected to remodel themselves all over again.

What frustrates me most is how normalised this cycle has become.

Millions of young girls grow up believing these trends are natural, achievable, and necessary in order to be considered beautiful, whilst many of the women promoting these standards have access to cosmetic surgery, personal trainers, editing tools, expensive procedures, and lifestyles completely detached from ordinary reality.

Yet teenage girls are still comparing themselves to it all.

That is the part I find most heartbreaking.

Young girls do not need more influencers teaching them how to hate themselves more efficiently.

They need more women who promote comfortability within their natural bodies.

More women who radiate confidence without feeling the need to completely reconstruct themselves every few years in order to remain desirable online.

That is the kind of woman I hope to become for the generations to come.

Not somebody who promotes perfection.

Not somebody who encourages endless correction.

But somebody who reminds young girls that beauty does not need to be earned through self hatred, comparison, or constant transformation.

Your genetics should not feel like something you need to apologise for.

When I was a child, far too many adults had such strong opinions which centred around my body.

As far back as I can remember, family members would openly comment on how “skinny” I was.

People would sit me in their laps, touch my bones, tell me I looked “unhealthy,” and insist that I needed to gain weight.

The saddest part is, I was hearing these comments as young as four years old.

There were never any compliments.

No conversations about my personality, or about how cute I was.

Just constant observations and criticisms about my genetics.

That is exactly why this topic will always matter to me, more than anyone will ever know.

Because in my eyes, no little girl deserves to grow up believing her body is the most important thing about her.

No teenage girl deserves to spend her school years feeling ashamed for not resembling surgically enhanced women online.

No woman deserves to spend her entire life chasing trends that were never designed to allow her to fall in love with herself.

Now I can understand the conversations surrounding the impact of social media on young people, because they are important for these exact reasons.

For years now, there have been ongoing debates surrounding whether social media platforms should become more restricted for children and teenagers.

Whilst I understand why some people view this idea as extreme, I also think many adults underestimate just how psychologically influential these platforms can become during adolescence.

At fourteen years old, I was not mature enough to fully separate my self worth from the unrealistic beauty standards constantly being promoted online.

Most teenage girls are not equipped for that.

When young people are repeatedly exposed to surgically enhanced bodies, heavily edited images, and influencers who profit from aesthetic perfection, it inevitably begins shaping the way they view themselves.

And most people forget that these trends do not just stay online.

They follow girls into classrooms, friendships, changing rooms, and eventually into the way they speak to themselves internally.

Therefore, I honestly believe we should care and prioritise protecting young girls psychologically than protecting an industry that often profits directly from female insecurity.

So now, as a woman in my early twenties, I genuinely want to make it one of my assignment’s in life to promote healthier attitudes towards the female body.

Not perfection.

Not endless correction.

Not teaching young girls to feel at war with themselves before they have even fully grown into who they are.

I want young girls to grow up understanding that their bodies are not trends.

They are homes.

And homes were never supposed to be lived in with shame.

I downloaded a dating app as a social experiment.

What initially drew me into this idea, was a curiosity as to whether my generalisations about modern dating were actually true.

Prior to this experiment, I held a firm belief that these platforms primarily attracted emotionally unavailable and lust-driven behaviour.

Purely because of the way these apps have been designed to work.

For me, it oddly resembles the structure of online shopping.

Sending somebody a “like” based solely on the way they look, reminds me of when somebody favourites an item on an online store.

The entire experience felt pretty degrading.

What I Discovered Within 48 Hours

In fact, it took me less than two days to realise the reality was far worse than I could have ever anticipated.

One of the very first patterns I quickly noticed, was how normalised low-effort behaviour had become within modern dating.

Almost every interaction revolved around the same uninspired proposition.

“Let’s go for a drink.”

“I know a place for an easy drink.”

“Drinks on me if you’re lucky ahaha.”

None of these men had the basic courtesy to even check whether I drank alcohol.

My actual interests seemed irrelevant.

Getting to know me seemed irrelevant.

Everything appeared to revolve around what they wanted, and what they could potentially gain from the interaction.

As much as I love a well thought-out dinner date, there are countless other activities which are still thoughtful, romantic, considerate, and cost effective. Still perfectly suitable for anyone who is frugal-minded.

A picnic would have been a far better suggestion than a soulless meet up at the bar.

But then again, going out for drinks late at night would naturally give a man a higher probability of potentially “taking things further,” unlike a romantic afternoon picnic on a beautiful summer’s day.

So within 24 hours of creating a profile, I had already established that too many men ignorantly assumed that this level of effort, and lack of consideration, was enough to gain access to the presence of a woman they found attractive.

And perhaps the most unsettling part, was that this lack of effort rarely stopped there.

This experiment made one thing painfully obvious:

The word “effort” appears to have been removed from the vocabulary of modern dating entirely.

A handful of men would send a “like,” match with you, and then proceed to say absolutely nothing afterwards.

As though pushing a button on their phones was enough chivalry for one day.

Shockingly, women were then expected to take over from there, ideally with a gracious, “Thank you so much for liking one of my pictures!”

Because apparently, accepting the match itself was no longer enough confirmation of interest.

Women were now expected to carry the interaction forward too, despite being the person who had already finalised the match.

It created an atmosphere where many people appeared to want the rewards of pursuit, attention, validation, and female presence, without embodying the effort or intentionality that genuine pursuit has traditionally required.

And if I thought the lack of effort was bad enough, the conversations themselves were significantly worse.

To give you an example…

There was a man who I matched with. We started talking and getting to know each other. He took a kind interest in who I was, what my favourite cuisine was, and what I liked to do for fun.

You know, the usual.

And within only one hour of speaking, he had already booked a date for us.

The date he had planned was thoughtful, romantic, and rather exciting.

The man had taken the initiative to book a fancy restaurant which served Greek food (my favourite), followed by a fun activity for both of us to enjoy.

His social skills had initially made a reasonable impression on me. It was refreshing to see someone capable of genuine human interaction.

However, the interaction quickly became far more revealing once he began asking invasive questions completely out of the blue.

Considering we had only been texting for a matter of days and had not even met in person, the level of familiarity behind discussions surrounding intimacy, sexual experiences, and personal boundaries felt deeply premature and extremely inappropriate.

And whilst I understand that these discussions may eventually hold relevance within dating, there is still a time and a place for such conversations.

Classier ways to approach the matter, you could say.

In this instance, his intentions became unmistakably transparent through the disturbingly calculated nature of his wording.

Something I have unfortunately had to learn as a young woman, is that in many cases, certain men are determined to assess how quickly they could gain access to you, how far your boundaries could be extended, and how little emotional investment would be required beforehand.

Needless to say, I cancelled that date very quickly. Terrified that he might ask me filthy questions while I try and stomach my dinner.

After this point, the experience stopped feeling like modern dating altogether.

It started feeling more like a negotiation surrounding access, where emotional connection became secondary to physical opportunity.

And for me, that is the most uncomfortable part of modern dating culture, and the main reason I have really struggled to connect with somebody on a deeper level.

Because modern dating is no longer centred around connection, romance, and cuteness.

It is centred around access. One of the very few things I refuse to ‘bring to the table’.

Honestly, is it too early to retire from the dating world?

I’m exhausted!

It took me longer than it should have to realise that a close friend of mine did not want me doing well.

At all.

Even though, during our friendship, nothing about it felt objectively wrong.

But I guess that’s because she was quite experienced at playing a game I would never play.

Performative Behaviour

When a friend makes it a mission to be there for you every time you’re feeling down, it can feel impossible to question their intentions, especially when it is socially glorified to be there for others when they are low in spirits.

In those ‘wholesome’ moments, she was the only person I felt I could really lean on. She would ask me how I was feeling practically every day, which is something I needed considering what I was going through.

She’d randomly knock on my door to physically check in on me. She also made it a priority to reassure me that she had my back, even when I never even asked her to.

I wasn’t used to that, so for months, I felt very emotionally safe with her.

I appreciated her, the same way I appreciate all of my friendships.

With that being said, I inevitably opened up to her about things I had never said out loud before. Not to many people at least. Things I refused to trust just anyone with.

And she told me she understood. She gave me a hug; said all of the right words I craved to hear.

But that’s all they were. Just empty words.

Because one morning, I woke up with this unshakeable gut feeling that something was off.

It was actually quite frightening, because there was no concrete reason for it. Nothing new had happened. It was completely random, and there was no conclusion I could draw to explain why I was feeling a warning sign in the pit of my stomach, for days on end.

Needless to say, it didn’t go away.

It stayed. And each day I tried to ignore it, it only grew stronger.

Regrettably, my nervous system progressed to the unbearable stage. It became too overwhelming to know that my body was trying its best to warn me of a terrible situation, even when I didn’t have any valid evidence to rightfully justify why.

So I asked God, “Lord, what are you trying to tell me? Please show me in a way I will understand.”

One day later, He answered me.

The metaphorical veil had finally been lifted from my eyes, when something happened with another person that made me understand what she had been doing all this time.

At first, I couldn’t process it properly. I honestly didn’t want to.

It was a betrayal no one could’ve prepared me for.

I thought that by convincing myself I was wrong, I would feel less pain in my heart.

But the more I absorbed the truth, the clearer it became what God was trying to specifically warn me about…

The Reality

She had been speaking badly about me to people I knew, which was only the tip of the iceberg.

And once that registered, I couldn’t help but dwell on it, deeply. Rethinking the entire friendship. Finally questioning whether any of it was even real to begin with.

With the concrete evidence I now had, it all started coming back to me…in these vivid flashbacks:

The way she would laugh and make snarky comments about my height and other attributes in front of boys she was friends with, people I didn’t even know.

The way she secretly stayed close to the person who was making my life a living hell, despite all the times I had cried to her about him.

The way she made me believe her anger towards him was real, while never even sticking up for me behind my back, and worse, maintaining a closeness with this person in secret.

The way she shared my pain and secrets with her male friends, turning my private life into casual discussion for her own entertainment, and to tarnish my image.

But the most disturbing truth was realising that she had been using my biggest insecurity against me.

She made me believe my biggest fear had happened again, something I prayed I would never have to experience twice.

And she still used this fear against me, by manipulating me.

Twisting the truth.

And keeping me far enough from the truth to the point where I could no longer perceive or find out what was real.

That revelation left me dissociated for weeks.

Month after month, I had been breaking away from myself. My confidence disappeared. I spent most of my time upset, confused, and feeling like I was losing my grip on reality, all because she had been feeding me a version of events that wasn’t true. Knowing it would mess with my head.

And all of it was happening while I was still trusting her.

She strategically broke my confidence down, bit by bit, for reasons I hope I will never be twisted enough to understand.

Reflection

Looking back, I put my hands up to admit that the beginning of our friendship was never actually authentic.

There was an urgency to it. Invasive questions. Constant messages and voice notes, acting like we were close when we had only just met.

Unnatural curiosity as to who I might be interested in, who I am friends with; where I’m going out to.

She needed to know absolutely everything about me.

But the most juxtaposing part which should’ve been the first red flag I ever took seriously, was my first ever interaction with her.

The first time we ever actually met…involved me being stared up and down without an ounce of friendliness in sight.

Foolishly, at that time, I interpreted our first conversation as interest. Removing the previous hostile interaction from my memory.

Now I’m aware that all these dots can be accurately connected.

And from my well-thought-out analysis, they all lead to the same conclusion…

It was never a friendship. It was an obsession.

Conclusion

To conclude this story, I would first like to highlight that I don’t wish bad on this person, and I will never advocate for that either.

Yes, her intentions were beyond malicious, and she undoubtedly caused me some distress, but that does not mean that unforgiveness is no longer applicable to this situation.

In fact, it’s easier for me to empathise with her.

In all these attempts to break me down, it is unmistakeable that she has her insecurities, hence the reason why she behaves the way she does. And I can only imagine how troublesome they might be to provoke this sort of behaviour.

With that being said, it feels unfair to judge her when I can’t imagine being painfully insecure to the point where I have to bring another person down, publicly and privately.

It’s a torturous mind to live in, and only God knows how that can make the actual person who is living in it feel.

My Message To You

It is vital that you are selective with who you have around you. Because the first red flag I ignored, costed me.

Big time.

It cost me the version of myself I was before we became “close.” The version I admired, and the one she may have admired too.

You may not realise it now, but your circle has a tremendous impact on your mindset, and your mental health. Before I met this girl, I was tough, resilient, exceptionally confident; the list goes on.

On the other hand, the way I perceived myself, eventually became the way in which she wanted me to.

And that is dangerous.

From what I see, people will either drain you or lead you down a positive path. And because of this, never in my life will I ever let things slide, or let someone else twist a situation I already understand.

I was too trusting. However, I now understand that trust needs to be earned; not just in relationships, but in friendships too. Especially now I know girls like this really do exist, even if I can’t comprehend how.

Be careful, and pay attention to all the signs.

You will never regret it.

I’m going to say this gently, because I had to learn it the hard way.

Just because someone makes you feel good doesn’t mean they’re actually good for you.

Back when my standards were lower, I used to confuse how I felt about someone with what they were actually capable of giving me.

“Is the flirting fun? Do they make me laugh? Do conversations flow naturally with them?”

Maturing is realising that this is actually the easiest part. The part that any clown can do.

The rest is where it usually falls apart, because it’s a truer reflection of someone’s character.

“Are they consistent? Do they have emotional intelligence? Can they plan a good date? Can I rely on them? Do they show up for me when it really matters?”

Those are the qualities that actually determine whether something lasts. Surface-level behaviour can’t feed your soul when it never reaches the depth required to truly connect with you.

In my experience, the reasons I was initially drawn to someone often ended up being all they were capable of giving me.

I once had to end things with someone because they admitted they couldn’t make enough time for me. To them, one message a day felt sufficient, but it was never enough to keep me feeling desired, like I should feel in a relationship with a man.

I also knew that my personality was too bubbly for a person who didn’t want to spend much time with it.

So, this isn’t just about expectation, it’s about alignment.

It was disappointing, and I felt really shut down every time I would share something that mattered to me, only to receive a reply ten hours later.

Not necessarily because of the delay itself, but because of what it represented.

Our commitment and communication styles were fundamentally different, which is why I had to end things, because over time, these differences started to outweigh everything else.

Despite the attraction.

Despite all of the cute moments.

Despite the ease.

None of it could compensate for the inconsistency.

So I left. And we never spoke again.

As much as it can hurt, chemistry has a way of making you overlook things you wouldn’t usually accept. And it’s not that you don’t see the red flags. You just stop treating them as reasons to leave because as time goes on, you start holding onto how it feels, rather than what’s actually there.

And that’s usually when the confusion begins.

Chemistry is not a true indicator of compatibility.

One draws you in. The other determines whether it can actually last.

And that’s something I had to learn through my experiences.

Because it’s easy to stay when something feels good, even when a part of you knows it’s not enough. You tell yourself it will get better, that maybe they’ll meet you halfway eventually, that what you feel must mean something more than what you’re seeing.

But it doesn’t.

You can care about someone deeply and still be left feeling like you’re asking for too much, when in reality, you’re just asking the wrong person.

That was the part that took me quite a while to accept.

That I didn’t need less. I just needed someone who could give more.

Someone who didn’t make me question whether I was too much for wanting consistency, or attention, or time.

At the end of the day, none of those things are unreasonable.

They’re the bare minimum for something to actually work.

And once you see that clearly, chemistry alone stops being enough.

When I was unemployed, my life had officially been placed on hold, while the rest of the world continued moving forward.

My days carried this stillness that didn’t feel peaceful, but really unfamiliar, as though time stretched endlessly and mornings completely lost their sense of purpose.

From the moment my eyes would open, my life felt heavier than it should have, with this tender feeling that there was nothing waiting for me on the other side.

Even the simplest things no longer felt the same. Spending money, no matter how small, felt undeserved, and being outside lost its ease, replaced by an underlying sense of guilt and a constant awareness that I wasn’t earning anything and had not yet found my place.

Each day carried this unspoken pressure to be productive, and if I wasn’t actively applying for jobs, then I would feel like I was falling behind. Even in the face of repeated rejection, refreshing my emails in the hope that something would change just became a casual habit, while trying desperately not to internalise the hurtful silence.

Rest never really existed in this point of my life either, as it always felt unjustified. When there were days where I allowed myself to pause, it would be shortly followed by a lingering sense of regret. The thought of not sending one more application had always haunted me for longer than it ever should have.

Over time, it became noticeable that I was no longer perceiving myself in a healthy way.

Because unemployment is rarely just about not having a job; it becomes something you subconsciously internalise, a process that can sadly reshape your sense of worth, along with your direction, and place in this world.

That is the part people don’t speak about.

But eventually, something within me shifted when I recognised how much importance I had placed on having a job, allowing it to become a form of idolatry, the measure through which I evaluated my progress and my value.

Once this realisation struck me, I loosened my attachment to it, not entirely, but enough to regain a better perspective.

And in that space, I noticed the wonder in what remained.

The beauty of time.

Time to sit with myself, even when it felt slightly strange. Time to explore what I actually enjoyed rather than what I felt I should be doing according to society. And to invest in parts of my life that I had been unreasonably neglecting.

Gradually, that time became something I could finally appreciate.

That very small shift changed the way I approached the process, as what had felt repetitive and discouraging became more manageable once I perceived it with gratitude.

Applications and interviews soon became opportunities to confidently articulate who I was, and proudly reflect on what I had already accomplished, acknowledging my own development, transforming what once felt like rejection into something closer to redirection.

Alongside that, I bravely grounded myself, investing my energy into things that brought me back to who I once was, whether that was going to the gym, focusing on my health, or writing, not because it resolved everything, but because it allowed me to continue moving forward in life, rather than completely giving up and remaining stationary.

But through all of this, only one thing truly sustained me.

My faith in God.

I held onto the belief that this season was not permanent, and that something was already being prepared for me, even if I could not see it yet.

That belief gave me a sense of peace I could not have created on my own.

In time, things changed. I was finally blessed with the desires of my heart; now walking in alignment with the life I was destined to live.

Looking back now, there is one specific thing I would approach differently, and that is allowing myself to truly appreciate all of that time I had in my life, because once structure returns and your time is no longer your own, you immediately realise how rare that kind of space actually was.

If you find yourself in that season now, there is another way to hold it, even if it may feel heavy and difficult to sit with…

It is a beautiful period of time that belongs entirely to you.

A precious space where your days are not dictated by obligation, where you are given the opportunity to be with yourself, to understand yourself, and to invest in parts of your life that are often overlooked.

It is not a chapter to rush through.

Because one day, when life begins to move again, you will look back on this time differently, not for what it lacked, but for what it offered.

The space.

The stillness.

The time you had with the people you loved.

And the version of yourself that you will never get to spend time with again.

There’s something about motherhood that feels familiar to me, even though I haven’t experienced it yet.

It has never existed in my mind as a distant or futuristic idea, but as something that’s close, already intertwined with who I am.

It’s hard to explain, so I never do.

At times, it comes to me in dreams, so vivid that I hardly ever question it. In these dreams, I am holding my beautiful baby, and the love I have for them is instantaneous and nothing less than unconditional.

It has never felt temporary, but like a powerful love that already lives deep within my heart.

That’s why it feels so peculiar to me when I see how negatively motherhood is often spoken about online.

I’ve seen women share the wonderful news that they’re pregnant, only to be met with harsh comments saying their life is over, that they’ve limited themselves, or that they’ve let a man “use” them. I’ve even seen other women go as far as telling these mothers that they should go to a ‘clinic’ instead. And I really do struggle to understand how something so significant can be spoken about so carelessly.

I can understand that not everyone wants children. That’s completely valid. But what I don’t understand is how pregnancy can now lead a woman to being publicly shamed, or perceived as something that should be deeply ‘regretted’.

When I think about motherhood, it doesn’t align with the way it’s often spoken about online.

There is a depth to a woman knowing she wants to nurture, to care, to pour into a life that comes from her. It isn’t something forced. It just exists.

There’s a softness to that desire. Wanting to hold your child, to protect them, to raise them with care and intention. It is gentle and selfless, but it is not weak. If anything, it reflects emotional awareness that is so often overlooked.

And I don’t understand why that isn’t more widely cherished.

Not everything powerful needs to be loud or visible. Some forms of strength exist in the quiet decisions people make about the life they want to build, and the kind of love they want to give.

Loving someone who isn’t here yet shouldn’t feel strange. And to me, it never has.

When I think about the life I want, I don’t think about what looks impressive from the outside. I think about what will actually feel meaningful to me.

What will bring me genuine fulfilment in life.

I know, with a certainty I can’t fully explain, that nothing in this life will ever fulfil me in the way that being a mother to my children will.

Not because it is ideal, but because it is real.

It asks something of you. It changes you. It deepens you, and teaches you about a form of love and patience that cannot be found anywhere else.

For me, this is not a life decision I feel unsure about or anything I need to justify.

It’s something I know.

And I don’t believe that should ever need explaining, especially not to people online.

It’s a strange feeling to work for years towards something, only to be told afterwards that it doesn’t really matter.

There is a very specific kind of narrative around academic achievement at the moment, and once you start noticing it, it becomes rather difficult to ignore. It shows up most prevalently on social media, repeated in different forms but always pointing to the same idea: that being a high-achieving student does not really hold much value anymore, that outstanding grades equate to very little, and that even getting into a top university is no longer a meaningful indicator of anything substantial.

But it rarely stops at indifference. There is a level of scrutiny attached to high achievers, as though their success needs to be publicly visible or disproven, as though people are actively waiting to see whether your degree will actually amount to anything. However, in a lot of cases, it feels as though there is a greater expectation that it will not lead you down a successful path.

It is often framed as realism, which is probably why it spreads so easily, but the more you examine it, the more it becomes clear that it is purely built on generalisations rather than substance.

Repetition gives this ideology weight, not accuracy.

After graduating, I found myself trying to figure out how to turn my goals and ambitions into something real, and it was in that uncertainty that this way of thinking started to take hold. I didn’t suddenly decide that my past effort meant nothing, but I did start to move away from it, slowly internalising what I kept seeing online more than what I had already proven to myself.

That is what made the shift so misleading. Nothing about my ability had changed. I had already done the work and earned my place at a top university, yet I was thinking that it no longer carried any value, influenced more by all of the negativity I was perceiving online than by what I had actually achieved.

What I had to come back to was something much more concrete. Getting through university at a high level is not something that happens by accident. It demands discipline, consistency, and the ability to keep going under pressure. It means long hours, sleepless nights, and pushing through exams and expectations that most people never fully understand. You do not come through that unchanged. You build resilience, focus, and a level of self-belief that cannot be reduced by a narrative online. And no amount of casual dismissal can take that away from you.

These skills and habits are also the perfect foundation when it comes to going after what you truly want in life.

At the same time, I had to be completely honest about my belief in God. I spoke about faith, but the way I was thinking did not truly reflect it. There is a contradiction in believing in God while assuming your life will remain within a narrow range of what seems realistic. Once I saw that clearly, I could not continue thinking in the same way.

I returned to a mentality that was much more grounded, which was rooted in my own track record. I know that I can work hard, stay consistent, reach my goals, and follow through even when things are demanding. None of that becomes irrelevant simply because a particular narrative becomes trending online.

My entire mindset changed.

From that point, the shift was deliberate. I stopped treating my goals as distant possibilities and started approaching them as things that would require effort and patience, but were fully within my reach.

That change carried into how I moved. I went through multiple rounds of interviews and assessments and secured the role I had been aiming for. It was not easy, but it was entirely achievable once I stopped allowing online scepticism to define what I believed was possible for me.

Since then, I have continued in the same way.

What has now become obvious to me is that the stigma around academic achievers only has power if you accept it. Social media amplifies simple, often reductive ideas, and if you are not careful, you start to see yourself through them. But those narratives are not built on your life or your effort.

You are.

If you have already done the work, if you have already pushed through the pressure, the expectations, and everything that came with it, then there is no reason to let someone else decide what that effort was worth.

I trust that now, because I have evidence of what I am capable of achieving, and I no longer see my goals as limited. They are shaped by my effort, not by the pessimism of people online who have no understanding of the work behind them.

And if I was able to do it, there is no reason you cannot do the same.

For two whole academic years, my friends and I made it a habit to sit together in lectures and gather in the library to write our essays, pouring our souls into pieces of paper that we would never look at again. For the sake of our degrees, motivating each other became a crucial part of achieving this milestone we had all been dreaming about since we were children. Without that collective support, the stress alone might have been enough to stop us all from functioning.

Almost every day the familiar atmosphere of productivity would slowly take shape around me. My friends would begin making progress with their work, typing away or discussing ideas while the hours quietly passed.

Gradually everyone else would begin to move forward with their assignments.

And I would remain exactly where I started.

My laptop open. The page almost entirely blank. The cursor blinking patiently as if it were waiting for something my mind simply could not produce.

From the outside it must have looked like a lack of discipline or untamed laziness.

But what no one could see was that my mind was no longer functioning in the ordinary rhythm of concentration. It was operating in survival mode.

Sometimes my thoughts would suddenly drag me back into memories that made my stomach churn. Other times something stranger would happen. My mind would alternatively stop.

Not distracted, not tired, but a complete internal paralysis where thinking itself seemed to stall and refuse to continue.

No amount of determination could change it. Once my mind stopped cooperating, it stopped.

At that time I did not have the language to explain what was happening to me. Looking back now, I understand that I was living in a constant state of derealisation.

The world had begun to feel disturbingly unreal, as though a thin pane of glass separated me from the ordinary texture of life, leaving me more like an observer than a participant. As if everything around me continued to move while I existed slightly outside of it.

Conversations carried on around me. Days unfolded. People laughed, studied, and worried about their futures.

And I moved through it all with the persistent feeling that I was observing rather than fully participating.

Living in that state creates strange consequences. Memory becomes slightly unreliable. Time loses its graceful continuity. Ordinary moments begin to feel strangely disconnected from one another.

I remember once walking into a bakery and ordering something at the counter. Everything about the moment seemed perfectly normal.

Until suddenly it wasn’t.

I looked around and realised, with an almost clinical clarity, that I had no idea where I was.

For several seconds my mind could not reconstruct how I had arrived there. The room looked unfamiliar. The sounds around me felt distant. I remember standing there trying to behave normally while panic quietly began building in my chest and my body temperature rose, leaving me sweating uncontrollably.

Experiences like that are deeply disorienting.

But perhaps the most exhausting part of living with complex trauma was not the confusion.

It was the hypervigilance.

While the people around me moved through the world with an unspoken assumption of safety, my nervous system had other ideas for me. Every room I entered was instinctively scanned. My eyes darted quickly across corners, doors, and windows. Unfamiliar faces were registered immediately, and stored somewhere in my brain. Even small changes in tone or movement were interpreted as potential danger.

However, even in ordinary situations, my body remained prepared for something terrible to happen.

Meanwhile my friends would walk beside me through busy streets or sit beside me in lectures, completely relaxed. And inside I was sweating, panicking, convinced that danger was somehow close behind me, waiting for the right moment to appear, and take me.

Living like that is undoubtedly exhausting.

To appear calm while your body is constantly bracing itself for something that never arrives. And the strange irony was that none of this was visible to anyone else.

From the outside I was simply another student sitting in lectures or studying in the library. Sometimes laughing, sometimes quiet, perhaps just someone who looked thoughtful most of the time. But inside, my mind was fighting battles that nobody else could see.

At first there was a short period of time where I wondered if someone might notice. If someone might pause long enough to realise that something about me wasn’t quite right. But that thought did not last very long.

No one ever noticed.

Eventually I came to understand something far more sobering.

No one could help me.

Once that realisation settled in, the idea of being noticed stopped mattering. In fact the opposite became true.

The fewer people who knew what was happening inside my mind, the safer I felt.

Even when my thoughts were deeply disturbed, even when my mind felt disconnected from the world around me, there was a strange comfort in knowing that the chaos remained hidden, and private.

People believed I was fine.

And for a very long time, that was exactly how I wanted it.

Free from all human disappointment.

The amount of fun we had was simply unmatched. We would have sleepovers that turned into talking until three in the morning, sitting on the floor with our favourite snacks, sharing secrets and laughing at things that probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. The kind of friendship that almost feels too perfect to be real.

And for a long time, it really felt like we would always stay that close.

When I first met many of my friends, my life was always the chaotic one.

Something always seemed to be going wrong. Sometimes it genuinely felt like I just couldn’t catch a break. Even my friends would say the same thing.

And during those years, those friendships felt incredibly close. We were there for each other through absolutely everything. Through the confusion of growing up, through the moments where life felt overwhelming, through nights where it felt like we were the only two people trying to make sense of the world.

We were inseparable.

But something nobody could have prepared me for was how friendships can quietly shift when your life begins to blossom.

No one really talks about this part of growth. The way your life getting better can suddenly change the people around you.

Very slowly, things in my life started to fall into place. My work began to stabilise. My family life became calmer. Other areas of my life started to feel lighter in ways I had once prayed for in tears.

For the first time in a long time, my life finally felt calm, like the storm that had constantly followed me had finally passed.

Most of my friendships stayed exactly the same. They were still warm, supportive and present, no matter what my life looked like.

But one friendship changed in a way that still feels strange to me.

We had been best friends through so many seasons of life. Through the sleepovers, the late-night conversations, the long talks about everything that was going wrong in our lives.

And then, slowly, something shifted.

Replies became fewer and further between. Sometimes a whole week would pass before I heard back. The small gestures that once felt natural quietly came to a halt. No more likes on my pictures, even though my stories were still being watched. No more excitement around birthdays or little messages suggesting we should casually do something fun together.

Nothing dramatic happened.

There was no argument. No specific moment where something clearly broke.

Just distance.

What made this even harder to understand was remembering how our friendship had always been before.

There were seasons where this person had things in their life that I was quietly praying for myself. Opportunities, romance, simple happiness, moments that I deeply wanted in my own life. And I remember feeling genuinely happy for them. I celebrated those moments with them wholeheartedly, even while I was still waiting and hoping for those things myself.

But when my life finally began to shift in ways I had once prayed for, the response felt completely different.

The warmth that once existed between us slowly began to fade. And that was perhaps the most confusing part of it all.

Not the distance itself, but realising that the support I had once given so freely didn’t seem to be reciprocated when the roles were reversed.

Maybe you’ve experienced something similar. The strange feeling of realising that someone who once felt so close to you no longer shows up in the same way.

For a while, I sadly found myself dwelling on what had changed between us. I had inevitably reached the grieving stage of our friendship, wishing I could just go back in time and relive all of those precious memories, and bring them back to life.

I replayed our friendship in my mind over and over again, searching for some kind of explanation for the quiet deterioration of our closeness. The sleepovers, the study dates, the long conversations, the way we once spoke about our lives as if we would always be there to witness each other’s futures. Even the moments where we imagined what our weddings might look like, planning our bridesmaid dresses as though those days were certain to arrive with us standing right beside each other.

And maybe that was the part that hurt me the most.

Not the distance itself, but realising that some people are only meant to know you in certain seasons of your life, not the entirety of it.

Some friendships are built in the years where you are both simply trying to survive. But when one of you finally begins to live, the closeness that once felt natural no longer fits in the same way. Instead, it dissolves.

I don’t look back at that friendship with anger.

If anything, I look back with a strange kind of tenderness.

Because the girl I was during those years needed that friendship more than anything. And the memories we created together will always belong to that version of my life.

But the woman I am becoming is learning something rather different.

Sometimes growth doesn’t end friendships loudly.

Sometimes it simply closes a door that once felt like home. ♡

There are so many people I have forgiven.

I really have.

I have cried to God about it more times than I can count. I have wrestled with it in prayer. I have even sat with the hurt long enough for it to soften. And eventually, I made peace with what happened.

But none of this changes the fact that these people do not have access to me anymore.

And that doesn’t mean I am unforgiving. It means I have learned the difference between forgiveness and access.

When I am around them, something in me tightens. My patience feels stretched in ways that don’t feel fair. Snide comments are made, carefully disguised, but quick enough to land and make my blood boil. Soon enough, old dynamics resurface. And I can feel myself shrinking back into a version of me that I worked so hard to grow out of.

That part would irritate me the most.

Because I know how much healing it took to become who I am now; how hard I have tried to become more like Jesus.

I don’t want to willingly return to a space that unsettles the peace God has been building in me.

My part is done.

Forgiveness released the weight I was carrying. It softened the anger that once felt justified. It freed me from obsessively replaying what happened in my head.

But forgiveness does not mean I have to keep stepping back into what pained me.

Instead, I would like you to understand that boundaries are a form of obedience too. They are not rebellion. They are not punishment. They are a faithful way of protecting the healing and peace God is growing in you.

You can forgive someone and still choose distance.

You can love them and not give them access to your inner world.

That isn’t weakness.

It takes strength to walk away without bitterness. Real strength.

It takes a lot of maturity to release someone without reopening the door.

Sometimes I wish it were simpler.

Sometimes I wish forgiveness automatically meant restoration. That once you prayed enough, everything would feel safe again. That the hurt would disappear and the relationship would feel whole, just like it did at the start.

But it does not always work that way.

Sometimes forgiveness is quiet. It is unseen. It is between you and God alone.

And sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself is forgive… and still choose peace from afar.

I do not say that with anger.

I say it with a heart that has fought hard for its freedom.

Because forgiveness did not make me weak.

It made me free.

And learning to protect that freedom has been a very big part of my healing too. ♡

Eventually, I realised I could not force myself into peace. So I stopped trying to create it through sheer will.

Instead, one night, I went to God honestly. I did not pray polished words. I spoke with vulnerability. I told Him about the hurt, the anger, the confusion. I told Him that I wanted to forgive, but that I did not know how to release what still felt so fresh, and heavy.

I asked Him to help me.

The next day, something became clear in a way it never had before.

God had spoken.

I began to understand that the reason forgiveness had felt so impossible was not simply because I had been hurt. It was because no one had ever acknowledged how unfair it was for me. No one had truly said, “That was wrong of me, I’m sorry.”

Even as time has passed, there has still not been any recognition of the pain I was forced to endure, no moment where the weight of it was actually named out loud.

Without that acknowledgement, letting go felt like agreeing that it had been acceptable. It felt like I would be diminishing the seriousness of what I was forced to go through.

My resistance was not bitterness. It was the ache of feeling unseen.

And then another truth gently settled over me.

Even if no one else had acknowledged it, God had seen everything. He had seen the details. He had heard the words. He had witnessed every quiet tear that has ever trickled down my face.

Nothing had been overlooked. Nothing had been dismissed.

My Judge had seen it all.

My Defender had seen it all.

And for the first time, that felt enough.

Once I allowed myself to truly absorb that reality, something in me softened. I no longer needed the people who hurt me to validate what had happened. I no longer needed the world around me to confirm that it was unjust. Heaven had already borne witness.

And for the first time in my life, forgiveness became possible because I was no longer carrying the burden of securing justice for myself. I could release it, not because my feelings had never mattered, but because it had already been seen by the One who judges rightly and loves unconditionally.

That is what finally helped me forgive.

And if you are struggling, perhaps what your heart needs is not to be stronger, but to finally understand that you are not unseen.

Thank you everyone for reading this piece, and I hope these words will help you to let go too ♡

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do want to get married; I do want children and I would love to start my own family someday, but it’s not something I actively seek anymore.

That ‘perfect man’ has become very hard to envision.

What does that even look like these days?

I used to think the perfect man would compliment you every day, make you feel beautiful, shower you with affection, kisses, and warmth. I pictured the thoughtful dates, the flowers, the small gestures that say, “I adore you.”

But let’s be honest… that just isn’t enough these days when so many hearts are filled with deceit, lust, no self-awareness, a lack of accountability, unhealthy patterns, and toxic attachment styles. The aesthetics are there, but the character is missing along with the authenticity.

So somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to imagine him. Not because marriage suddenly became unimportant to me, but because God gently redirected my focus.

Instead of praying, “Lord, show me my husband,” I found myself praying, “Lord, show me me. Show me who I’m becoming. Show me how to love You first.”

Because the truth is, no matter how beautiful a fantasy looks, it can’t compete with the reality of what God is carefully crafting behind the scenes. And honestly? I don’t want to build my expectations on fantasies, TikTok aesthetics, or the highlight reels of other people’s relationships.

I want something real.
Something deeply rooted in Christ.
Something God-breathed.

A love that actually lasts.

And maybe I’m not close to receiving that just yet, and that’s okay!

Almost everyday I wonder if love is destined to find me only after I’ve stepped fully into my purpose, so that no one but me and God can take credit for my growth and my future success. But whenever my husband does come along, I’m certain those will be some of the happiest moments of my life.

I just don’t need to daydream about it anymore, nor do I need to idolise the idea of it.

I’ve officially stopped sketching my own version of him and started trusting God to shape him in His own timing. Especially when the men I once chose weren’t even close to what I deserved—or what God wanted for me.

With that being said, this season is about me.

This is the season where I finally step into my purpose. God has revealed the assignment He placed on my life, and now it’s time for me to walk the path He handcrafted specifically for me. A purpose only my heart can carry.

In this season, all of my love, kindness, and gifts will be graciously poured into the people who need them most, whilst my knowledge continues to be shared to help teach others to heal, and grow from the traumas I have similarly faced.

I will become the woman God has been patiently shaping behind the scenes.

My job is to prepare my heart.
God’s job is to prepare the man.

And now, let’s pray!

Father,

Thank You for guiding my heart, even when I don’t fully understand where You’re leading me. Thank You for reminding me that my worth isn’t found in a relationship but in You alone. Teach me to walk fearlessly in the purpose You have set before me. Prepare my heart to love the way You love, with everlasting patience, kindness, grace, and truth. And wherever my future husband is, I pray You prepare him too. Shape us into who we need to be, so that when our paths cross, our love reflects You.

Amen.