I used to believe
that beautiful things
were only passing through.
That love could find you
in the most unexpected ways,
make a home inside your heart,
and still leave
without looking back.
So I learned to be careful
with the things I wanted.
To hold my hopes quietly.
To never let myself believe
in something so completely
that losing it
might break me again.
And then you came along.
And somewhere in the quiet
of becoming known by you,
I began to wonder
if perhaps I had been wrong
about the way love ends.
Perhaps some people
are not meant to be lessons
in letting go.
Perhaps some are meant
to be the place
where we finally learn
we don’t have to.
You will not arrive
to save me.
You will find me
still learning to accept myself,
making peace with the parts of me
that may never fully heal,
still learning to trust
the beautiful things
I am most afraid to lose.
And you will love me there.
Not just in the easy moments,
when the world is kind
and my heart knows how to open.
But in the quiet mornings,
the difficult days,
the moments when old wounds
whisper things
I no longer wish to believe.
You will stay.
And slowly,
I will begin to understand
that love does not have to hurt
to be meaningful.
That forever is not always
a grand promise
made beneath a sky full of stars.
Sometimes it is a hand
reaching for yours
in the middle of an ordinary day.
A voice that still feels like home
after a thousand conversations.
A person who sees
all the ways you are still becoming
and never makes you feel
you must hurry to be whole.
Perhaps this is what I was hoping for
all along.
Not someone who would make
my life feel like a fairytale,
but someone who would make
the real thing
feel just as beautiful.
Someone who would remind me
that even after heartbreak,
the heart remains capable
of extraordinary things.
Of opening.
Of trusting.
Of choosing love again
without pretending
it has never been hurt.
And maybe,
somewhere in the vastness
of this universe,
there is something miraculous
about two people
finding each other
and deciding to stay.
Two imperfect hearts
learning that love is not
the absence of fear,
but the quiet courage
to keep reaching
for each other anyway.
And one day,
I will look at you
in the soft light of morning
and realize that I am no longer
waiting for the beautiful thing
to end.
I am simply living it.
You will be there.
Your hand in mine.
Your laughter filling the quiet.
Our life unfolding
in all its ordinary wonder.
And I will think about
the woman I used to be,
the one who wanted so badly
to believe in a love
that would not leave her
wondering what she did wrong.
I wish I could tell her
that love was never something
she had to earn
by being less afraid,
less complicated,
or less herself.
That one day,
someone would come along
who would not ask her
to become easier to love.
He would simply love her.
And stay.
Perhaps that is the miracle
I never knew how to ask for.
Not a love without endings
because nothing in this world
can promise us that.
But a love that, every morning,
chooses another beginning.
A love that grows roots
where I once expected
everything to disappear.
A love that turns ordinary days
into a life I would choose
a thousand times over.
And if the universe
has taught me anything,
it is that some of the most beautiful things
were never meant
to be passing through.
Some things are meant to grow.
To deepen.
To become part of us
in ways time only makes
more extraordinary.
And somewhere,
beneath the same endless sky
that watched me learn
how to live with a broken heart,
I will find myself beside you,
still reaching for your hand,
still falling in love
with the life we have made.
And I will finally understand.
Love was never meant
to be another beautiful thing
I had to learn to lose.
Sometimes,
against every fear
and every reason to doubt,
love becomes the thing
that stays.
And this time,
it is you.
It is us.
It is home.
Jacque Michele
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