She Was The Soulmate

I used to believe soulmates were coordinates. A fixed place on the map. A person who would arrive like destiny, heartbeat in sync with mine, eyes that saw past everything I’d built to protect myself and chose me anyway.

I thought love would be loud. That it would crack open the sky, sweep me off my feet, silence all my doubts. I thought it would save me from the parts of myself I hadn’t yet made peace with.

So I searched. I searched in conversations that left me emptier. In kisses that tasted like promises they never planned to keep. In hands that held me only when it was convenient. I kept showing up full, pouring from a cup already cracked. I mistook being wanted for being seen. I thought if I gave more, stayed longer, softened harder - they would stay too.

But love wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the borrowed sweatshirts or the forehead kisses or the midnight apologies. It wasn’t in the way they said they’d never leave, right before they did.

Love, as it turns out, was quieter than that.

It was in the mornings I made my own tea just the way I like it, without waiting for someone to ask. It was in the way I planted roses in my garden even though no one thought to bring me flowers. It was in the silence - the kind that used to scare me - where I finally found something sacred.

The soulmate I’d been waiting for wasn’t out there. It was me.

The woman who kept surviving even when she was tired. The one who learned to dance in her kitchen again, even with salt still on her cheeks. The one who stayed. Who kept choosing herself, gently but without apology.

Love didn’t arrive in thunder. It showed up like breath. Like a whisper that said, “I’m here. I never left.”

And maybe this isn’t the kind of love story they write movies about. But it’s mine. And maybe it’s yours, too.

So I’ll ask you what I had to ask myself:

What if you were never lost?

What if the love you’ve been waiting for isn’t someone else’s to give?

What would it look like to choose yourself, every day, without waiting for permission?

You don’t have to answer out loud.

Just sit with it.

Brew your coffee.

Water your garden.

Be your own rescue.

That, too, is a love story.