When I was younger, I used to daydream about forever.
Not diamonds or big weddings, but the kind of love that lasts.
The kind of love where we grow old together.
The kind where you marry your high school sweetheart, raise a family, celebrate 40 anniversaries,
and still sneak kisses in the kitchen while your grandkids giggle in the other room.
The Fairytale I Believed In
I wanted to be that woman in the rocking chair, gray hair pinned back, watching her great-grandchildren play in the yard, while her husband squeezes her hand, like she’s still 17 in his eyes.
I never imagined it any other way.
But I didn’t know love could walk away.
I never knew love could break.
I didn’t know “forever” could unravel before the honeymoon phase ended.
And that the same person you give everything to could become a stranger who knows all your soft spots, and doesn’t protect them.
No one tells you that.
They don’t talk about how love can leave you pregnant and alone.
How it can make promises and still cheat.
How someone can say “you’re my world” on Monday, and go ghost by Thursday.
I didn’t grow up around perfect marriages, but I still believed mine would be different.
I wanted one person, one love, and one life.
Instead, I Got Broken Beginnings.
Lies wrapped in charm with baby bottles and heartbreak in the same season.
And now sitting with this strange mix of hope and hesitation.
I still want love.
The kind that stays.
But I no longer expect it to look like the movies.
I don’t count on rocking chairs or long, quiet afternoons with matching mugs.
Because real love hasn’t shown up like that for me yet, and I’m not sure if it ever will.
But I’m still here.
I will keep raising my babies.
Dressing up nicely and wearing a smile.
But my question remains: what do you do when the love you dreamed of never shows up, but the hope still lingers in the back of your heart?
What do you do when your story looks nothing like the one you wrote in your diary at 15?
Do you keep believing something that gentle will find you?
I don’t have the answer.
But I know love isn’t just forever; it could mean starting over.
Even if I never get the rocking chair.