We don’t always end up with the love of our lives (and it doesn’t matter)

I believe in Great Love.

I talk and go out with people as if nothing had happened.

I have no unrealistic expectations for love. I’m not trying to feel overwhelmed. I am one of those rare people, perhaps a little jaded, who really loves the culture of the date and who is happy to live in an era where monogamy is not necessarily the norm.

But I believe in great love because I have known it.

I had this gigantic love. This devouring love. The type of love “which cannot exist elsewhere on this earth”.

The kind of love that turns into an uncontrollable fire and then subsides into embers and burns quietly, comfortably, for years. The kind of love on which we write novels and symphonies. The kind of love that teaches more than you thought you could learn, and that gives back infinitely more than you need.

It’s the kind of love: ‘Love of your life’.

And I think it works like this:

If you’re lucky, you will meet the love of your life. You can be with him, learn from him, give your whole being to him and let his influence change you in unsuspected proportions. It is an experience like nowhere else on this earth.

But here’s what fairy tales won’t tell you – sometimes we meet the loves of our lives, but we can’t keep them.

We cannot marry them, spend our years by their side, hold their hand on their deathbed after a busy life lived together.

We cannot always always hold back the loves of our life, because in the real world, love is not stronger than everything . It does not resolve irreparable differences, it does not triumph over disease, it does not bridge religious divides and does not save us from ourselves when we corrupt.

We cannot always keep the loves of our lives because there are sometimes things more important than love. Sometimes you want a little country house with three kids and he wants a hectic career in the city. Sometimes you want to explore the whole world and he’s afraid to venture outside of his yard. Sometimes you have bigger dreams than the other. Great love We cannot always keep the loves of our lives because sometimes there are things more important than love. Sometimes you want a little country house with three kids and he wants a hectic career in the city. Sometimes you want to explore the whole world and he’s afraid to venture outside of his yard. Sometimes you have bigger dreams than the other.

Sometimes the most important and loving gesture you can make is to let go of each other.

Sometimes we have no choice.

But here’s another thing we won’t tell you about the love of your life: not ending with it doesn’t rob you of its importance.

Some people may love you more in one year than others may love you in fifty years. Some people can teach you more in one day than others can teach you throughout your life.

Some people only enter our lives for a given period of time, but have an impact that no one else can ever match or replace.

And who are we to call these people “something other than the love of our life”?

Who are we to minimize their meaning, to rewrite their memories, to change the way they changed us for the better, simply because our paths have deviated? Who are we to decide that we desperately need to replace them – to find a bigger, better, stronger, more passionate love that we can keep our whole lives?

Maybe we should be thankful that we were able to meet these people.

That we must love them. That we have to learn from them. That we must see our lives flourish and prosper because we have known them.

Meeting and letting go of the love of your life is not necessarily the greatest tragedy of your life.

If you allow it, it can be your greatest blessing.
After all, some people never meet them at all.