Stories Along The Way

I hear it all the time.

“There’s someone out there for everyone.”

“When you meet your soulmate, you’ll just know.”

“If two people are meant to be together, somehow they’ll find their way to each other.”

I’ve never really known if I believe any of that.

But I want to.

God, I want to.

Because there is something incredibly comforting about believing that somewhere in this enormous world, there might be someone meant to find me.

Someone I haven’t met yet.

Someone whose name I don’t know.

Someone who may be going about an ordinary evening right now, completely unaware that I exist.

And maybe he wonders about me, too.

What If I Already Found Mine?

There’s another thought I don’t like nearly as much.

What if I already met my soulmate?

What if somewhere along the way, I found him and didn’t know it?

Or worse…

What if I knew it and still let him go?

I think about that sometimes.

About the people who have come into my life and left something behind.

The ones I loved.

The ones I lost.

The ones I occasionally still wonder about.

Was one of them the one?

Was there a moment when I was standing right in front of the person I was supposed to spend my life with and somehow life took us in different directions?

Maybe the timing was wrong.

Maybe we weren’t ready.

Maybe love was there, but everything else wasn’t.

Maybe some people really can find the right person at the wrong time.

I don’t know.

But if soulmates exist, I have to believe something else, too:

Surely we don’t only get one chance.

I Don’t Want to Believe I Missed My Chance

I don’t want to believe that life gives you one person, one opportunity, one perfect moment—and if you somehow get it wrong, you spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been.

That seems far too cruel.

Maybe some people are meant to be part of our story without being the end of it.

Maybe someone can be a great love without being our last love.

Maybe some people enter our lives to teach us what love feels like.

Others teach us what love shouldn’t feel like.

Some teach us what we need.

Some teach us what we deserve.

And perhaps all of them, in one way or another, are preparing us for someone we haven’t met yet.

At least…

that’s what I want to believe.

Somewhere, Maybe You’re Out There

Sometimes I imagine him.

Not what he looks like.

Not where he lives.

Not what he does.

Just the strange possibility that he exists.

Maybe he has loved someone deeply before.

Maybe he has had his heart broken.

Maybe he has made mistakes he wishes he could undo.

Maybe he has nights when the house feels a little too quiet.

Maybe he wonders if love has somehow passed him by.

Maybe he hears people talking about soulmates and doesn’t quite believe in them either.

But maybe some small part of him still hopes.

Just like I do.

There’s something beautiful about imagining two people living completely separate lives, carrying their own stories, disappointments, scars and hopes…

with absolutely no idea that one day they might meet.

Maybe Love Doesn’t Arrive the Way We Expect

Maybe there won’t be fireworks.

Maybe the universe won’t send some unmistakable sign.

Maybe I won’t look across a crowded room and instantly think, There he is.

Maybe it will be much quieter than that.

A conversation that lasts longer than either of us expected.

A laugh I find myself wanting to hear again.

A friendship that slowly becomes something neither of us planned.

Maybe one day I’ll realize I’m telling him things I usually keep to myself.

And maybe, without even noticing when it happened, being around him will start to feel like home.

Perhaps that’s how you find a soulmate.

Not in one breathtaking moment.

But in a thousand ordinary ones.

I Still Want to Believe

The truth is, I can’t tell you whether soulmates are real.

I can’t tell you there is one man somewhere in this world who was made specifically for me.

And I can’t promise myself that two people who are meant to be together will always find each other.

Life has taught me enough to know that things don’t always work out simply because we want them to.

People miss each other.

Timing gets complicated.

Hearts get broken.

Life gets in the way.

But after all of that…

I still want to believe.

I want to believe because the alternative feels like closing a door I’m not ready to close.

I want to believe because there are still days ahead of me I haven’t lived.

Places I haven’t gone.

Conversations I haven’t had.

People I haven’t met.

And somewhere among all those unknowns could be him.

I don’t need to know that he exists.

I just need to believe that he might.

Because that little bit of belief gives me something I’m not ready to give up.

Hope.

Hope that I haven’t already lived my greatest love story.

Hope that the person who will someday know me better than anyone else is still a stranger.

Hope that somewhere, someone may be looking for the same thing I am.

So yes, I still have doubts.

I still wonder if I’ve already met mine.

I still wonder if perhaps I let him go.

But there is another possibility.

One I like much better.

Maybe I haven’t met him yet.

Maybe somewhere in all the tomorrows I haven’t lived, there is a man I know nothing about today.

A man who has his own story.

His own scars.

His own reasons for wondering whether this kind of love even exists.

Maybe right now we are simply two strangers, living two separate lives.

And neither of us has any idea what is still ahead.

I don’t know if I believe in soulmates.

But I want to.

Because I want to have hope that perhaps, one day, I’ll find mine.

And maybe—just maybe—

he’s out there hoping to find me, too.