what If

When you have been hurt before at the hands of another, it can be difficult to convince yourself to risk your heart, it can be difficult to convince yourself that there are those in this world who will keep it safe, who will protect it. When you have been hurt before, despite wanting to experience love again, you can let the what if hold you back.

What if you fall for someone, and they leave? What if you place your heart in the hands of someone else and they do not want to hold it? What if they do not love you back? But, what if they do?

What if you take the chance, what if you risk your heart, what if you crash it into someone who genuinely inspires you, and they choose you? What if they love you the way you always desired to be loved? What if they make you breakfast in bed on Sundays, and hug your broken pieces back together, and bring you soup when you’re sick, and fill your life with the sunniest, most tender kind of happiness? What if they grow you, and encourage you, and teach you that love was always meant to be soft? That it was always meant to feel the way it feels when you are with them? What if they make you understand why it never worked out with anyone who came before them? What if they stay?

And what if they do leave? What if there does come a time where they cannot be for you what you need? What if you outgrow one another, what if you evolve into two people who cannot beat the odds? What if love changes, but what if there is still gratitude there? Gratitude for the way in which they stretched your heart into what it ended up becoming, gratitude for how they helped you to find clarity in what you desire, and what you strive to find in the next person’s life gifts you? Does that make it any less important, any less rich? Does that make it any less worthy of being felt, of having the kind of depth and connection that might not last forever, but that breeds the kind of lessons and knowledge and hope that will?

Do not be afraid to follow your heart.
Do not be afraid to try for something.