It’s easy to become bitter.

It’s tempting to think that the frayed threads of the breakups, and excruciating endings we’ve faced, means there’s something wrong with us—like maybe we’re unlovable or tarnished beyond repair.

But that’s not true. And I know it hurts.

The floorboards of our minds might creak against the weight of seeing others who are happy and in love—who appear to have what we want so badly.

The love we had—well, it revealed itself to be much more temporary.

Like the flash of a camera capturing the moment perfectly in an explosion of bright light—it’s gone before you know it, leaving spots in front of your eyes as a dizzy feeling of disbelief floods your mind.

So we cry. We howl to the faint outline of the moon.

We are bold. We are tired and weary, our hearts still fractured in spots.

We have loved and lost.

We cared. We showed up. We tried, perhaps harder than we needed to sometimes.

We have been betrayed. Cheated. Blindsided. We have witnessed the painful unfurling of relationships that had so much promise. We have been deeply disappointed.

We have held on tightly to the ropes of our hopes and dreams…for what love could be.

And we have come up empty-handed.

But I don’t actually believe that’s true.

Love and loss can both render us naked and reveal the treasures inside.

They are opposite sides of the same coin—the blooming and the withering. Life and death. Night and day. We can’t have one without the other.

So why not celebrate both?

I think it’s badass that we’re well-versed in the chaos of letting go.

I think it’s f*cking awesome that we’ve faced it when things don’t go how we want them to.

I think it’s breathtaking that we have chosen ourselves, rather than lovers who aren’t able to meet our needs.

So I don’t buy into the idea that we’re unfortunate or unlucky.

Nope.

I also don’t subscribe to the thought that a perfect love is just around the corner, poised to save us.

Maybe it’s time for a new kind of hope…

One built on self-trust.

Because we know what it’s like to love and lose.

We know how to sit in the depths of uncertainty, letting her fertile darkness work magic more enchanting than the stars.

We know what grief tastes like, how it sometimes mixes with anger. We know what it’s like to miss someone with raw hunger. We know how sorrow can feel like absolute emptiness.

But we’ve forged our way through these shadowlands.

We’ve cracked open to rise from the ashes.

Oh yes. We have been crowned as warriors of the underworld—where things aren’t pretty, but where we find out what we’re made of.

And we are made of tenderness.

We are strong enough to see that our feelings won’t kill us. They make us alive, human, messy, and real. For we are forever growing. Forever stumbling, with a stubborn smile on our faces.

There is a sweet freedom in this, a refreshing breeze that grazes against our fingertips.

It softens us. It opens our eyes to the ruby mystery of life, of truth, of being drenched in the raw beauty of the Divine that is ever present.

We’re also learning that finding a love is not the be-all and end-all, just as losing a love is not the be-all and end-all.

We’re rewriting the roads of loneliness into luscious aloneness.

We’re rediscovering the joy in our broken hearts.

We’re experiencing the empowerment in sitting gently with not-knowing and sadness and pain and restlessness and fear.

And yes, we know how to love.

We know how to let someone into our hearts.

No matter the outcome of any relationship, that is a beautiful thing.

That is never something to regret.

“There is a loneliness more precious than life. There is a freedom more precious than the world. Infinitely more precious than life and the world is that moment when one is alone with God.” ~ Rumi