Letters to her

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
To me, this is exactly what love is-choosing to trust someone with our heart even after heartbreak, disappointment, and trauma. We continue to believe that the next person will be different, that this time the outcome will change.

In love, we often pay the price for mistakes that were never ours to make. Love requires renewal, trust, and growth. Some of us are able to start over, giving new possibilities a fair chance. Others carry deeper wounds-experiences that turn everyone into a suspect, even those who mean well.

What's rarely discussed are the in-between stages: the heartache, the heartbreak, the not-quite-healed spaces where people still try to love. Dating while healing comes with its own complications, and those complexities often go unnamed.

I loved this woman in a way I had never loved before-a woman who, for a long time, had not been loved correctly, if at all. I offered her a safe space, a love that was pure, patient, non-judgmental, unconditional, understanding and accepting. I gave her the best parts of me. Still, my love could not heal her.

I wanted to heal with her. To walk beside her through the process. But she was avoidant, and pushing away was all she knew. Loving her meant learning a painful truth: sometimes love is present, sincere, and real-and still not enough.

This book is a real-life testament to the emotions I endured on the road to acceptance. It is the story of learning how to live without the woman I never imagined life without-and discovering who I became in the process.