Sometimes we bolt from love because the connection casts light on our partner’s hidden places, and they are not ready to face what is revealed.
Sometimes we know something they do not, and that knowing presses against our limits. We cannot explain it, only that it signals the end.
Sometimes we run because beauty itself is soft as a kitten’s nose, but as dangerous as a lion. It’s beautiful enough to draw us close, powerful enough to destroy us. That frightens us, and fear is the one thing we have always obeyed.
Sometimes the moment will not allow us to hold that love, no matter how much we want to.
Sometimes one of us leaves because one of us is not yet strong enough to keep love safe.
And so it goes. Sometimes love, sometimes not.
The real work is not in clinging to every love as if it must last forever, but in learning how each one changes us, how each departure teaches us to love more fully the next time.
It’s about releasing our grip on guarantees while deepening our capacity for connection even especially in the hard.
For me, I pray the next time is forever this time. I don’t want to cling to permanence, I want to be ready.
A love where we’ve grown strong enough to tend to it without strangling it. Where we carry each other all the way home. Not in refusal to let go, but in the experience of knowing how to hold on.