They are not coming back. And the sooner you accept this, the quicker you will be able to gather the broken pieces of your heart and move on.

I know there’s a part of you that wishes they realize what they lost, or that they reach out to you to make amends or apologize, or that they simply learn they should’ve appreciated you while you were in their life. But your healing shouldn’t be dependent on that, your worth shouldn’t be dependent on how badly they think they missed out after you leave.

Until you don’t accept that they aren’t coming back, you won’t truly be able to move on. Repeat after me – they are not coming back, and I need to learn to live without them. They aren’t. They won’t. And if, by the laws of nature that accord to a plan much bigger than us, they do – you should not be sitting there waiting for them.

You must accept that some people leave because they’re meant to, sometimes things don’t go as you planned and, more often than not, you must walk on a path that you didn’t want to because that is what is right for you. The path that is lined with heartache and filled with tears, with the hard reality of life as an open field in front of you and a bucket-load of memories left on the wide road behind.

And it is okay because they were a lesson for you – the best lesson that you could have received.

The lesson that teaches you not to glue your happiness to a single person, especially someone who didn’t know where to place you in their life, a lesson that teaches you that people are imperfect and prone to making mistakes, and that you must stop searching for dreams in them and start forming dreams of your own. Dreams that are only dependent on you to fulfill them. And it is usually the most difficult journeys that bless us with intense strength and the ability to become the best versions of ourselves.

It is a lesson that teaches you about love – that love is not one-sided or unsure about you, love is not one foot in and one foot out, love does not lead you on only to leave you or let you go.

And I hope you take them as a lesson that teaches you to stop counting the reasons why they should be loved and start counting the many reasons why you are the one who is worth loving.