It's funny how something completely insignificant can end up making me think about my life.
I was scrolling through social media today when I came across one of those AI soulmate sketches that seem to be everywhere lately. You answer a few questions about your ideal partner, and somehow AI creates the face of the person you're supposedly destined to meet.
I wasn't expecting anything more than a distraction and few minutes of entertainment.
Instead, I found myself thinking about it long after I'd put my phone down.
At first, I thought AI was creating a picture of the kind of man it thinks I should spend my life with based on my social media algorithms. It turns out it was creating a picture of the woman I've become.
That wasn't what I expected to discover, but sometimes the most random things have a way of holding up a mirror when you least expect them.
The first questions were easy enough. Tall. Maybe a little rugged. Long hair if he can pull it off. Someone who takes care of himself without looking like he lives in the gym. I smiled as I answered because, apparently, after all these years, I still know what catches my eye.
Then the questions shifted from what does he look like to who is he?
Without even realizing it, my answers changed.
I started describing someone who had survived his own life. Someone who understood and survived hardship without allowing it to become his identity. Someone who has done the work to heal instead of expecting someone else to heal him. Someone who loved being outdoors, who finds joy in simple things, who loves animals, who appreciates music, who reads and cares about what I write and who values peace more than proving something to the world.
When I looked back over everything I'd written, one word stood out more than all the others.
Safe.
Not handsome.
Not funny.
Not adventurous.
Safe.
That surprised me, because I don't think that word would have been at the top of my list even a few years ago.
There was a time when I believed love was supposed to be intense. If someone kept me guessing, if I was always trying to figure out where I stood, if I found myself working harder than I probably should have just to keep the relationship together, somehow I convinced myself that meant it was worth fighting for.
Looking back now, I don't think I was chasing love at all. I think I was chasing what was familiar.
The last few years have changed me in ways I don't think I fully appreciated until today.
I've lost people I never imagined losing. I've walked away from relationships that I desperately wanted to work. I've watched parts of the life I thought I was building disappear, and somewhere in the middle of all of that, I lost pieces of myself too.
Not all at once.
Just little pieces here and there.
I lost the woman who checked in with herself as often as she checked in with everyone else. I lost the woman who believed her happiness belonged in every relationship too. Somewhere along the way, I became so focused on making sure everyone else was okay that I stopped asking whether I was.
I didn't notice it happening because, I've spent my whole life surviving, carrying heavy things just started to feel normal.
Maybe that's why that one little word hit me the way it did.
Safe.
Not because I've ever needed someone to rescue me. I've rescued myself enough times to know that I'll survive whatever life throws at me. I've learned how to stand back up. I've learned how to rebuild. I've learned how to keep putting one foot in front of the other even when I had no idea where the strength was coming from.
But surviving and feeling safe aren't the same thing.
As I sat here thinking about it, I realized what I want has become surprisingly simple.
I want someone whose presence makes life feel a little lighter instead of a little heavier. Someone who notices when I'm carrying too much without me having to explain it. Someone who naturally reaches over and shares the weight, not because he thinks I can't carry it, but because he doesn't believe I should have to carry it alone.
I've spent decades being the person who says, "I've got you."
Maybe it's okay to admit that I'd like to hear those words once in a while too.
As strange as it sounds, I don't think the AI sketch was ever about finding my soulmate.
It was a snapshot of my healing.
The face it created was interesting enough, but it wasn't what stayed with me. What stayed with me was the list underneath it. Kindness. Emotional maturity. Peace. Integrity. Someone who has faced his own storms and decided he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life creating storms for everyone else.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized healing hasn't changed what my heart wants. It has changed what my heart recognizes as love.
Years ago, I probably would have mistaken peace for boredom because chaos felt familiar. Today, peace feels like the most beautiful thing I can imagine.
That realization made me smile. Not because it means I've figured everything out. I certainly haven't. It made me smile because, without even realizing it, I've stopped asking myself how to become what someone else needs. Instead, I'm finally asking whether a relationship is capable of meeting my needs too.
That feels like such a simple question, and yet I don't think I've ever really asked it before.
Maybe that's because I spent so much of my life believing love meant adapting, accommodating and sacrificing, that I forgot I was supposed to exist inside it too.
I don't believe that anymore. I still believe in love. I still believe in romance. I still believe there's something beautiful about finding someone who feels like home.
The difference is, I no longer believe I have to lose pieces of myself to find or keep them.
Maybe that's what healing has been trying to teach me all along. Not that I needed to become someone different. Maybe it was simply waiting for me to remember that I matter too. That my needs matter.
That the kind of love I need shouldn't require me to abandon myself in order to keep it.
I truly don't know if that man exists. Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't. But for the first time in my life, I'm not searching for someone to complete me. And somehow... that feels like the bigger discovery.
🥰🫖JustRealTea
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