The woman who loved potential
She fell in love before the man even existed.
She fell for the sketch of who he could be.
She fell for the almost.
She fell for the “if he wanted to, it could work.”
She saw fertile ground
where there was only hardened soil.
She saw a tree where there was only a seed.
She saw an ocean where there was only a puddle.
She stayed waiting for him to grow.
She stayed watering with patience.
She stayed offering silence, arms, understanding
like someone lighting candles for a miracle.
She loved the man he could become
if he ever stopped running from himself.
She loved the man who would read books,
who would face his own shadow,
who would keep his word,
who wouldn’t confuse freedom with irresponsibility
or trauma with personality.
She loved him in the future.
While he lived in the shallow end.
In everyday life,
she waited for messages that never came,
decisions that were always postponed,
actions that died in “we’ll see later.”
She waited for him to choose.
To have courage.
To have emotional backbone.
Meanwhile,
he chose what was comfortable:
the same bar,
the same excuses,
the same rehearsed speech of a confused man
who wants to lose nothing
neither her, nor his mediocrity.
She defended him in silence.
“He just needs time.”
“He’s afraid.”
“He’s like this because he suffered.”
As if pain were a free pass to stagnation.
As if love were an endless probation period.
She prayed for him.
Rooted for him.
Visualized better versions of him
like someone building an altar
for someone who never shows up.
Until one day,
between a cold coffee and an ignored message,
she understood.
Not with anger.
But with clarity.
She understood that he wasn’t a man in progress.
He was a man far too comfortable to change.
That it wasn’t a lack of ability.
It was a choice.
He chose not to go deeper.
Not to heal.
Not to grow.
Not to love at the required depth.
He chose shallowness
because depth demands responsibility.
And then she realized
she was alone in an imaginary relationship,
loving someone who existed only
in the territory of potential.
That was when something broke
not her heart,
but the spell.
She understood that love is not a project.
That a woman is not an incubator
for someone else’s maturity.
That no one blooms
unless they choose to leave their own comfort zone.
And with the same tenderness
with which she once believed,
she withdrew.
Not for lack of love for him,
but for an excess of love for herself.
Because loving a man’s potential
is dying while waiting
for him to choose to be the man
he never wanted to be.
And at last,
she chose herself.
***If this kind of writing speaks to you
reflection, raw honesty, confessions of a tired soul
that writes to survive, not to lose its voice to madness
then I invite you to know and support my independent work.
I’ve written two eBooks,
published on Kindle and Amazon,
and maybe, just maybe
they’ll make sense to you, too.
My books are waiting for you
with open arms
at the link pinned on my profile***
