Let's just get right to it. I don't want you to wait for me.
I don't want you to pine for the love that we'll one day find and let your life pass you by. The last thing I want is for you to waste the time you have until you meet me. Please, continue to live your life boldly and -- for the moment -- forget about me.
Invite the girl with the cute laugh to dinner, and take her on another date when she makes you laugh with her. Flirt with girl at the bar with hazel eyes that will one day resemble mine. Fall in love and fall hard. Learn to fall out of it while gracefully maneuvering around your broken pieces. Learn to put yourself back together. Experience every feeling from the spectrum of emotions and embrace them.
Chase your career without anyone stopping you. Risk your resume for your dreams. Take a chance on your mind and do something that absolutely terrifies you. Or forget about everything between your 9-5 and go travel the world. Take a one-way ticket and don't think about coming back just yet. Go see the world to make memories across city streets and between the sea's breeze.
I don't want you to wait for me.
I don't want you to worry because we'll meet eventually. I want you to live like it's the end of your days. I hope you're collecting stories that we'll one day share and laugh over next to our fireplace. Do that for me. Live your life so that when it's time, you have a whole saga to tell me; we both know you'll be the best book I'll ever read.
I ask that you take chances on yourself, on your friends, and even on that girl from the bar. I want to know that when we do find our way to one another, we have both truly lived. We have both lived knowing that our end-all love will never judge us or criticize our yesterdays. I know we'll celebrate each other's pasts because it ultimately led us to our collective future.
I don't want you to wait for me.
I want you to enjoy being single or enjoy being together. And I'll be doing the same. I'll be preparing for you, and learning how I want to be when I'm with you. I'll be slowly figuring out just how I should treat you and finding out what I deserve. I want you to become whom I'm meant to love while I become the woman you're meant to wake up to for the rest of your life.
Do we have a deal? Let's not wait for each other.
Let's live our lives with faith, confident that we'll eventually catch each other's eye. Let's live to our fullest so that when we meet we'll be shocked at how much happier we could be. I don't want you to stress about when or how we'll chance convening. I want you to live while you run, walk and dance to our destiny's crossing.
I'm not discounting that we'll both have dreams to chase together, worlds to see forever, and memories to make while holding the hand we've been fantasizing about. I'm not saying that I'm not looking forward to these things. It's these things that I've been dreaming of my whole life. But dreaming for days on end won't help me grow, or mature. It won't help me become the woman you deserve.
So, yes, there will be plenty of living left for us to do -- together. For now though, live like you'll never meet me. Forget me until we meet. Be reckless, be free, be wild, and be everything you need to be before you settle into me. Before my heart becomes your home, go make the world your household. Before my soul becomes your mate, go leave yours in some place. Get lost. I promise I'll find you.
I don't want you to wait for me. I want you to unknowingly live for me until you love me.
Originally published on 20something