NurseSheGirl

June 17, 2026

Some stories arrive already written.

Not in ink,
but in absence.

Life happens.

It throws us unexpected turns,
cancels plans,
leaves promises unfinished
and words suspended in the air
without a place to land.

And I am left wondering
whether the connection I felt
ever truly existed,
or if I built a cathedral
from echoes and wishful thinking.

I keep waiting for a different ending.

Waiting for the day
life finally grants me
the version of you
my heart insists on believing in.

But longing is a dangerous narrator.

It edits.
It embellishes.
It turns uncertainty into possibility
and silence into hope.

It convinces me that every closed door
is merely delayed,
that every disappointment
is only a detour on the way to something beautiful.

And so I watch time pass,
telling myself that waiting
is not a form of grief.

That the ache in my chest
isn’t loss.
That the stories I create
are harmless things.
Yet imagination is a double-edged sword.

It can paint breathtaking futures
across an empty sky,
then use the same brush
to color me unworthy
when those futures never arrive.

Maybe there is no satisfying ending to this story.
Maybe some stories were never written for resolution.

Why can’t you be cruel?
Cruelty would be easier.

It would give the pain a shape,
a reason,
a name I could speak aloud.

It closes doors
that uncertainty leaves cracked open.
Doors with just enough light slipping through,
making walking away difficult.

And so I wait.
Then I am humbled.

The rhythm has become familiar,
like waves returning to the same shore,
again and again,
only to collapse the castles
they inspired me to build.

Maybe that is the truth
I have spent so long avoiding.

Not that what existed was false.
Not that neither of us cared.
But that whatever this is,
it was never meant to become
what I wanted it to be.

Some people arrive like destinations.
The path towards them feels effortless,
as though the journey itself
is eager to help you arrive.

Others arrive as something different.
A lesson perhaps,
A road that runs beside your own for a while,
beautiful enough to make you wonder where it leads,
yet never destined to become yours.

And perhaps the hardest lesson of all
is learning that waiting
is sometimes an answer.
Not the one we hoped or prayed for,
but an answer, nonetheless.

And when that truth finally settles,
maybe I will stop standing at the doorway.
I will stop searching the horizon
for a different ending.

I will quietly concede
that some stories are not meant
to be held onto forever.

Only carried for a while,
until it is time to let them go.

But until that truth becomes reality,
I will still be here,
standing between hope and acceptance,
loving what was,
desperately trying to release what will never be.