Every year, I told myself: this could be the year. Something has to give.
We had a big church wedding — the kind that feels like it should mean something, mark something, open a door. And for a while, I let myself believe it had. A little “hi,” said without much thought on their end, but I welcomed it like it was the beginning of something bigger. I held onto it the way you hold onto the first green after a long winter — not proof of spring, just a sign spring might still come.
Five years later and after the church wedding, I was taken to their hometown finally. I finally met the youngest. The oldest wasn’t feeling well that day, I was told — so I didn’t get to meet her at all. Still, I counted the trip as progress. A taste. Something to build on.
Looking back now, I can see what I couldn’t see then: a taste isn’t a breakthrough. A “hi” isn’t an invitation. A trip isn’t the same as being welcomed. I kept mistaking small, polite gestures for the start of something, when really, they were just… small, polite gestures. Nothing more was ever asked of them, and nothing more ever came.
But here’s what I want you to hear, if you’re the one still hoping: wanting connection that badly isn’t foolish. It isn’t weakness. It means you were built to love people, even people who haven’t decided to let you in yet. That’s not a flaw in you. It’s just not enough, on its own, to build a relationship that only one person is reaching for.
Hope is not nothing. But hope alone was never going to be the whole bridge — it can only be the start of one, and someone else has to help build the rest.