You Don't Know Her

Her favorite song is "Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison. She loves the Beatles, U2, Ed Sheeran, Mozart and Bach. Her favorite movie is "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Her favorite book is "A Memorable Feast" by Ernest Hemingway. Her heroes include Brene Brown, Michelle Obama, Bill Gates and Hemingway. You already know all this, but you still don't know her.

You caught a glimpse of her that first night in the Barnes and Noble coffee shop. She was there...filled with hope and excitement for whatever the future might hold. She offered you a peek inside her world in the mornings when she would meditate and journal. She let you in on a few of her secrets in the beginning because she couldn't wait to share herself with you. She enjoyed your company and loved the person she was getting to know. But it wasn't too long after that she started to hide from you.

Early on, she unknowingly decided not to let you get to know her. The more she learned about you, the more she silenced her authenticity. She envisioned the woman she thought you wanted to see and slowly she started to wear that disguise. Every critical remark you made about the outside world, she internalized. Her inner critic started roaring and she jumped into pleasing you instead of honoring herself. She no longer felt worthy of the boundaries she set before she met you.

She genuinely listened to you hoping you felt heard and seen. She believed in you for exactly who you were and didn't require you to change in order to earn her love. She held a safe space for you to be your own amazingly imperfect self. She accepted you for who you are, but the more you talked the more invisible she became. So let me be the one to introduce you to the love you just lost...

She is courageous. She has stood on the threshold of fear, grief, doubt, and danger, and one step at a time she moved through them as gracefully as she knew how, though she stumbled from time to time. Sometimes her fear paralyzes her, yet she always finds a way to lean in and accomplish the impossible. At times she doubts herself and is always amazed at what she is capable of accomplishing once she puts in the work.

She is passionate. She truly loves life for what it is and nothing else. She has the passion and desire to live her best life filled with wild and emotional adventures. Her chosen profession brings her joy and satisfaction that many others lack from their careers. Her lust for new knowledge and experience has led her on expeditions you will never know about because you never took the time to truly listen to her. You were too busy talking.

She is adventurous. Her connection to the Earth brings her peace and stability. She understands we only get one life and she values her connection with humanity as well as nature. Material things just clutter up the world she wants to exist in. She doesn't just want to be a passenger watching life pass by through the window. She wants to collect experiences and memories where she is fully engaged in the moment instead of a bystander watching from behind the rope. When she comes to the end of her life, it will not be the materials things she collected that remember her, instead it will be the people she surrounded herself with who will hold on to the spirit of who she was. Although there are some material objects required to experience life, it is the relationships cultivated in life that are more meaningful to her. Memories and experiences are much richer when you have someone to share them with. She no longer has time to spend on those who do not share these same values in life.

She is independent. When she wants something, she goes after it with or without help from others. She will often seek out solitude as a way to reconnect with herself and who she is. She did this during the time you got to spend with her, however she still continued to hide her true self from you because deep down she knew you didn't want to know who she really was. She was just someone you wanted to fill in the gaps of your loneliness. You missed out on the opportunity to really get to know an amazing woman because you were too focused on everything that is wrong with the world instead of seeing the beauty of what you had in front of you.

She has a gentle soul that is easily damaged when love and respect are not returned. Yet, she is stubborn and tries to stay in a place that is hurting her with the intention of fixing it. She loved you and saw the value in what the future could hold unaware of the lack of respect you had for her and your inability to fully appreciate the present moment you got to spend with her. Her belief in the relationship as a whole made her hold on and not give up even when things got painful and tough, but now she is exhausted and feels defeated. She is ready to admit you are not who she thought you were.

She is worthy of love and respect. Something you could not give and now it is time for her to move on. You didn't really lose her, because you never really knew her.