I Won’t Be There When You Return

Forever is scary.

As much as I dream of meeting the man who feels like home, I won’t lie — my heart flinches at the thought of getting broken one more time before he finds me.

That kind of pain doesn’t just sting — it reshapes you. It makes you cautious, even when love stands in front of you, waiting.

Earlier today, I came across a beautiful poem by Bella. You could feel the depth in her words — the kind that only comes from loving fully and losing just as deeply.

I don’t know if she wrote it about herself, but her words reminded me of Mama Jolie, an old woman I met in one of the shelter homes I visit once or twice a year.

I’ve written about Mama Jolie before in more detail in another post, but let me give you a quick run-through of her story.

I met Mama Jolie when she was 92. By then, life had become more of a fantasy than reality for her. She saw the world through a soft lens of nostalgia and fading dreams.

She fell in love once. One big, all-consuming kind of love — the kind we all secretly hope for. But it ended before it ever began, not because he didn’t love her, but because he did. And it terrified him.

This was during the Great War. Every street was flooded with soldiers — marching, shooting, killing anything or anyone in their path. Famine gripped the land like a curse. Survival became a silent prayer whispered every morning.

They had planned to escape all of it together. To elope, marry, and start a family in a foreign country — someplace safe, where dreams didn’t get buried under rubble and fear.

But he didn’t come for her. No warning. No goodbye. Just absence.

To this day, Mama Jolie doesn’t know if he’s still alive or long dead. But in her heart, he never really left.

In her heart, he still is. Still hers. Still somewhere.

That’s the kind of loyalty women are taught to carry — quiet, unwavering, and often unreturned.

Mama Jolie spent the better part of her life — 63 years — waiting for her one true love. She spoke of him with a mix of passion and emptiness, like someone reaching for a flame that had long since flickered out. Her eyes would light up when she said his name, but her voice always trembled with the weight of what never was.

It was heartbreaking to watch her hold on so tightly to someone who may never return.

The last time I saw her, she couldn’t even remember me. Her senses were beginning to fail. She spoke mostly in riddles, fragments of memories scattered like broken glass.

Even the man she loved — she still remembered his name. But the memories she once clung to were dissolving, slowly slipping through the cracks of time.

It is such a painful thing — to live and die with that much mystery wrapped around your heart. I admired Mama Jolie’s devotion to God, her unwavering loyalty to love.

But I wouldn’t wish her pain on anyone.

After reading Bella’s poem, something clicked for me. I realized how often women deny themselves the chance at real happiness because they’re still holding space for what could have been. Hoping. Waiting. Romanticizing.

And while they’re building castles out of memories, the men they loved have long since walked away — some scared, some confused, some never looking back.

When I met my daughter’s father, I wasn’t thinking about forever. I wasn’t even in love with him. I knew he was cheating. But I stayed — because when you’re young and every older woman around you says, “All men cheat,” you start to accept betrayal as part of love.

You normalize pain. You tell yourself it’s not that bad.

Eventually, we broke up — or should I say he lost interest after my accident. I think he thought that was the end of me. But life went on. We separated but remained cooperative parents for the sake of our daughter.

Then came the first man I actually loved. He turned out to be a narcissist. That breakup did shatter — and freed me. It felt more like a liberation than a loss. After that, came another. And then another.

Eventually, being in love became less about finding forever and more about the thrill of the moment. A passionate adventure. Sometimes reckless, sometimes tender — but always fleeting.

At this point in my life, the word “forever” doesn’t entice me the way it used to. I’ve come to believe that love should never make you miserable. If it does, then it’s not love. And if you’re the only one suffering, then it’s definitely not love.

I’m not saying love is always rosy. It’s not. Real love will stretch you, challenge you, and sometimes even hurt you. But the sorrows shouldn’t outweigh the joy. The struggle shouldn’t swallow the sweetness.

So many women wait on a man — even when it’s clear he’s not choosing them — because we’ve been conditioned to believe we’re incomplete without one.

That a woman’s story isn’t whole unless there’s a man in it.

We wait. We romanticize. We create a version of the man we wish he was — and then search for that image in every man we meet. We stay loyal to a fantasy, not a reality.

This is also why many good men pull away from women.

Pre-set expectations — especially the unspoken ones — can hurt women more than we realize.

Men often get the bad rap for having an agenda. And let’s be honest: if you’ve ever encountered a man who approached you purely for sex, you know how quickly it kills interest.

But here’s the twist — women, too, sometimes show up with an agenda. It’s just packaged differently.

Instead of sex, the female agenda is often a relationship.

Not necessarily a relationship with him, but a relationship with someone. Anyone who fits the picture she’s already built in her mind.

And men can feel that.

They pick up on the energy. He senses she’s not truly trying to get to know him — she’s measuring him against a checklist. He feels like a role she’s trying to cast, not a person she’s trying to understand.

When a woman shows up to dating open to connection — but not clinging to an outcome — she becomes magnetic. She’s enjoying life, open to possibilities, not trying to take anything from the experience but to add joy to it.

And that changes everything.

He no longer feels like he’s being hunted or evaluated. Instead, he feels curious. He wonders what’s so rich and fulfilling about her world that she’s not trying to escape it. He wants to be part of that world — not because she needs him, but because she’s whole without him.

Women need to change how we approach dating. We need to stop holding on to cultural expectations that keep us boxed in and deny us real happiness.

We should not wait for a man to be whole. If a man wants to be with you, he will. You stay together because you desire each other — not out of obligation or fear. And if he doesn’t?

Someone else will. And that someone else will be the one truly meant for you.

Let’s start being the version of ourselves that we want to be with. Because, believe it or not, like begets like.

You attract who you are. So instead of waiting for love to find you, be lovable — and when that person comes, they won’t leave.

’s poem moved me. She poured her heart onto the page with such tenderness, revealing the depths of a woman’s love — how it endures, aches, and hopes all at once. It reminded us that behind every strong woman is a heart that has known both quiet longing and unshakable devotion.

Mama Jolie’s story speaks of the heartbreak in holding on to a love that was never meant to be. The way she waited for decades, believing he would return… it wasn’t just romantic — it was haunting. The quiet pain she carried serves as a lesson to us all.