A letter from May 15, 2023

Dear FutureMe, Rn I'm thinking about love. I'm 18 now and I have no clue what my future might look like. I feel like everyone has their future planned out. They know when they wanna get married and have kids, but why do I have that fear that I just won't experience it. Love can mean anything. All of us experience love in their own way, but why do I feel like we only get one chance to experience real love. True love. The one you fall for someone so hard, that u don't see any flaws in them. I've experienced the kind of love where you become obsessed. You feel alone and useless without that person. Will it always be like this for me? Do I really have to choose between being addicted to someone or just not being in love at all? Is it my childhood that made me the way I am? The way I experience love? Is it my parents fault, just because they showed me what a abusive and toxic marriage is like? I don't want the rest of my life to be like this. I want love that makes me feel good about myself, but getting close to somebody only makes me feel trapped. I feel like I'm not able to make myself a priority even though I want to. As petty as it sounds, I don't want anyone taking my own place. I've seen love. My dad cheating on my mom. Screaming at her. Being abusive. Me trying to protect her and feeling like I'm not worthy of their love but just a big mistake they made. I've seen love. My first boyfriend cheating on me. Screaming at me. Being abusive. Me trying to protect myself but feeling like I'm not worthy of his love and just a big mistake he made. I've seen it. The same pattern repeating itself. I've also seen men giving me the treatment I thought I deserved. Getting me flowers, taking me on dates and appreciating me. But I never got to fall for them. Is Allah punishing me? Is he punishing them? Am I being punished for something my parents did? Do I really deserve feeling like I'm heartless and acting like I don't give a ****? I often think about what my purpose in life is. I get that I'm still very young, but why does someone deserve to think about everything that went wrong in her life at such a young age then? I want the love I've read in books. The love I've seen in movies and in other people. In the Quran it says that Allah created us in pairs. That we have a Nasip. But I won't get to meet my Nasip if I keep living the life I'm living rn. Maybe Allah just has different plans for me. Maybe I'm not one of the "lucky ones"? Someone might enter my life and will show me love. Maybe I'll fall in love for a second time and even get loved back. But if not, will I force myself to just marry someone thats good enough? Just so that I've got to experience marriage and family? I want my kids to say that they want to experience the love their parents have for each other. I don't want them to fear love and commitment like I do. Love shouldn't be that hard and complicated. If its hard then maybe you're just not a match. Maybe you're trying to hard to find love. But if you just let it happen unintentionally, maybe then it will happen. You have to know your worth, for someone to see it as well. You can't let anyone take that power over you. You are your own person and u need to wake up from that dream that you're purpose in life is love. Fall in love with yourself and be productive. Do something with you're life and try to gain as much knowledge as possible. You only get to live one life and if you let people waste you're time by making you feel miserable about yourself, you'll regret it. If someone makes u feel a certain type of way, then because you let them make u feel that way. Wether it's good or bad, you alone have power over your emotions and actions. So don't blame them. Don't look for revenge. Just try to be an even better person, so that you'll get what u really deserve in the future. xx