To the Me Who Didn’t See the Cracks Forming
Dear Me, Wandering,
You’ve made it. The two of you have made it.
You and Sam are no longer just a high school love story that faded after graduation. You survived the shifts, the move to different universities, the schedules that never quite lined up, the stress of deadlines, internships, and part-time jobs. You’re here, together, proving that what you have isn’t just some fleeting teenage romance.
But between lectures and late night study sessions, between planning your futures and figuring out who you both want to be, you’ll notice it—the effort.
Back then, love felt effortless. Now, it feels like something you have to pencil into your schedule. Before, you could spend hours just existing in the same space, doing nothing. Now, you check your calendar, find the only free afternoon you both have this week, and cling to it like it’s the only thing keeping you together.
You’ll learn new things about Sam. The things you love and things that make you pause. She’s still the same girl who could drag you into a spontaneous midnight walk just because the city lights looked pretty. But she’s also the girl who doesn’t plan, who takes on too much, who sometimes forgets to update you until she’s already running late.
And you? You’re still the planner, the structured one. You’re the one who makes sure your time together still happens, even if it means rearranging everything else. And you don’t mind, of course, you don’t. This is love, isn’t it? You make room. You compromise.
But there will be moments, small, fleeting moments, when you wonder.
Are you making too much room? Are you holding too tightly onto something that should feel natural?
You won’t have an answer yet. And that’s okay. You’re just trying. She is, too.
And for now, that’s enough.
Still choosing her,
Jules
Dear Me, Wandering,
Love used to be easy, didn’t it?
Back then, loving Sam felt like second nature. It didn’t require much thought, it was just there, something constant, something that made sense. But now, love feels like something you have to work at. And that’s okay, isn’t it? That’s how it’s supposed to be when you grow up.
She still makes your heart race, still finds ways to pull you out of your comfort zone. She surprises you with coffee on days she knows you barely slept. She drags you into impromptu road trips, calls you in the middle of the night just to tell you about a wild idea she had. She’s still Sam, your Sam.
But she’s also the Sam who misses your study dates because she got caught up in something else. The Sam who forgets to check her phone, lost in whatever thrill she’s chasing that day. The Sam who’s always moving, always searching for something more.
And you? You’re the one waiting. You’re the one adjusting, making sure she still has a place to land when she finally slows down.
It doesn’t feel like a bad thing. Not yet.
Because love is about patience. Love is about choosing someone, even when it’s inconvenient. Even when it’s not perfect.
So you tell yourself this is just a phase, a shift in rhythm. She’s still here. You’re still here.
And that’s what matters, right?
Holding on,
Jules
Dear Me, Wandering,
You’re tired. Not just the kind of tired that sleep can fix, but the kind that settles in your bones, the weight of responsibilities, expectations, and the quiet fear that something is slipping through your fingers.
College is relentless. There are deadlines, group projects, part time jobs, and the pressure of figuring out who you’re supposed to be. You try to be everything at once: a good student, a good daughter, a good partner. And for a while, you believe you can do it all.
Sam is still your constant. She’s still the one who brings you coffee when you’re pulling an all-nighter, who drags you outside when you’ve been staring at your notes for too long. She still texts you random jokes in the middle of the day, slips handwritten notes into your bag when she knows you’re stressed, and makes sure you actually eat when you get too caught up in your to-do lists.
But something is shifting.
You start to notice the differences more. She’s spontaneous, unpredictable, always chasing the next thrill. You like order, structure, knowing what comes next. It was exciting at first, the way she could pull you out of your comfort zone. But now, it’s exhausting trying to keep up.
There are moments when she looks at you like she’s waiting for something—something you don’t know how to give. And there are moments when you wonder if she’s already halfway out the door, even if she’s still beside you.
But you love her. And love should be enough, right?
So, you hold on. You tell yourself this is just another hurdle, another thing to work through together. You remind yourself that you chose her, that she chose you.
And for now, that’s enough.
With tired hands but a steady heart,
Jules
Dear Me, Wandering,
You’ve always known that love takes work. You’ve read about it, heard people say it, even told yourself that when the time came, you’d be ready to put in the effort.
But no one told you how hard it would be when love starts moving at a different pace.
Sam is still the same girl who made you fall—loud, unpredictable, full of life. But now, that energy feels like a storm you’re constantly bracing against. You love her, but you don’t always understand her. She loves you, but she doesn’t always see why you need things to be a certain way.
She’ll make last-minute plans for the weekend, and you’ll hesitate because you already mapped out your study schedule. She’ll invite people over without telling you first, and you’ll feel overwhelmed, wishing you had time to prepare. She’ll wake up one day and decide she wants to try something new, like bungee jumping, maybe, or taking a train to a city you’ve never been to and you’ll struggle to match her excitement because all you can think about is how it wasn’t in the plan.
And yet, you try.
Because when she looks at you with that reckless kind of joy, when she tells you that life is meant to be lived, you believe her.
So, you push yourself to be more spontaneous, to loosen the grip you have on certainty. You say yes to her unplanned adventures, to the chaos of her world, because isn’t love supposed to change you? Aren’t you supposed to grow together?
But there’s a voice in the back of your head, whispering a question you don’t want to answer.
If you’re always the one adjusting, bending, shifting, at what point do you start losing yourself?
With a heart trying to keep up,
Jules
Dear Me, Wandering,
You’ve always believed that if two people love each other enough, they’ll find a way to make it work. Love is about meeting halfway, right? About understanding, about compromise.
So that’s what you do.
You adjust, make space, let go of little things because they shouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of love. You trade your quiet mornings for the rush of Sam’s spontaneous plans, swap your structured evenings for unpredictable nights filled with people, places, noise. You tell yourself that love means learning to love what she loves, the way she loves.
And Sam tries too.
She remembers to check with you before making plans. She sits with you in silence when she knows you need it, even though sitting still has never been her thing. She shows up at your study sessions with your favorite snacks, trying to be part of your world even when it’s a world she doesn’t fully understand.
For a while, you both make it work. The push and pull of compromise feels like proof of your love, evidence that you are strong enough, willing enough, to hold onto each other no matter how different you are.
But then, something shifts.
It’s not a fight. It’s not a moment you can pinpoint. It’s something quieter, a slow unraveling that neither of you want to acknowledge.
You start feeling exhausted in ways you can’t explain.
She starts feeling restless in ways she won’t say out loud.
And one day, you’ll wonder if love is really enough to bridge a gap that keeps widening no matter how hard you try to hold it together.
With a heart still fighting for love,
Jules
Dear Me, Wandering,
You always knew relationships took work. That love wasn’t just about grand gestures and fleeting emotions but about the everyday choices, choosing to stay, to listen, to understand.
And you tried.
You tried in all the ways you knew how. You scheduled date nights when life got too busy. You learned to love the thrill of Sam’s impromptu adventures, even when they left you drained. You reminded her about deadlines, responsibilities, things she sometimes forgot in the rush of living in the moment.
Sam tried, too.
She left you handwritten notes when you studied late into the night. She dragged you out of your comfort zone, making sure you didn’t get lost in your own head. She reminded you that life wasn’t just about plans and structure but about experiencing things, feeling things, being present.
For a while, it worked.
But then, somewhere along the way, the trying started to feel like something else.
Like you were both holding on too tightly to something slipping through your fingers.
Like love had become something to prove instead of something to just be.
Like no matter how much effort you poured in, it wasn’t bringing you closer. Instead, it was only making you more aware of the distance.
And for the first time, a thought crept in.
What if trying wasn’t enough?
With hands still holding on,
Jules