To the girl afraid to open up her heart,

The truth is you never really date much. You're OK with that. You keep busy and justify yourself with the fact that you just simply don't have the time. You enjoy being independent, you work hard, you work a lot and you do a damn good job providing for yourself. You're a capable woman who has the luxury of not having to rely on other people because you can handle things yourself. Rather than relying on other people, you provide for them. You're the girl who brings coffee into work on Monday mornings and the girl who would stay up all night just to console a friend.

However, you have a lot of trouble when it comes to opening up your heart. It's not because you're a stone cold person or even a robotic workaholic. Just the opposite, actually. You simply feel too much. The boundless depths of the world overwhelm you. You're that kid on Christmas who can't sleep because they're still so excited about the world, and you're also the adult who's experienced the world and knows just how heartbreaking it truly can be. You love it so much that it consumes you and anything less than perfection takes a piece of you along with it.

Your love is boundless and your drive consumes you. At the same time your love doesn't exist at all because without its expression, it is in danger of losing its tangibility altogether. You can't love openly and it's not because you never have. No child starts off with a closed heart. Just like learning to ride a bike without its training wheels, you fell down and put the bike away so you didn't risk falling again. You can't love because you never opened yourself to learning how. And the truth is, if you were told that you would probably argue that no one ever really does know how. You can't love because you're so terribly afraid of it. Just like the scene in "The Fault in Our Stars" when Augustus states he's afraid of oblivion, you're afraid of love and love is your oblivion. The quality of immensity that love possesses is something that leaves you dumbfounded.

You've come to the realization that you can't have something that consumes you the way your dreams do. Your drive and passion for life isn't something that is easily translated into your love life. You never truly lose your dreams, but people, you lose them all the time.

So maybe, you can start to take those baby steps. Put the training wheels back on the bike and learn to begin again. I urge you to give love a chance to earn its place in your life. You've poured all of yourself into everything else you do, and it takes you so far.

Open yourself back up to all life has to offer. And if you can do it, maybe I'll be able to do the same.