For years I have gone through the pattern of finding someone who shares my common interest, to falling in love, and then getting heartbroken the moment everything in the world seemed perfect. The hours spent going over every little detail wondering what I could have done to let this happen wondered around in my head. The explanations left unanswered as I asked myself “Why me?”, “How did I not see this coming?”, “What did I do to deserve this?”

The same questions on repeat for what seemed an eternity. I would go about my days thinking what I could have done differently to have kept it going or how could I have been so blind to be missing what was right in front of me. Every encounter with heartbreak all led to one thing: me.

In my 20 years, I have discovered love and how it is never the same. Every person you fall in love with brings a different feeling of love that can be duplicated with someone else. Love is incredible special yet resembles a snowflake that never has the same design. With love came heartbreak, which led to my realization that I was not the problem.

Heartbreak was what helped me realize what I deserve out of someone. I learned how I should be treated by someone else and that I deserve the level of respect that I have earned for myself. If someone was not going to treat me the way I knew I should be treated, they were gone.

It took countless heartbreaks to know my self-worth and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. Each broken heart and hours of crying my mascara away led me to know I deserve more and I was done settling for less. No more second chances were to be given out if they couldn’t be proven worthy. My heart was not another chance to be taken advantage of.

My greater appreciation of myself led me to know what I deserved from a significant other. If the Mr. Right were to come around and treat me the way I knew and they knew I deserved, then they would be the one. Every experience with heartbreak has led me to find the one I would spend the rest of my life with and that in itself has made me grateful for where my past has led me.

Moving on from someone you thought was everything to you is not an easy thing to do. It takes time and patience but eventually, the right person will come along when you aren’t looking for them. A new love will grow and be different from all the others and make every amount of pain you had to endure completely worth it.

Love is an extraordinary thing and it makes the bad times better. The moment you find the person who makes you feel like everything will be okay, keep them. The people who you are meant to be with will show you in the littlest ways that they are the right matches for you. They are the one’s that make your problems theirs and assure you that you both will get through a rough situation, not just yourself. They share your life with you as if it were your own and it goes to show that you’re other half was waiting around for you when the right time came around. The time where you wouldn’t settle for less and they would be there to prove to you that the heartbreaks were worth it.

In closing, I would like to say thank you to every person who broke my heart because it all led me to the love I deserved. Thank you for treating my less than I deserved so I could learn from your mistakes. Thank you for showing me that it isn't wrong to give out second chances, but at some point enough it enough. Thank you for giving me love and letting myself appreciate so much more when it was gone. Thank you for tearing me down so I could find myself again. Thanky you for letting me love myself before I loved someone else. And most importantly, thank you for letting me go.

Without you, It would have taken me a lot longer to reach the level of happiness that I am at now in my life and for that I am grateful.