Maybe the universe isn't cruel or kind, maybe it's just patient. endlessly so. It doesn't take from us what's meant for us; it simply waits until we've learned how to stop running from the very things we asked for. Maybe all those almosts, all those people who felt like home but left like strangers, weren't losses they were lessons in disguise. Every missed chance, every goodbye, every quiet ache that settled in our chest was the universe whispering, "not yet." Because maybe it knows that love given too early can drown, that dreams held too tightly can break. Perhaps everything we've ever wanted has already brushed past us once, a fleeting smile, a brief connection, a door we didn't walk through but we weren't ready yet. We didn't know how to stay. We didn't know how to hold something without fear of losing it. So it all moved on, not out of cruelty, but out of mercy, waiting for the version of us who would finally know how to receive it. Life has this way of looping back, familiar faces reappearing in unexpected places, old passions reigniting in quiet hours, dreams resurfacing when we've nearly forgotten them. It's like time gently circling the same truth: nothing truly meant for us ever disappears, it just waits for the day we've grown enough to meet it again. steady, open, and ready. Maybe it was never about destiny, my love, but about timing, just the tender art of becoming ready.