Will It Ever Find Me?

Sometimes, late at night, I wonder if I will ever experience the kind of love people talk about in movies — the kind that chooses you, the kind that doesn’t have to love you but does anyway. Not the love I receive from my family or my niece and nephews, from my parents or friends, beautiful as it is. A different kind of love. A love that feels like a hand reaching for yours in the dark.

This fear usually shows up on nights when I’m lying on my flower quilt — lilac, pink, yellow, blue — scrolling through TikTok at 3:48 a.m. I’ll come across a video of a K-pop idol explaining how perfectly she fits into Korean beauty standards, and something inside me caves in. I get up, walk to the mirror, and suddenly I’m counting every flaw like I’m reading a list I already memorized: my cheeks too round, my arms too soft, my stomach not flat enough.

And from there, the question creeps in: Why would anyone ever choose me? Why would anyone ever fall in love with someone like this?

Then comes the guilt — the thick, heavy guilt that makes my throat tighten. How do I stand here criticizing myself when I am healthy and alive and my brother couldn't? He fought to stay alive. He fought with everything in him. And here I am, alive and healthy, complaining about the shape of my face.

It makes me feel selfish, wrong, almost ashamed.

But grief doesn’t erase insecurity. Loss doesn’t erase longing. If anything, losing him made me want love more — because I saw how unpredictable life is, how suddenly it can be taken away. And so the fear grew: What if I die without ever being loved like that?

Sometimes I picture myself at fifty, sixty, older — successful, proud, surrounded by people I care about — and yet still untouched by romantic love. And it scares me. Not because I think I need a partner to be complete, but because I want to experience the softness of being chosen by someone who sees me fully.

The ironic part is that love is all around me. My niece, Vale, texts me every single day. She tells me everything — her jokes, her insecurities, her dreams — and her voice messages feel like pieces of joy that land in my phone. When we FaceTime, it feels like the whole world pauses for our little bubble. My nephews too — in different ways, in different places — love me sincerely and freely.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s why romantic love feels so far away. Maybe my heart has been too busy loving them, protecting them, promising them a sense of safety in a world that already took someone from them. Maybe I poured so much into them that I forgot to believe someone could pour into me too.

There are moments where I catch myself thinking, Will anyone ever look at me the way I look at the people I love?

Then the insecurities come back like waves: I’m not thin enough, not smart enough, not confident enough. I compare myself to everyone — classmates, strangers, girls online — and even when people compliment me, I always feel like they’re just being kind, never honest.

But slowly, very slowly, there has been another voice growing inside me — one that sounds a little more patient, a little kinder. The voice that appears when my niece tells me, “Cami, you’re so loving,” or when I notice how much I’ve grown since freshman year. The voice that remembers I have survived grief, loneliness, anxiety, losing someone I loved more than anything — and I’m still here, still soft, still hopeful.

And maybe that’s the kind of heart someone someday will love.

But here is the truth I am learning now, one day at a time:

Even if love never comes, I will not die unloved.

Because I love myself. I am learning to love myself even more every day.

I am learning to enjoy my own company — my walks, my little routines, the way I talk to myself in the mirror on good days and even on bad ones. I am learning to see beauty in places I used to criticize. I am becoming proud of the woman I have become.

I’m learning that the most important love story of my life might not be about someone choosing me —it might be about me choosing myself.

And if I never find romantic love, I think I’ll still be okay. Because every day, I am becoming someone I genuinely enjoy spending time with. Someone who is worth loving — by anyone, but especially by me.

And maybe, just maybe, that is the greatest love I will ever experience.

The kind that doesn’t leave.The kind that no one can take away.The kind that lasts.