I had so many misconceptions about what love was supposed to be and look like. Both my grandparents were married for over 40 years; my parents celebrated their 50th anniversary this year. All my life, I heard about sacrifice, and family, and making it through everything together, thick and thin.

I know it sounds pathetic, but all my life I just wanted to be loved. Not because the thought of being alone scares me, but because like any Disney princess movie or John Hughes film, I wanted someone to be my person, to feel like home. Even as I sit in my mismatched night clothes, resolute in a partnerless life for my remaining years, the thought of having a person is still a warm one.

There are many days where I still feel the cracks in my broken heart, where the pain in my chest is so real I cannot breathe.

My life is nothing what I expected it to be in my late forties. And the person who I was certain was the love of my life and who I would grow old with, sadly, is not.

I’m figuring this all out day by day. But I hope to share stories of my beautiful, crazy, funny daughters, the people who took their finger and metaphorically plugged up the holes in my heart, and the places where love grew out of nothing.