Once upon a time, I believed love was a chase.
Not the soft unfolding of a wildflower in the sun, not the mutual lean of two people learning to stand beside each other, but a race through the underbrush. I was the Hunter. And he—he was the Myth.
I chased him for years, convinced that our spark—ignited during a chance encounter at a radio station—was a divine appointment. When he chose someone else, it wasn’t closure. It was challenge. I made it my mission to become "enough" to earn his love. Like Artemis loosing arrows at the moon, I fired off acts of devotion, sacrifices, second chances. The pursuit became its own identity. To stop chasing felt like failure.
But eventually, the chase ended—not because I caught him, but because I became the Prey.
He proposed. Planned the wedding. I walked the path, but the butterflies were gone. A silent voice inside me whispered, Something is off. I ignored it, like I had so many times before. And then, just like that, he vanished again.
This time, I didn’t feel like the Hunter. I felt like the Wounded. Like Frida Kahlo’s deer, pierced by a dozen arrows, eyes still wide with disbelief. Shot down, left on the side of the mountain to rot, my worth called into question by the silence of a man who once claimed to love me.
Worse still, when I tried to love someone else—someone kind, gentle, safe—I couldn’t receive it. I bolted from that relationship like a bank robber pursued by sirens, the kindness so foreign it felt counterfeit. I broke his heart because mine was still trying to win a game that was rigged from the beginning.
It was never love I was chasing—it was validation.
And somewhere in the wreckage, Artemis appeared. Not the soft, nurturing goddess, but the fierce protector, the untamable huntress. She now stands on my nightstand, middle finger raised in defiance—a reminder that I no longer belong to anyone but myself. I honor her independence. Her refusal to be possessed. Her wild ambition and sacred rage on behalf of the wounded. But even Artemis was a hunter.
And I am no longer chasing.
Now, I choose the Holy Middle.
I envision my Green Goddess—barefoot in the grass, sunlight pouring over her skin. She isn’t stalking prey or dodging danger. She is smelling the blooms. She is watching the butterflies land gently on her open hand. She is rooted in her landscape, eyes wide, heart open. There is no hunger in her gaze—only gratitude.
This is how I want to live now. And this is the kind of love I believe in.
I don’t know exactly what love looks like without a chase. But I think it begins with mutual freedom. A sacred meeting of two curious souls, both standing tall in their own light, unafraid to explore each other’s worlds without the need to capture or control. A love that doesn’t stem from desperation, but from overflow.
You can’t feel like "not enough" in a space where both people are free to be fully themselves.
He once said he didn’t feel desired anymore in the last few years. But what he didn’t see—what I didn’t even see until recently—was that I had stopped chasing him because something in me died the day he didn’t show up...again. I had always been his biggest cheerleader. His unwavering support. But I wasn't even receiving the bare minimum, and I finally woke up to the fact that love is not a one-way offering.
He didn’t align with my values, my depth, my devotion. I stopped pursuing him, and the illusion unraveled.
Now, I am learning to love myself first. Not in some abstract, Pinterest-quote way—but really love myself. Sit with myself. Laugh with myself. Mourn with myself. Stand barefoot in my own soul’s landscape and receive what the Universe has been whispering all along:
You are not too much. You are not too little.
You are already home.
To the ones reading this, nursing your wounds and wondering if love is still possible:
Yes, it is.
You don’t have to be fully healed to love again.
But if you can start by loving you—truly—you’ll find that everything else is a beautiful bonus.
The chase is over.
Come stand still with me.
Let the butterflies come to you.
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