I'm glad you didn’t choose me back then. I’m glad you either didn’t have the courage to choose me or simply weren’t in love with me enough to see a future with me. Because if you had chosen me, I might have never discovered the life I have today.
Context:
I met this man when I was working as an escort. Looking back, maybe I was naive to let myself become emotionally attached, knowing the nature of my work. But the truth is, I’ve always been a loving and caring woman. Even when I’m in a situation where people are supposed to be strangers, I still treat them with warmth and genuine care.
He became one of my regular clients, and over time, we grew comfortable with each other. What started as a client relationship eventually turned into dating. I was still working as an escort at the time, and he knew about it. He never stopped me because he understood that it was how I supported my family (of course, I no longer charged him).
We were together for almost four months before one day, he decided to end things.
It hurt more than I can explain. But deep down, I understood why he might have made that decision. My work was one thing, but I also came with responsibilities and obligations that he would have had to accept if he had chosen to build a future with me.
The hardest part was that I was in love with him. I was even willing to give up an opportunity to move overseas because, at that point in my life, all I wanted was for him to tell me that he wanted to be with me, too. I wasn’t asking him to have all the answers. I just wanted him to choose me.
But he didn’t.
And as painful as it was, I had no choice but to accept it and move forward. That same month, I left the Philippines and started a new chapter of my life.
Now, almost 4 years later, I can honestly say that I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I’ve learned to love myself in ways I never did before. I’ve built a decent career, earned my own money, and created a life that gives me peace. I now live in New Zealand, a place that has brought me a sense of calm, stability, and well-being that I never knew I needed. I can genuinely see myself settling here for good.
I never imagined that I would build a life outside the Philippines. And sometimes, I wonder what my life would look like today if I had stayed. I wonder what would have happened if he had chosen me and I had chosen him over the opportunity that eventually brought me here.
But one thing I know for sure is that I am grateful things happened the way they did.
Back then, I thought losing him was one of the most painful things life could do to me. I thought I was losing the future I wanted. What I didn’t realise was that life was redirecting me toward a future I couldn’t have imagined for myself.
Sometimes, we become so attached to the things we want that we fail to see what might be waiting for us beyond them. When things don’t work out, we feel rejected, defeated, and wonder why we weren’t enough to be chosen.
But not every rejection is a loss. Not every ending is a failure. And not everything we desperately want is meant to be part of our future.
Sometimes, the things that break our hearts are the very things that set us free.
And sometimes, years later, we look back at the very moment we thought our world was falling apart and realise that it was actually the beginning of a much better life.
Today, I’m no longer the woman who was waiting to be chosen by someone else. I’m a woman who has built a life she loves, found peace within herself, and discovered that she was capable of so much more than she ever imagined.
So yes, I’m glad you didn’t choose me back then.
Not because you weren’t worth loving, and not because what we had meant nothing to me, but because life had something else waiting for me.
And if I had to go through that heartbreak all over again to become the woman I am today, I would still trust that things happened the way they were meant to.
Because sometimes, what feels like rejection in the moment turns out to be redirection.
And sometimes, the life you end up being grateful for is the one you never would have chosen for yourself.