Love Shouldn't Cost You Your Dreams

A few weeks ago, a reader sent me a message that stopped me mid-scroll.

She said: "I've been in a relationship for six years and I've been afraid that wanting things for myself meant I loved him less. Your book made me feel like maybe that's not true."

I read it twice. Then I closed my phone and sat there for a minute, because that—right there—is exactly what I was trying to say.

I didn't always know how to say it out loud. But it was the thing underneath all of it, the whole time.

We have this story we tell about love. That it's sacrifice. That choosing someone means choosing away from yourself, that desire and devotion are competing forces, that a relationship is measured partly by what you gave up to be in it. And I understand why that story exists. Love does require things from us—presence, vulnerability, growth, compromise.

But I think we've confused compromise with erasure.

Cerys Duncan refused to erase herself. That's her whole arc, in one line. She found love—real, deep, swoony, wonderful love—and she still said: I'm not going to stop being me. And the beautiful, hard thing about Liam is that he needed her not to stop. Because watching her choose herself gave him permission to finally do the same.

That's the love story I wanted to tell.

Not love as rescue. Not love as the thing that completes you (you're already complete, you're just a work in progress, like the rest of us). But love as company. As the person who travels alongside you, who makes the journey richer and stranger and better, who celebrates your becoming instead of needing it to stop somewhere convenient.

I don't think that's a fantasy. I think that's just... what it's supposed to look like when it's healthy.

Writing this book was my way of believing that. Of putting it somewhere real.

If it found you at the right time—if you needed to read about a woman who kept her dreams and her love too—then I'm so glad. That was the whole point. You were the whole point.

Saltwater Between Us is still available here. If someone in your life needs this book, you know what to do.

Thank you for swimming in these waters with me.

— Jade 🌊