When I was 19, a few things happened. (Many things happened, but these select few are exceptionally important to this story).
1. I broke up with my long term, high school sweetheart boyfriend.
2. I met a boy. The Boy. We can call him Sir, for now.
3. I met another boy. One that flipped my world inside out and upside down and forced it to go crooked in all the wrong ways.
Point #1 is important, because although I did the breaking upping, I walked away from a long relationship feeling broken, hurt, lost, devastated, etc. I didn’t know who I was, where I stood, what the world meant.
When I first met sir, I was intrigued. Similarly to how I always felt towards humans of his nature and position in my life. (I would be more specific, but you never know who is reading this…hi.) Let’s just say, that I had met a handful of people similar to him for the few years prior to this night. And at first, he fell into that similar category. But something about that night, and him in that night, took a hold of my heart and mind. I crushed for a few weeks (days?), before I met, the other boy.
The other one, we can refer to him as “it”, came storming into my life soon after. He sunk himself into everything that did not belong to him. He captured my mind by pretending like it wasn’t worth much. He took what was a broken girl, and used her up until there was absolutely nothing left, and then walked away. He was pretty broken too. We had no business entertaining one another’s time.
When he walked away, I picked myself up (quite literally off of the bedroom floor of a friend. Everything kind of exploded at once, and I found myself the morning after, a mess in every literal and figurative way.). I picked myself off, hid myself and my heart away for a while, and slowly, quietly, put back together the pieces of who I was and wanted to be. Some people can point to a moment in their life as a turning point. This was mine. Everything changed after that day.
As I tucked away and healed, I was reminded of another kindness. One that came from a sir who I had found at the beginning of the summer. He weaved himself back into my life. Without realizing it, I’m sure. And this blog pays homage to a time in my life where I was so invested in self-growth, self-acceptance, and self-love. And he was a catalyst for that. Without knowing. My heart ached for someone to be kind to it. My mind ached for someone to challenge it.
In many ways, I am so very grateful for that time in my life. I learned so much. So many tiny lessons. The problem is, I’ve never let it go. Never let go of it being a time in my life where I was so strong. So motivated. In years since, I have struggled with trying to get back to that place. Trying to regain the knowledge and the depth that I was feeling at that time.
This post doesn’t have much point, other than that when I wrote those words 4 years ago, I’m sure I wondered what and who i would be at 23. And here I am, 23 to tell it.
The truth is this. It can be best explained with my bedroom wall which is covered in pictures of the past 4 years. At least 100 of them. Of faces I love, places I miss, moments I could spend 10 minutes a piece describing. 19 year old me let the way to those memories. She sheltered herself in daydreams so that she could be open to the love, the beauty, the peace of the next years to come.
I hope that 19 year old me is proud of 23 year old me.
P.S: I wish I could say that Sir was just a moment on the path of my life. And that I moved on from those thoughts and feelings that I wrote so passionately about in those days. But for some reason, he’s not. He hasn’t left my life. Both physically, but mostly emotionally. He continues to haunt my thoughts. And it’s frustrating, because it’s been so long. So many years. Often, I wish I could just pretend that it doesn’t mean anything to me. But in complete honesty, I have to question “why”. Why is it like this? Why do I do this? It’s the one thing that I think I can whole-heartedly relate to 19 year old me on.
