It's a wild life

I don't really have triggers. It's been one hell of a year and after this, I usually feel like I can handle anything that comes my way, with the help of a very big God.

But the word "needy." You took it too far.

"Needy" takes me back three years' time, to being seventeen and crying my eyes out every night, wondering about my self-worth because the one I trusted turned around and told me that I was too emotional, too needy, too clingy, that I acted irrationally, that I asked too much, that I was too much.

"Needy" takes me back to the very first time that I was broken. When you're seventeen and feeling everything for the first time, everything is magnified—the highs, the lows; the feeling of being on top of the world, spinning around in the kind of wonder only first times bring—felt as deeply as the hurt when he turns around and tells me that he never loved me—in fact, that he hates me. It's a cliché, but when you're seventeen and fearless, you believe you're in love, even though seventeen-year-olds (and twenty-year-olds) don't know anything about love at all.

"Needy" takes me back to 4 AM conversations with heavy hearts and a lot of missed phone calls; to fights that started at midnight and lasted until we could no longer stay up and we were so exhausted and broken and frustrated with each other that there was nothing left to say. And I would see him the day after those fights, and he couldn't even look me in the eye. And seventeen-year-old me believed that it was because I asked too much.

"Needy" takes me back to a toxic friendship that I thought I wanted in my life, except I had no idea who I was actually dealing with, and the supposed friendship was what I now recognize to be emotional abuse. Friends don't tell each other that they're worthless; that they're dragging each other down; acting like an idiot, useless, not worth talking to, not worth respecting—and now I can't believe that I ever believed any word of it. But seventeen-year-old me didn't know better.

"Needy" takes me back to my biggest mistake; to the first time that I was vulnerable and honest and open-hearted, and how it burned me and twisted my views on relationships for the next two years; how I went on to spend a year and a half in a relationship where I was forever afraid of feeling too much because I was so terrified of being the girl with too many emotions; too many problems and way too many feelings.

You asked why To Write Love on Her Arms matters to me. It matters to me because I know that my story is not unique, and that my pain is echoed by girls all around the world who have been hurt; who have been told that their emotions are too much; that their existence is too much; that they should shut up and stop feeling so much, or else they will never be loved.

But now I know that there's a God who created us for better things, and that we're all here because people need other people.

You could have never known. And you'll probably never read this, but on the crazy chance that you do, you need to know that your words matter, because your words hurt.

that summer will always belong to you

This has been a long time coming.

This time last year. Who knew that music would take me back there so easily? I heard that song, and it, combined with these late summer nights, has reminded me just why it all happened in the first place. But this time, I'm not bitter over it.

Because yes, I remember those nights. I remember that one night, and suddenly those memories feel like they were yesterday.  

Every time I listen to Tonight by FM Static, I still want to cry; just like the first time I heard it.

Love Me Like That. This Moment. Prove You Wrong. By Your Side. Crush. Good to You. Because you were so good to me, even though I didn't deserve it.

It was only a summer; fleeting moments; snippets of memory that resurface here and there when that song comes on. But I'm only realizing now that it wasn't a mistake; it was a lesson learned. And I'm just beginning to realize now that I don't regret it. Not anymore. I just might cherish it.

We're exactly where we're supposed to be. But don't think that I forgot about you, because I never will, even though at one point I tried to. And I'm sure you did the same.

I just wanted to say thank you for the memories. 

And finally, finally, finally: I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry.

Eve

I don't want 2012. I said I did, but I don't.
I want October 2011 back, when all the pieces in my life came together after months of it being in the worst state of disaster ever.
I want that forever.

Hope

At this point last year, I was on the brink of something
With someone. The door that opened for us,
Would be the same one that separated us.
We tried to delay the inevitable,
But who are we to try to change the plan of the universe?
It caught up to us anyway.

The winter months were marked by the winter that dominated me.
Long nights, longer days that tested strength at every point.
The times that the one who had promised wasn't there,
and the times that the others were; the times He was.
How scared everyone was; how scared I was.
All the secrets that would eventually unravel themselves,
the truths that we kept hidden until they could not hurt anyone.
And the night I met an old friend for the first time,
making me see the world in a different light.

Spring brought distractions; renewal.
Pretty things that caught my eye, distracting me from the matter at hand.
To the point where I forgot. Thank you.
The way one made me brave, made me believe
And taught me that there is a better way.
It seems that spring was cloaked in perpetual rain,
Yet it was somehow beautiful.

Summer taught me independence.
I disappeared for a while,
but I didn't miss out on anything, as strange as it may seem.
It was everything I needed.
It brought my biggest regret.
If I had the chance, I would have done it differently.
I knew it was wrong from day one. We both did.
But summer also taught me my greatest lesson:
to set my heart on something bigger than a fleeting world.

Autumn defined change in every facet.
I found myself set free from something that had kept me captive.
A ghost from my past walked right back into my present.
I am thankful, for few people know me as well as this.
And only in autumn did the frost on my heart melt,
introducing to me the one in my life that is teaching me second chances,
when that one thing that brought nothing but pain before.
The mirror of myself that reached past my defenses,
Bringing me hope for such an elusive gift.

This winter is different from the last in every way possible.
It is not cold in the same way.
For the first time, I feel safe; it is not hanging in the balance anymore.
I know that all the pieces have fallen into place.
And though they may become rearranged in the future,
In this moment they are exactly where they are meant to be.

I never did anticipate that this year would change everything forever.
There are some things you just can't account for.
I do not know what the future brings,
But we do not need to discover all the mysteries of the universe.
If I were to be honest, perhaps I'd admit that I'm a little afraid.
But it's not about fear, is it?
It's about fearless.