I want adventure in the great wide somewhere.

When I had decided that romantic love wasn't my lowest priority, he walked into my life. He saw me. And he didn't try to change me. But that's the middle of the story. Let's go back to the beginning.

When I was in high school, I dated someone in college. We started talking because I told him to stop asking my older but more innocent friend weird personal questions. Then he started grooming me instead.

We fought all the time. His family hated me. His friends hated me. I can't blame them for finding me obnoxious. I was a CHILD after all. And I guess it was easier to focus on what they didn't like about me than to focus on what the fact that he groomed a 14 year old into a relationship just before heading off to college.

It was only when I went off to college and found out that many people actually find me quite charming and funny that I realized that he didn't even like me. All of our fights were basically about how I had embarrassed him in some way or how insecure I was. So I finally broke off a 4 year long, emotionally abusive relationship.

Less than a year later, I was in a new, emotionally abusive relationship. I said he we shouldn't date because he wasn't over his ex. He aggressively pursued me. I gave in and entered a relationship only to successfully make his ex jealous enough to "want to talk about dating again." He broke up with me but continued to fool around with me while "talking" to his ex. When she decided she was done after all, he said he wanted to be with me again.

Two years and two expensive college transfers later, I was finally free of any emotional attachment to him.

Then, I jumped into a new, emotionally abusive relationship. This time, though, I was the older woman. He was an 18 year old virgin who had never had a real relationship. I was his manic pixie dream girl. I told him he didn't want to be involved with me. I told him that love makes me crazy. (I thought that was the pattern.) And he pursued me anyway. I gave in.

Oh boy, was that an absolute clusterfuck of a shitshow.

Nine months later... I drunkenly yelled what is, hands down, the most comically cruel thing I have ever said out loud in mixed company, "Have a great night! He fucked me on Tuesday!"

Even if it wasn't the kindest way to tell someone that their "boyfriend" had been cheating on her, at least it was honest.

I spent the better part of the next 10 months trying to understand how unbelievably sad and lonely I was. I couldn't fathom why I would miss him so much.

So, I wallowed. I searched my soul. I started writing about my ache and heartbreak on Tumblr. I made out with guys but never did anything. I couldn't be trusted. Something was wrong me. Love made fucking crazy. I was always my worst self in love.

So, I decided to actively avoid romantic entanglements.

And then I met him. I met a guy who made my heart skip a beat. We would only be in the same place for 8 weeks. I tried to ignore it. When he started flirting more overtly, I decided to skip the plesantries. I made myself completely vulnerable, risking proving how crazy I actually am, and I told him everything. I told him about how I liked him. I told him about my past and my reservations.

And he didn't call me crazy. He validated every feeling. He shared his own reservations. He didn't try to persuade me either way. And he let me be me. He saw me.

Which, of course, made me melt.

We had 7 really weird but sweet and lovely weeks together. We saw each other a couple more times. Each time letting go of each other a little bit more.

But not enough. He kept my heart for years. I learned what it meant to fall in love with someone new while still deeply, deeply loving someone from your past. And, it was only recently, when I finally decided that I needed to let him be the one to decide if he wants to remain close friends m, that I realized he accepted me fully, but he never saw me fully.

If he saw me fully, he wouldn't have let me go. And it made my heart ache, still does, to fully acknowledge the fact that he didn't choose me. I never mattered to him as much as he mattered to me. And even almost a decade later, that fucking hurts.

But, actually, I think he was exactly what I needed. He prepared me for him.

He prepared for the man I met at a totally screwed up time. The man who fell in love with me while I was practically juggling romantic entanglements. The man who told me how he felt and got a firm "No, I'm fairly confident falling in love with you will make me crazy" and said "Okay." That man saw me completely and accepted me as I am. And, when I was ready to choose him, he chose me too.

I can't even confidently say how old I was. I think 9 or 10. I was old enough to not expect much and young enough to be really easy to please. And, if I'm really honest, it almost feels like a dream at this point so maybe this isn't even a real memory. But, still, I remember it.

I had just got off the bus. I walked through our front door. I put down my backpack and was untying my shoes when I suddenly realized that a group of my family members were in the dining room. They yelled "Surprise!" and sang "Happy birthday!"

It wasn't my whole family. I think just a handful of siblings. It wasn't a surprise party. Just my family making a weekday birthday a little more exciting.

But, it was special. It showed that they cared. Being the much younger, youngest child of six children, born on her parents' wedding anniversary who became an aunt within two weeks of her 7th birthday... I rarely felt special on my birthday once I was old enough to pay attention to everything else going on.

But they did that for me. They did that to make me smile. And it worked. And I'll forget what it was like to be untying my shoe and then suddenly smiling looking at my family looking at me.

But I never had a purpose for writing (outside of academia) beyond expressing myself.

I never engaged in an exercise intended to improve my writing. I never tried to write for a particular audience. Yet, I knew I had one.

I'm told my writing is eloquent. Thoughtful.

I knew that I could write something for an audience. But it's been so hard for me to come up with what that might be... because I don't want to write a dense, tome.

I want what I write to be accessible. I want it to be somewhere between the cryptic posts I used to write for my mostly anonymous Tumblr audience and the oversharing that I do when I'm trying to help someone understand me.

I don't want to write something for people to understand me. I want to write something that helps people feel connection. Maybe to me. More likely, what they're actually connecting to is themselves. But that's just being the analytical human that I am.

Here is what I know about myself that I think is worth sharing with others. I have an ability to look deeply at darkness. And overtime, my relationship with the dark has made me INCREDIBLY sensitive to the light. Some might call it resilience. I think it more as acceptance and gratitude for the full range of emotions.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start cataloguing all of my "positive" memories. Because like physics of light, most memories are a blend of positive and negative, this isn't going to be a memoir empty of the darkness or fullness of life. I'm just going to approaching a review of my life through a "positive" light.

I'm going to recollect my youth through age 33 by focusing on moments I'm deeply grateful for and remember with a smile. Some of these memories are incredibly dark. Some of them involve trauma. But I treasure them nonetheless.

I'm naming this memoir, or collection of somewhat disconnected memories, after a piece of my writing I wrote in one of these moments. After experiencing, several psychologically abusive relationships in my late teens and early 20s, I had sworn off finding love. Even before I started grade school, I remember being obsessed with romantic love. I've been crushing since I was five. And after chasing that feeling and feeling like I was actually going to have a psychological break the next time... I just wanted to spend sometime resisting the urge to partner up.

Then I met someone. I wanted to resist. But it was super time bound and I just wanted to... enjoy him. I was terrified of losing myself again. And I just told him all of the feelings I was having about having met him. And it didn't scare him off. He just expressed gratitude for my vulnerability and openness. So I decided to risk it.

To date this is still one my favorite things I've ever written for myself. I think it represents so much of the way I've tried to live my life since I've decided that I didn't want to seek happiness or a romantic relationship anymore and then met someone who made me want to risk experiencing deep, devastating heartbreak again...

Life is funny

I’m presented with someone who just might be able to handle me, someone who would be good for me, and I know from the start that it’s only a moment.

maybe it’s a lesson, I won’t know until it’s all said and done what that lesson is. But, for now, I’m sticking with lessons I’ve already learned:

Cherish what you have, while you have it.

Don’t worry so much, it makes things worse.

Go with the flow, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. One that is so much more fun when you aren’t trying to fight it.

Don’t have unrealistic expectations about the way someone else will behave, you can only control your own behavior.

Be realistic, but take time to appreciate what is truly awesome.

Live in the present tense.

“The time of hot chocolaty mornings and toasty marshmallow evenings.”