true love finds us with our backs to it

Last weekend fell away and I missed a boy who isn't worthy of being missed and then I fell away, too, but when I fell, I fell backwards. I turn twenty-four in six days, and I am scared of this number and the changes it may bring with it so last weekend I rewound instead. My twenty-third was the best and full of change and I would not change a thing. But twenty-four sounds too big and real and grown-up, and so sometimes it's easier to put up walls and hibernate then face what waits a week ahead.

But this weekend I did not miss any boy at all. And it may have felt like -24 outside, but I refused to hide away. I went out with pink lips and big hopes and I was happy because I realized twenty-three was the best because it was the first year I'd done alone and isn't there something really amazing about such independence and self-knowledge? My happiness was mine and my sadness was only mine, too, and so if I fall away one weekend I can come back stronger than ever the next.

And stronger than ever was I when I realized that he really is the dirtiest of dirties and nights of spooning don't make up for months of lies. And stronger than ever was I when I realized that the boy from last winter will still never take off his coat for me and I never really liked him all that much to begin with. And the strongest was I when I realized it's taken me a year to get over the last boy that actually mattered and in that realization comes the hope of finally moving on and moving away from these dirty boys and these boys who'll never stay to talk.

I like to think my year was like this song. Slow but steady, beautiful but still sad, and there may have been something wrong with my heart for most of it, but twenty-three still managed to build and grow and that tambourine kicked in right at the end when it was needed the most.