one day, you're parked on a hill near the beach with some friends, staring out across the water at the city. you're talking to the city more than anyone else, talking about how you need to be back in your element, out of the small town you've been trapped in all summer. playing your favorite band and watching as the lighthouse your sitting by scans back and forth, you're lost in the moment, dreaming of being back in the city.

then you fast forward a month. your'e back in the city, right where you dreamed to be. school's tough, your mental health is deteriorating, and you've spent days on end in your bed. you drag yourself out of bed for a nba preseason game with your friend, and the train is too crowded on the way back. its a beautiful night, you haven't spent much time in the city, and you haven't had a chance to hang out with your friend. so you decide to walk. first, its a walk to the next train stop, then that turns into walking as far home as you can, and then you decide to take a detour. you're walking along the waterfront, feeling more at home than you have in a very long time. you're desperate to hold on to how in love with the city you feel, so you stop. you sit on the edge of the harborwalk, and you look out. it's the perfect place to see the city from. there's the airport, and the bridge, and the court house. there's boats docked, and boats coming towards the shore. and then you see it. out in the distance, you can see the beam of light, the very same one you watched from the opposite side of the water. and suddenly, you wish you were there. its easy to look back at the source of that beam, and imagine that the lighthouse is wishing it was in the city, just like you were that summer night.

you see, life's been weird lately. i seem to want to yearn for things. all summer, i wanted to get back into my city life. i couldn't get away from there fast enough.  but now i'm here, so i should be happy, right? but no. despite my desperate need to be here, exactly where i am, i'm not satisfied. suddenly im missing the late night drives, and night swims, and smores around the fire. i miss movie nights and fast food trips and curling up in my queen sized bed with a good book. i miss screaming my favorite songs at the top of my lungs without worrying about a noise complaint. i miss being able to wander to the kitchen in the middle of the night in my underwear, or being able to get out of bed to pee without having too tip toe around a roommate.

i wish i had a moral to this story. i wish i could tell you how to fix this emptiness in your stomach that occurs no matter where you are. i can tell you that you should live in the moment, but i cant tell you how, and thats exactly my problem. so i guess if anyone figures out the secret to being satisfied in the moment, let a girl know.

-m

i dont believe in love at first sight. in my eyes, love is so much more than that on the surface, instant connection bullshit that people talk about when they talk about falling in love. i think thats superficial. it might feel real in the moment, but you cant fall in love at first sight. you just cant.

i do, however, believe you can fall in love in an instant. one second you kinda like this person, and the next youre head over heels. theres that moment where you know. this is is. THIS is love. it could be in the middle of the night when youre both awake discussing the deepest disney plot holes, or the time you have a panic attack and he pulls you into his arms. it could be the first time you see him in a suit, or the first time you see her cry, or the 10,000th time you see that smile. theres no right or wrong time to fall in love. but sometimes even the realest, truest of loves can come about in seconds.

nows the part where i say something i have never said to anyone, ever.

ive been in love.

its stupid. he was my first real boyfriend. we werent together long enough, we didnt see each other often enough for me to feel comfortable telling him, or anyone else, that i felt this way. i didnt even admit it to myself until i felt how empty i was without him.  but looking back, i can pinpoint the exact moment. the exact INSTANT.

im not going to sit here and rehash every detail of our relationship, because i could go on and on about all the little things for days and as special as they are to me, theyre pretty mundane for anyone who isnt me. well, that and the fact that i still sometimes cry when i think too hard about it.

but i will say this. he was the kind of guy who planned on buying me flowers when he asked me to be his girlfriend, but i was so infatuated that i rushed to meet him and he didnt have time. the first time he kissed me was on a bench in a garden, and it was on that same bench that i became his girlfriend. the kind of guy who remembered that one time i told him i regretted not buying chocolate covered strawberries and dragged me into godiva with a grin on both of our faces to buy me some. he knew the difference between when i pulled away because i needed space and when i pulled away because i wanted to know he cared enough to pull me back. he was everything me and my depression and my anxiety needed.

because the truth is, when we were together, my mental state was not great. some of my best friends had pulled away from me for what i thought was forever. i was insecure and alone and really struggling to be able to commit to anyone. but it only took me a few dates with him to know that this was something worth exploring. and when he asked that all important question, i wanted to say yes right away. he did something for me that no one had ever done, and no one has done since. he was able to calm me down.

i stopped overthinking every little thing. i stopped doubting myself, and our relationship. he never gave me any reason to. he was a perfect gentleman up until the very end, despite the less than ideal way things went down. he made me feel comfortable and safe and cared for, and i honestly dont know when i will ever feel like that again.

now its nearly midnight, i have an early class tomorrow and my melatonin is starting to kick in. im tired and im emotional and im sick of feeling like this. so im writing this. im hugging my stuffed dumbo and attempting not to cry. because its take me so so long to admit this. its taken me too long to realize i had that thing i crave so much. that thing i used to day dream about when i would spend my middle school days listening to taylor swift. i had it, and i lost it long before i realized. but i hold onto it.

we moved too fast. we were both a little messed up. but what i felt, as stupid and naive as it feels to say, was real. i just wish i knew it before i lost it.

-m

Since I was a little, I’ve always had a love for music. When I was eight years old, I’d obsess over watching American Idol much past my bedtime. I’d sing at the top of my lungs Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone” on the karaoke machine I begged Santa to bring. I’d strum a guitar, without knowledge of any chords, and make up funny little songs. I’d watch my sister play piano and ask to sit in on her lessons until I eventually had my own.  This love for music has stayed with me, and has even heightened in high school. During my freshman year, I picked up a guitar and decided to learn. I decided that strumming crazily like I did when I was little wasn’t a good way to play music. I wanted to move on from piano into a whole new world of six strings instead of keys. My first guitar was a present for my fifteenth birthday, and I named him Max. My interest the instrument, and receiving Max, led to a frenzy of learning. I’d teach myself every chord, strumming pattern, and picking pattern, until I had it down. I constantly set goals for myself. I’d hear a song on the radio and say to myself, I really want to learn that riff, and then I’d go home and do it. With the help of multiple YouTube tutorials, I had acquired a skill that I could constantly work on and enjoy. I always have inspiration to play from watching in awe as my favorite artist’s fingers move up and down the neck of their guitar in such a graceful way, with such complicated chords. When I try to play it how he does, it isn’t as graceful but I practice every day until it is. Even though my fingers turn purple, I never stop going. It’s something I’m proud of. I love to express my creativity through different combinations of chords.

i should not be crying over him. not now. not ever agin. not after this much time of being okay.

but here i am, at 1 am, sitting in a dark, empty dorm room because, well, thats how break ups work when you get attached as easily as i do. because i need closure. because i dont let go easily. because im not one whose able to give up.

its been too long for this to be rational. i cant stand the thought of how ridiculous im being. ive had too much time to get over it and i havent been able to do it.

is it possible for someone, for me, to move on without any closure? will i ever be able to hate him for how he handled things? i dont know. i dont know where to go from here, i dont know how to move on. maybe i need a new distraction, maybe i need some time for myself.... but i dont think im ready for either of those things. where does that leave me? stuck in this cycle of having late night crying session by myself?

this wouldve been easier if he had given me an actual reason. or if he had ever displayed even the slightest sign of being an asshole. or maybe if he had given me a chance to talk before he stopped answering me at 3 am. or if he had actually said the words "im breaking up with you". but he didnt. and even after all this time, he hasnt.

would closure make this better? im not entirely sure. id like to think it would however i do know i have a way of holding on. i get attached. when i like someone, i like them.

who knew that getting attached would lead to so many questions?

-m

i spent the whole summer waiting to get back to school. i missed my friends, i missed having things to do and, probably most of all, i missed my city.

but here i am. im back. ive been back for almost 48 hours. and yet, im stuck. stuck in this weird in between, stuck going back and forth between "i dont want to be here" and "i dont want to leave". im glad to be back, where i can get the diet coke im desperately craving without leaving the block, or watch a movie with my best friends without leaving my bed. im either a walk or a train ride away from anything i could possibly need, except i feel like im missing something.

its almost 1 am, and im awake, alone, for the second night in a row. and for the second night in a row, im feeling...empty. im on the floor of the common room we out a little too much time and money into decorating, and im feeling the same as i did when i first got home this summer, in the middle of my room, still completely packed in trash bags surrounding my bed. these two feelings should not be the same. i shouldnt feel the same longing that i felt at the beginning of the summer. but i do. and i dont understand it.

so here i am. attempting to write in lowercase fragments that probably make little to no sense to anyone else. because thats how i am able to put things into words. to identify what im feeling. its too hard for me to sum this up in a text, or say the words out loud. i cant tell my school friends without feeling like im hurting them or my only friend back home without rubbing it in her face that shes still stuck in our suffocating small town or my mom without her worrying. so here i am. talking to myself but also potentially the entire world. its weird how that works. how sometimes posting something where anyone can see it seems more comforting that telling the people who know you. or maybe thats just me.

regardless, im back at school. im back on 1005 main street. its time for college life in the city part two...lets struggle through this shit together, shall we?

-m

what does a broken heart look like?

i spent the first 18 or so years of my life thinking that heartbreak was the girl sitting in the dark in the same pajamas for days on end, eating ice cream from the carton and crying over romance movies. i always envisioned it as torturous, but relatively short-lived. debilitating for a short constant period of time, but then fading away. the versions of heartbreak i'd seen usually had a few things in common. for one, they were always the sad girl pining after he ex-boyfriend (which is a whole other post in itself, so lets set that aside for now). on top of that, the broken hearts id seen were always so...broken. but then they found away to put themselves together again, whether that be with the help of some girl friends or a new love interest, or by the sheer will of a strong independent woman.  as a girl who spent a lot of time diving into romance books and finding new rom coms, i thought i had a pretty good grasp on what heartbreak was, and what it might feel like.

then something weird happened. i grew up. overnight, it seemed like the people around me were moving past the anticlimactic, teenage relationships i was used to. my friends were suddenly staying over at their significant other's for nights on end, i got used to boyfriend sleeping in my apartment, and i started hearing that pesky l-word in very real terms. but as relationships become more serious it only makes sense that the break ups become increasingly difficult. and so, over the past year or so, i would say I've experienced heartbreak, my own and of people close to me, differently than ever before.  and its safe to say my perception of heartbreak has changed.

heartbreak is so much more than a couple of days on the couch with ben&jerry's. it's the girl whose heart skips a beat when she accidentally scrolls past a picture of her ex. its the boy who throws all his energy into healing the broken hearts of his friends because his still hasn't recovered. its the girl who accidentally finds herself in a situation that reminds her of him, and the memory is so painful she spends the night becoming closely acquainted with a bottle of fireball. its the girls who go on aimless, long drives attempting to get lost just to avoid reality, the ones who write double date bucket lists with both of their exes in mind. its the boy who shuts out anyone he truly cares about because he doesn't want to give them the power to hurt him like she did. the friends who point out everywhere they messed up, determined not to repeat their mistakes. the girl who is forced to break up with her boyfriend during a project session, and ends up spilling everything to the strangers in her project group. the girl who can't step foot in the same mall she's gone to all her life. the girl who goes out of her way to avoid driving past his house, and becomes convinced that every car that drives by is his mom/dad/cousin/uncle.

its the person who thinks they're okay, until suddenly they're not.