You think you have it all figured out...

When I was seventeen, I thought I had it all figured out.

I fell in love for the first time, my life was full of drama – which I mistook for a sign of being a grown-up – and the summer was hot. I had it all. Or at least, that’s what I told myself. In reality, everything was falling apart. My relationship was nearing breaking point, the drama was the cause of it all, and Autumn was fast approaching. Eventually, it all did, in fact, fall apart. I had no other option, but to reinvent myself. So, I did. I went through a transformation of the mind, the body, and the soul. And I took life by the fucking reigns, and owned it.

I was dating again, and tried on quite a few different guys on the search for the ‘right‘ guy. I was slowly but surely getting over my past, and was making moves to create yet another life for myself. But, once again, the carpet got pulled out from under me. My mother was rushed away in an ambulance, and was hospitalised for the next three months. As she was then a single-mother of an eighteen year old girl and a thirteen year old boy, our family dynamic was completely thrown off. I realised for the second time, that I did not, in fact, have it all figured out.

And then it was September, and it was my first day of university, studying society and culture. I had moved home, back to the city, and had to take responsibility for myself. My spirit felt lighter than ever. That same month, I met the boy who would, by October, become my almost-second-love. But then, things started to change.

I got pulled into his life – his life of nothing. Now, before him, I only ever dated college boys, and boys with full-time jobs. I had a promise to myself, to never settle. But when I met this new boy, it was different. He was different. I knew he was trouble, and I knew he was no good. But I couldn’t help myself. So I let him drag me down into his life of nothing. His life of no job, no college, no nothing – but weed. I should have known better, of course, than to date someone who had nothing but the drug. I didn’t listen to the voices inside my head, though. I ignored them. Well, for the most part. I did opt to sit inside by myself, while he sat out on the porch, in the freezing cold and rain, getting high. However, when my life changed from being a fun college student in the city, to skipping lectures to stay up until 7AM doing nothing, and sleeping until 4PM in a town two hours away, I started to worry. But, I tried to convince myself that I was happy. Because I knew that one day, I could fall in love with him, and once you’re in love, you have life figured out. Right?

Wrong.

New Years Eve was the night that pulled back the curtain, and threw my rose-tinted lenses in the trash. The moment the clock struck midnight, it all started to fall apart. I locked myself in his bathroom and cried and cried to my best friend, while he sat, careless, in the living room, rolling cigarettes with his so-called ‘friends’. I said over, and over again, ‘I can’t do this anymore’. I knew that I was far better than the life I was living, but regardless, I kept handing out chances, blindly hoping time and time again that he wouldn’t let me down like he did the time before. And that night was no different. He came into the bedroom, pleading for forgiveness, and I gave it to him. All for it to be washed down the drain the next night, as he, once again, left me alone. So, I left. I stormed out of the house, seeking refuge with my best friend, who, funnily enough, lives in that very same town, two hours away. And I wish, looking back, that I never went back. But I did. I returned to the house, where he once again, said sorry, and once again, I believed him.

Nine days later, it fell apart, for good.

I cried more that day than I ever have over a boy. Which is funny, really, because I wasn’t in love with him. But he ripped away my confidence, and my self-worth. I felt – still feel – used, and worthless, because of him. And maybe, it’s my fault, for being blinded and foolish. And maybe I shouldn’t have left the house on September 26th 2013. But maybe, it’s his fault, for throwing away the only good thing he had. Because the best decision he could have ever made, was to let me go.

I have enough self-respect to know that maybe, I’ll never have it all together, and that maybe, I don’t need to. Because I’m now nineteen years of age, and I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll still be growing up when I’m twenty-nine, and when I’m thirty-nine, and so on. And I’ll still be learning, from mistakes I will make, and I will be hurt again, by God knows what. I’ll be learning for the rest of my life, because I’ll never have all of the answers. I’ll never know everything. But I do know this: you don’t have to have it all figured out to be happy. To live. To learn.

Because you can do all of that just fine when you’re a little bit of a mess.