For years I've been trying to shake myself hard enough to realize that I can't keep rehearsing the past. But I know me probably better than anyone, which means I know better than anyone that I won't listen to even myself.

*sigh* I've been stupid when it's come to things like romance and love. In all honesty, I'm just a really talented girl with an overactive imagination. When I spend my time with my nose buried in a romance novel, I'm not just reading. I'm living through the protagonist, experiencing all the uncertainties, fears and joys that she is. And every time I resurface in the real world I'm looking to recreate that story. That means that when I think about the number of times I've been in love, the number dramatically decreases. What I get now that I didn't get before was that I have been in love with the idea of being in love for such a long time that the distinctions between the two have blurred almost to the point of being undistinguishable. I've wished for a life that could never exist outside of ink and paper and pretty much shit on the one that I've had for the past 19 years, claiming it wasn't "perfect" like the ones in books. Here, everything doesn't work out alright, and there isn't always a sense of closure at the end of a chapter.

When I was young and naive, I went about like a newly-emerged butterfly. I was pretty and smart with a heart too quickly warmed and an acid tongue. I was ready to give more of myself as I had just separated my childhood feelings from my adult aspirations. I was trying to define myself as a heroine in my own novel, and all I ended up doing was hurting a lot of people that I care about. I spent years living for immediate gratification, and for the most part, people were out of sight and out of mind with me. I hated my parents for wanting to keep me locked up and safe, and I hated myself even more for not making the life I thought I wanted for myself.

I was really stupid. But that doesn't mean I'm still that way. The older I get the more I realize that what I've said and done have hurt people. The last thing I want is for that to continue. It just seems like there's no redemption for me sometimes, and the only thing I've learned from the past, like, five years of adolescent life is that I need to be absolutely sure what love is before I utter those three words to another person one more time. Sometimes I feel like I have a handle on it, but other times I don't. And I just can't stand the thought of making another person believe he's safe in my love when he doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell.

I just cannot relive the past. I can't deal with anymore hidden pain from the things I've experienced, and I refuse to let them hold me back from what I want to become. I can be more than just a romantic heroine because life is more than romantic love. And when I understand love I'm sure I can provide it to someone else, disciplining my phsyical and emotional self such that when my needs aren't immediately being met I won't let the daydreams of that perfect charming guy come in and unravel all that I've struggled to hold together in a relationship. I don't know good a lover I am though. I've been so selfish for so long it's hard to imagine giving anything to another person at my own expense. Geez, there's a lot more to learn. Maybe it would have been easier if I'd stayed a virgin up to this point, but I guess we'll never know.