Throw in the intensity of emotions that come with that bittersweet summer sandwiched between high school graduation and the rest of your life.

Things are what they are and there's no point dwelling in the past or wondering what could have been.

The worst is when someone in your past trumps the person in your present, and you think to yourself: if I'd known this, then maybe I wouldn't have let him go.

Don't you wish we could pick the people we love?" "Yeah," I say. "Or just make the people we love want the same things we want.

That's how life is. Sometimes there are happy endings, sometimes there aren't, and more often there are shades of gray.

There are no absolutes in relationships. You can't take anything for granted. You can count on absolutely nothing but the unexpected. You only get in trouble when you start thinking that you're some kind of exception to the rule.

And although one broken heart doesn't make me an expert in the subject, I believe you need both things - time and an emotional replacement - to fully mend one.