The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a thousand expressions, and the warmth of a baby's kick beneath my hand. I deserved to grow, and to change, to become all the girls I could be over the course of my life, each one better than the last.

True friendship is a promise you keep forever.

It’s the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.

So I just decided to relax into it, bumpy and crazy as it might be, and try for once to just go along for the ride.

My dad is a retired Shakespeare professor, my mother a retired classicist. Suffice to say I grew up in a house full of books, where reading was encouraged if not required.

Love is needing someone. Love is putting up with someone's bad qualities because they somehow complete you.

As for me, I was just trying to get it right, whatever that means. But now I finally felt I was on my way. Everyone had a forever, but given a choice, this would be mine. The one that began in this moment, with Wes, in a kiss that took my breath away, then gave it back - leaving meastounded, amazed and most of all, alive.