Seventeen and in love. The classic “I met him through Instagram and he picked me up from school on day” scenario. My first serious relationship during my senior year of High School was one that taught me so many lessons and truly showed me who I am. In the beginning, it was just him and I, going on mini dates in Manhattan because it was right in the middle of where both of us lived. Him living in the Bronx and me in Queens, we kept in touch anyway we could by face timing, texting, phone calls, picking me up from school and seeing each other on weekends. A sly smile and blue eyes that turned grey in winter gave me butterflies just by the sight and thought of him. Never a dull moment, each second filled with laughter and smiles. I had never showed this much vulnerability towards a guy before. We had each others backs and supported each other through thick and thin. Blinded by all the love and smiles, I did not see that who I was becoming was not being shaped by me, it was by him and who he wanted.

You see, I adjusted who I was for his liking, to avoid arguments that we constantly happening. Doing and saying things that made him happy, rather than what made me happy. That itself changes you. You start to think you know who you are but in reality, your just becoming someone else for the better of the other person. Throughout by first two years of college I started to notice this more and more but I felt like I no longer had a voice. Of what appeared to be two years going strong, I received a phone call months after our anniversary from him. A confession that broke me into pieces, leaving me to wonder what it was that I did that caused him to do such a thing. Not realizing that his actions speak louder than his words, I stayed. Stayed because I knew no other relationship, stayed because he had become part of my daily life, stayed because I no longer knew myself. 

Four months later, I was fed up! I could not take the fights or the blame any more. It was over. Close to three years and the ending of the relationship was so messy that you would think it came out of those overdramatic Lifetime movies. Two weeks, sucked in by my bed, thinking over every good and bad moment that we had. Thats when I realized that each good moment had a bad moment. No one should live like that. One day I got myself up and told myself “I deserve more.” From that day forward I started to get back to the person I was but even better, discovering more and more about myself . This is journey that I am still on, a journey that is changing me again for the better. Who is this “him?” That name no longer matters in my life, don’t you agree?