we sat there in the moonlight, bellies full of brisket and faces full of smiles. i smiled as i haven’t in ages, since those early days of new manhattan, sitting with coffee in the biting cold and people watching in union square. my neck bristled as it hasn’t in even longer, since that fateful encounter that led me to the city in the first place. north carolina, back of his van. no heat, only blankets. sweet nothings covering my skin like the thinnest sheet of gauze.

i told him how eerily cyclical my life is turning out to be, long cycles of old capricorn conservatism interrupted by monumental moves. i told him how i fell in … not love, not even lust … how i fell in awe of raleigh, how he could just drive hours to surprise me for no reason at all. how he took me to new york, and how i decided, then and there, to stop applying to college, to upend and move to the city the next month.

it had little to do with him. i just needed to feel.

i spent the start of the next four-year period of my life feeling, growing, learning. i was homeless, and then couch surfing, and then in an empty apartment room. my soul dug deeper as my skin grew thicker. at 18, i was dancing on a bar, taking their twenties, being called beautiful. i was turning away people at the door for not being of age, as i sipped a vodka red bull and sat back with a smirk. at 19, i had already made all the contacts i needed to make, working anywhere i wanted, and doing anything i wanted. at 20, i applied to an ivy league school, regaling them with my wild tales; i was accepted as some sort of fascinating case study.

i existed in that strange paradigm, school in the day, bar at night. after i ran out of money for school, it became day job and then night job. i started to grow complacent, spending my free time sunken into the couch, not feeling those goosebumps that new york used to give me. i started to not enjoy the anger and pace of new yorkers. i started to grow numb. i lost that feeling.

he came along swiftly on a sleazy website, and told me i was beautiful. i fell in love with a single picture, silly words–an idea, more than a person, once again.

it had little to do with him. i just needed to feel.

and i did feel, but the level of bad that came with the good was unexpected. so many tears shed, so many factors of distrust, so much negativity. these things spent so much time permeating the crisp air with a foul smell, turning the lush green into blackness. this level of bad is fading, and will one day be a distant memory, but it makes me doubt so much of people.

but now, he said. just as you were led through a path of pain to a fuller version of yourself in new york, so you have been led through another to this moment in time. to right now, right here. to an artichoke and butter dip. to red wine and chai tea. and we fell over, hand on hand on chest. and we rolled over, ankles over legs, talking about the furniture we picked out for my place, talking about the trips we planned through the winter. the strangest and most beautiful dynamic. not sexual at all. one that will transform as we date others. but i have found a friend so dear, affection so virtuous and pure. head nested in neck. someone to heal me and hibernate with me through a crisp and beautiful winter.

sometimes we forget that life’s lessons are ones that we learn, and unlearn, and learn again. we forget that life plays itself out perfectly. we shouldn’t mourn our mistakes, but take them as foliage lining the path to right now, right here.