Already written pages.

He let college define him.
He let it mold him & change him.
In 5 years when you're standing in your cap & gown getting ready to graduate college, who will be standing beside you?  Who will you be by then?
I know these are questions yet to be answered, because things change. You can't even begin to imagine where you will be in 5 years. But, take this moment to really, truly look into the future & imagine who you want to be standing beside you. Where you want your future to lead you. The steps you're taking right now, my dearest, are leading you to that place.

Don't let this world change you.

I believed in you. That first day of college as we were moving you into your dorm, I saw your future being written before you that day. I saw the spark in your eye that described adventure. A new place, new people. Everything was new to you. It was your story just beginning to be told. You were on the first page to a really good book. I was excited about this story. The adventures & obstacles that were going to be unraveling in this book, it was exciting & nerve racking all at the same time. I didn't know where that left us. But, all I could really do was.....trust.
I had to trust you. 

In the beginning I did, fully.
Then it got harder as the weeks past & I saw our Summer romance dwindling.
I saw myself just being another character in your book, instead of one of the main leads.

I remember the longs nights of missing my boyfriend & tears flowing from my eyes & not really knowing why they were. I guess it's kind of the part when you're reading a really good book & you feel yourself captivated by the characters & you just begin to feel their pain & sorrow, but not really knowing why...until you reach the end of the chapter or much less, the end of the book. You see yourself being them, or putting yourself in their shoes.

This time though, I was that girl.
Instead of just being able to close the book when you've felt enough pain for the character for one night, I was living it. I wasn't able to put the book back on the shelf & continue on with my life, because this was my life.
I was her.

I saw the pages unraveling day by day. I saw myself holding onto something that was already lost.
I didn't know the boy in the pictures anymore.
I knew the face. I had grown accustomed to the face.
But, I didn't know the boy behind the face.
You know when you're reading the book & you imagine what the character looks like in your head, but then when you see the real deal, it's completely different & you're a bit disappointed? That's what was happening to me.

I knew this boy like the back of my hand. We had a three year journey together, before this book ever began. But, to me, it felt like they had switched characters on me & tried to lead me to believe they were the same boy.
I tried to lead myself to believe it for awhile, but it's like the saying goes--
'you can't teach an old dog new tricks.' --there was no fooling me.
This wasn't the boy I knew. This wasn't the boy I once loved.

He's gone. Will he ever return? Well, that's yet to be determined...

You know when you finish reading a book & find yourself daydreaming about where the characters went after the last page was read? Well, maybe someday you'll see part two in a bookstore.

Sometimes you have to get to the last page before you desire to run back to the place where the first page was ever written.

As for me, I'm starting my own book. New place, new people, same me, just a different zip code.

"I never want there to come a time that I've changed so much that I don't recognize the person in the mirror looking back at me." 

.Curls.