Change Is Good...Right?

When you've been with something for so long you can't help but become accustom to it. The way it feels, the way it smells, the way it tastes, the way it sounds, the way it makes you feel. When it leaves, all of those things you've become accustom to are just constant, upsetting reminders of what you had and the fact that you no longer have it. Whether the loss is good or bad the longing for the past is the same.

For me, what I lost, I lost for the best and what I gained was even better.

There was only one problem with the exchange...
When what I had went out the window, so did my innocence.
No more am I willing to give myself so whole-heartedly to someone else.
I would never be so naive again.

The change is evident.

I'm just as happy as I ever was before.
I have more self-respect, better self-esteem...
But I'm so much more cautious.
It keeps me from opening up the same way I did before which keeps me from loving the way I had in the past...Which ultimately adds up to the conclusion that I can't be as carefree...as head-over-heels, "I don't care what happens as long as I'm with you" in love.

What if what I have will never be what I had?

Should that even be an issue? All things considered, what I had was all a giant fabrication I'd made up in my own mind. Nothing was as it seemed and in the end "what I had" was what I wished I had, not the reality.

That makes what I have already ten times better than what I had, right?

I wish I could back-track. I wish I could just say, "Fuck it, you can have it. You can have all of it." I wish I could give myself away again.

It felt better that way.

As the saying goes, "It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." I can agree. I got hurt, but what I felt was the best thing I'd EVER felt. It was enough to build me up and it was enough to break me down. It was enough to get me through my hardest times and it was enough to put me through even harder times.

By the same token, I can disagree. I wish I would have never loved at all. Then I'd have a chance to do it again...to do it right. I'd have a chance to give my boyfriend all of me. I could offer him my happiness and my sadness...but I can't. My happiness was taken away from me and the naive, positive girl I used to be was kidnapped the same day.

He can't have what I was and for that I am sorry.

...but he can have all that I am and hopefully that will be enough.