It feels so good to be where I’m at right now. Last year, I was lost. Lost in Allston looking desperately for something, some sense of the grand community, and always adventure. Before that, I was lost in Medford, doing drugs and wasting away in a smaller community of friends. I spent two years hardly working, hardly trying, hardly caring. Everything had become about the next party, the next boy, the next great adventure. And I found a lot of what I was looking for in that time, hell I even found the greatest love, but I was so damn unstable that I couldn’t hold onto anything I tried to for too long, not even good friends.  I ruined it all, I made ill and selfish decisions, I was never really paying attention to what I was doing. I was far more wrapped up in what everyone else was doing. 

Finally, I am here. Still in Allston, but a bit off to the side. I landed here completely unexpected and in a panic looking for a place to live. I was jobless, a day away from being homeless, and I was desperate. Turns out it was the best decision and luck in my life thus far. I moved in that very day, found several jobs within the next week, and got my life up and running again.

 I love my jobs, the thrift store is amazing, and the photo company is even better. Neither pay well, but I am happy and don’t mind the long work weeks I endure in order to survive.

My roommates are phenomenal. They are everything that I aspire to be. And everyone is so vastly different, while their interests remain intertwined. There are eight of us in total living under this roof, but it is by no means too crowded. Things operate like a family with everyone spending time together in the evenings after long days at work. Each was born with a creative backbone and imaginative sense of humor, I truly could not ask for more. Waking up in the morning here (to the sweet sound of perpetual jackhammers doing street work out front) is just a reminder every day of how happy I am now.

I still go out often, I still get into trouble here and there, I am still young. I am still looking for that great adventure, for love, and I wont turn down a party, but my priorities are in order and everything else just follows suit. We will get there when we get there, we just have to make sure we’re moving.

I spent the summer silencing heartache with pure substance, all of the time. My broken heart bled like no other. I spent hours in the shower crying, weeping even. On the bus, walking home, in my room late at night, I would cry, constantly. The nausea was unbearable. Dan was everything, is everything, that I ever wanted or dreamed of. But he was full of flaws, and even still in many ways too good for me. I was scared for months to contact him. I wanted closure, but he wouldn’t grant it easily. Phone calls were ignored, messages were left unchecked, texts were forgotten.

Moving here and getting my shit together made me stop trying. His voice still ran through my head everyday, his words, his smile, but I had given up trying. I had given up being so down on myself that I would continue to let him win. And then it happened. The day where I strong enough to walk up to him at work and say hello.

As I was passing through South Station I could see him and decided that it would not be another day where I ran in the opposite direction. I walked right up and smiled. “I just thought I’d stop and say hello,” came right out of my mouth. He was taken aback, I am in much better shape than I ever was while with him. Immediately he had his big Dan grin on his face and asked me to go outside and chat over a cigarette.

Well what else can I say other than the fact that it was amazing? I told him all about my life, all about the changes, all about how happy I feel now and he was proud. He was certainly taken aback now. And he told me that things weren’t going so well for him, he was failing out of school, on the outs with his family, hating where he was in life. And things weren’t so different from that boy I once knew. Things were going wrong, but even when things were going well for him he still sounded sad, and angry, and trying- trying so hard.

We made plans to hangout the following weekend. I was to call him to set things up, but that weekend, this weekend that just passed turned into something great. I never called Dan. That isn’t to say that I won’t call Dan, but I can’t yet. I’m taking baby steps. I’m taking it one tiny baby step at a time. I still love him and I would go running back to him in a heartbeat, but right now I am my priority. And it doesn’t hurt that I met this really sweet and 100% opposite of Dan boy that very night. The very day I finally captured the closure that I so needed, I met just about one of the nicest boys you can imagine.

And I’m gonna leave it at that. I’m gonna let things with this new boy figure themselves out. And I’m gonna figure out things with Dan at a very later time. For now, I’m feeling good. I’m feeling fucking great.